It was Easter week in Sevilla, Spain, and the scene was holier than ever. Paraders in purple-and-white cone hats shuffled past, carrying crusader swords and four-foot candles. Like American kids scrambling for candies at a parade, Spanish kids collected dripping wax from religious coneheads, attempting to amass the biggest ball on a stick for their Easter souvenir.
The procession squeezed down narrow alleys. Legions of drums cracked eardrums in the confined space. Kids sat wide-eyed on parents’ shoulders. Finally a float rumbled by: gilded, candlelit, and edging bystanders against rustic ancient walls. I looked up, and high in the sky I saw what Good Friday was all about: An extremely Baroque Jesus lurched forward under the weight of that cruel cross, symbolically climbing to his crucifixion. Later, it occurred to me that he floated not on wheels, but on boys. Unseen and unheralded, bent under all that tradition, a team of boys had been trudging for hours through the throngs.
(Rick Steves)
Throughout Europe, Easter-related festivities fill streets, squares, and stores. For the religious, it’s a time of church services, prayers, and rituals. For the secular world, it means feasting, candy, games, and egg hunts. Every region, and every family, has its own way of observing the season—and these cultural differences make it a time of mystery, magic, and just plain fun.
Easter begins in earnest with Holy Week, the seven days leading up to Easter Sunday. Not just in Sevilla, but all over Mediterranean Europe, Semana Santa processions clog the streets. Pre-Easter is more subdued farther north; in German-speaking countries, keep an eye out for trees and bushes hung with hollowed-out, decorated eggs.
In Britain, Holy Week heralds the arrival of the Morris Dancers. Men in black and white clothes—with straw hats, red sashes, ribbons, and bells on their ankles—dance in the streets to chase away winter. They also chase young women, hitting them with an inflated pig bladder on a stick to summon good luck.
Easter markets in Prague sell traditional foods and crafts, including hand-painted eggs personalized with your name. From Thursday through Saturday, boys go door to door, shaking rattles to scare off the betrayer, Judas. People give them money in return. Throughout the week, girls paint eggs and boys braid pussy-willow-twig whips. On the morning after Easter, the boys go from house to house, bonking the girls with their whips to grant them good health. In return, the girls give them hand-painted eggs, and for the grown-ups, shots of alcohol. Later that afternoon, the girls splash buckets of cold water on any boys who arrive late, and vow to not speak to those who haven’t shown up at all.
(Simon Griffith)
On Easter itself, all over Europe, people gather in their Sunday best for the biggest church services of the year. At the Vatican, where an Easter Sunday Mass has been said for 17 centuries, St. Peter’s Square fills with more than 100,000 people from around the world.
One of the grandest Easter Sunday spectacles is Florence’s Scoppio del Carro. During Mass in the Duomo, a mechanical dove is sent flying from the altar along a wire. It soars out the doors and into the main square to a centuries-old, two-story, ox-drawn cart. Upon arrival it triggers a magnificent fireworks display—like a time-release booby-trap left over from the city’s Carnevale (pre-Lent) celebrations.
In Greece, Orthodox Easter eclipses Christmas as the main holiday of the year. (Since Eastern Orthodox churches use a different calendar, Greece usually celebrates Easter at least week later than in the West.) The seaside village of Kardamyli takes its celebration very seriously: On Good Friday, a processional passes through town and the priest blesses each house. At midnight on Holy Saturday, townspeople turn off their lights and come to the main square. The priest emerges from the church with a candle and spreads light through the candle-carrying crowd, who then take the light home with them. Gradually the entire town is illuminated … and the fireworks begin.
As in the US, many Europeans head home from church to celebrate with family, food, and fun. The English host Easter-egg hunts; other countries hold egg-rolling and egg-tossing contests.
In France, the chocolate is delivered not by bunnies, but bells. Local church bells, gone silent all weekend—having magically flown from their spires on Good Friday to be blessed by the Pope—return from Rome to ring out again at Mass on Easter morning, bringing joy … and chocolate. Kids wake to find decorated eggs in their bedrooms and in nests they’ve placed outside.
The big meal traditionally centers around lamb, spring veggies, and special breads—but of course each region feasts with its own flair. Poles sip sour rye soup, Germans salivate over white asparagus, Brits heat up hot-cross buns, and Danes nibble herring. In Greece, sleepy celebrants rise at noon for the big goat-on-a-spit family lunch.
Easter is an inherently joyous time, marking the end of winter and the arrival of spring. Whether you believe in the Resurrection or just the return of flowers, sunshine, and the earth’s bounty, it’s a time to celebrate a new start.
This article is used with the permission of Rick Steves’ Europe (www.ricksteves.com). Rick Steves writes European guidebooks, hosts travel shows on public TV and radio, and organizes European tours.
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