do you love your onions A Peel Festival with 50,000 kg of vegetables awaits in the capital of Switzerland

Where would we be without onions? Although the base of many dishes is far and wide, the vegetable is rarely celebrated. Unless you are Swiss.

The Zibelemärit takes place every year in the country’s fifth largest city and capital, Bern.

On the fourth Monday of November, the city’s residents flock to the old town for this folklore festival for a day of drinking, eating and throwing confetti – when local farmers arrive with 50,000 kg of onions, some in elaborately braided pig tails.

My friend Elizabeth and I get up at 05:00 on our first morning in Bern to get in on the action.

We stay at the Hotel Schweizerhof, a beautiful imposing building with 99 rooms founded in 1859, a stone’s throw from Drama.

What greets us is pounding music, a whiff of cigarette smoke, the smell of mulled wine, onion pie and the start of a confetti battle that will last 15 hours.

We join each with a glass of Prosecco and mulled wine, a bag of confetti, some onion tarts and some garlands of braided red and white onions decorated with local flowers. The atmosphere is as cheerful as before 06:00 on a winter morning.

The next day, during a tour of the old town, our guide tells Beatrice that there are no festivals in Bern. Zibelemarit is the only one. As you can see, there are plenty of night owls for breakfast too, which makes it all the more crazy.

When Einstein was asked what he would do if the world ended, he joked: “I will stay in Bern [above]because everything takes longer there

No one knows exactly why the festival started. But most agree that its origins date back to the 15th century.

Some say a fire in 1405 destroyed much of the city, including 600 houses, and claimed the lives of 100 people. Local farmers came to put out the fire and as a thank you, Bern invited them to sell their products at a day-long event in the heart of the city.

Onions aside, this is where Albert Einstein once lived, and while the Einstein House is disappointing, it makes me realize I have no idea what the theory of relativity is.

With the confetti removed and the bulbs wrapped for another year, the city looks a lot friendlier.

After three days we’re getting ready to leave, but I’d like to stay longer – the pace and calm is so at odds with London. So I have one thing in common with Einstein, who, when asked what he would do if the world ended, joked: “I’ll stay in Bern, because everything takes longer there.”