Easter at our European Destinations

While we have been celebrating the Easter holiday break with melting Easter Eggs and unusually sweltering heat for this time of year, Berlin, Prague and Vienna have been nice and chilled experiencing temperatures ranging from 2 - 15 degrees C.

In Berlin, it is common for people to have 'easter nests' around the house. The easter nest is a colourful decorated basket or bowl padded with fake or real grass from a flower shop and stuffed with candy, chocolate and sweets shaped like eggs, chickens, bunnies and flowers. The most popular Easter custom in Germany is decorating eggs. They are painted in various colours, drawn on or patterns scratched into the shell. The eggs are then hung from a tree placed in a basket or in a nest made up of straw or napkins.

Easter in Prague is like a second Christmas or New Year. There are lots of customs and parties with national dishes served with special green beer. In the Old Town Square, they hold Easter markets, much like the famed Christmas Markets. Important days during Easter in Prague include Ugly Wednesday, Green Thursday, Good Friday and White Saturday.

In Vienna, decorated egg shells are also a popular custom. Egg shaped decorations are also made from other materials such as wood. In the weeks leading up to Easter Viennese flower shops sell thin tree branches mostly made from willow. People buy the branches to put in a vase from which they hang ribbons and decorated eggs. The Easter Tree is called Osterbaum.

On Easter morning Viennese people eat hard-boiled eggs that have been individually coloured. They are bought coloured from supermarkets or people still make their own at home by boiling the eggs in food colouring. The colouring of eggs is called Eierfarben.

A quirky Easter tradition is Eierpecken (egg pecking) where two opponents hold an egg each and then 'clash eggs' by knocking them together. The idea is to crack the opponents egg - pointy end to pointy end or flat end to flat end - without breaking your own.

The Osterhase is the Easter hare who brings all the eggs. Austrian children receive a large chocolate rabbit rather than an egg.