Georgiritt Horseback Procession and Sword Dance

Every Easter Monday, Traunstein's Stadtplatz fills with several hundred decorated horses and carriages, historical costume groups, and mountain riflemen (Gebirgsschützen) for the Georgiritt und historischer Schwerttanz. For 2027, that date falls on March 29 — and that's by design, not coincidence: unlike most other Bavarian and Austrian Georgiritte, which cluster around the actual Georgstag on April 23, Traunstein's version has always been fixed to the movable Ostermontag date. A sword dance opens the day on the Stadtplatz around 9:30 a.m., the procession departs at 10:00 a.m. to the ringing of the town's church bells, riders reach the hilltop Ettendorfer Kircherl around 10:45 a.m. for a blessing of horses and riders, and the group returns to the Stadtplatz by early afternoon for a closing sword-dance performance. Admission is free throughout.

The event fuses two separately documented traditions. The sword dance's oldest surviving reference is a 1530 Traunstein town treasury entry recording payment to "young fellows" for performing it — but the dance was not continuously performed from then on. It lapsed at some point and was revived with newly created choreography in 1925, first performed in 1926, and only became a fixed opening-and-closing feature of the ride from 1948 onward. The horseback pilgrimage itself has its own separate history, first documented in an Ettendorf church account from 1762 describing horses "brought here to be blessed" on Easter Monday; it was later banned during secularization, restored by royal decree in 1833, and given lasting institutional footing when the St. Georgs-Verein Traunstein was founded in 1891 to organize it going forward. The combined tradition — ride and dance together — was inscribed on Germany's Federal Register of Intangible Cultural Heritage on December 9, 2016.

This is a procession-and-heritage event rather than a beer festival, so plan the food-and-drink side of the day around Traunstein's own Bierstadt identity instead of festival vendors. The town still runs three historic breweries — Hofbräuhaus Traunstein, Privatbrauerei Schnitzlbaumer (founded 1575), and Wochinger Bräu (founded 1587) — each with a Wirtshaus or beer garden within easy walking distance of the Stadtplatz, serving Schnitzel, Schweinsbraten, and Knödel once the sword dance wraps up. Traunstein sits directly on the Südostbayernbahn Munich–Salzburg line, making the train the simplest way to reach the event and sidestep the road closures that apply along the full procession route from midnight of the event day. Early spring weather is a real consideration for this outdoor, standing-room event — it has proceeded in snow in past years — so dress for cold, changeable conditions and treat the date as provisional until confirmed close to the day, since the event has a documented cancellation precedent from the 2020–2021 pandemic years. See more Upper Bavaria folk traditions or browse all Upper Bavaria.