My Greek Travel

Easter is a great holiday if you are in Greece because we have many Greek Easter traditions and the weather usually is sunny and warm. This year the Greek Orthodox Easter is on April 19th, this means we have Easter the next week.

The Easter in Greece the nature is beautiful because of spring. The trees have their new leaves and you can see wildflowers anywhere. The Greek people feel happy because of spring and sun and many hours of daylight.

Most of people go to their villages, so the big cities usually are almost empty. Well ok… for us who live in big cities (Athens and Thessaloniki) it’s beautiful to walk in the empty streets in Easter, but I am not sure if you like it also because nobody works these days and you will not find anything to do in cities. Don’t stay in Athens and Thessaloniki in Easter it’s better to go in other cities, in country and islands.

The Great Thursday

On Great Thursday we color our eggs. The favorite color is red like the blood of Christ but we color eggs in different colors. We also offer flowers in church for the decoration of Epitafios. Epitafios is something like Christ’s coffin.

It’s tradition the night or the other day in morning some women to go to church and decorate the Epitafios with the flowers. But in big and famous churches the last 5-10 years this traditon stops and they pay some decorators for the decorate. I don’t like it personally.

The Great Friday

On Great Friday all day people go to churches to kneel in Epitafios and many people consider that they must go to 3 churches for the same reason. The evening the priest, many people with candles and with Epitafios in hands, walk around the neighborhood. Sometimes if churches are close each other you can see 2 or more Epitafios in same place. Every church wants to have the most beautiful Epitafios.

The candle lighting in Great Saturday

On Great Saturday at 11pm we usually go to church for Resurrection and to take the Holy Flame. This night I think it’s the only night of year where so many people go to churches. We take the Holy Flame in our candles at midnight and we kiss each other when the fireworks starts. All people have their personal decorated candle and the childrens usually have candles with toys.

In many areas of Greece we bring red eggs in church. After midnight we hit our egg against someone else egg. The last person of family who has an un-cracked egg is considered the winner. (For many years I thought that all people in Greece take eggs in church, but the last years I found that they don’t do it everywhere. In some areas and islands they hit their eggs in their homes or on Sunday of Easter.)

After that we went in our houses with our candles and many people make a cross with the flame of the candle in the main door of the house. Well ok some some people stay in church until 1 am or 3 am or until the end of the liturgy but most Greeks go home at 00:10 am to eat the Mageiritsa, the special hot meet soup of the day. I am not sure if you will like it or not, some people considered this soup disgusting. I start eat this soup in my 30’s, I didn’t like it before.

The Sunday of Easter

You can call the Sunday of Easter as the day of lambs (or goats). Families and friends together start roast the lamb outside from early morning and they drink wine, talk and dance traditional and folk dances. No, I don’t mean syrtaki, we have many traditional dances around the Greece.

It’s a happy day for anyone. Some people met family and friends after many months. We hit again our eggs, well we hit eggs with anyone all day. We usually eat and drink to much this day. And after we complain about that. We feel better after the digestion.

The Monday after Easter

This day is work off also and part of Easter. We continue have fun with friends and family. It’s like the Sunday of Easter but without roasted lambs.

Happy Easter!