Easter Around the World: Traditions That Will Surprise Even Seasoned Travellers

When I ask my clients about their favourite travel memories, they almost always mention stumbling upon a local festival by chance. A procession in Málaga, a strange custom in a Finnish village, an enormous frying pan in the middle of a Normandy market square. Easter is one of those holidays that looks completely different in every corner of the world — and that's exactly why it fascinates me so much.

Easter — where did it come from, and when do we celebrate it?

The earliest recorded Easter practices date back to the 2nd century. Since then, Easter has grown into the most important holiday in the Christian calendar — commemorating the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus, with Easter Sunday marking that pivotal moment.

But when exactly does Easter fall? That depends on where you are and which tradition you grew up in. The date isn't fixed — it follows a lunisolar calendar similar to the Hebrew one. In Western Christianity, Easter falls on a Sunday between 22 March and 25 April, typically a week after the spring equinox. Eastern Christianity calculates it differently — using the Julian calendar, which is thirteen days behind the Gregorian one. As a result, Orthodox Easter falls between 4 April and 8 May. Despite years of effort, Christian communities have never reached a consensus on a single, fixed date.

Eggs, symbols and meanings that have survived thousands of years

Have you ever wondered why the egg became a symbol of Easter? The custom of collecting, dyeing and sharing eggs goes back thousands of years. When Christian communities wove spring traditions into their faith, the egg became a metaphor for the Resurrection of Christ.

The colours were never random. Yellow symbolised resurrection, blue stood for love, and red represented the blood of Christ. Some eggs contained entire biblical scenes, hidden away for children to discover and learn the story. It's a beautiful example of how faith can transform an ordinary object into something far more profound.

Europe celebrates differently than you might think

Easter in Europe is above all a religious and spiritual event. Fewer balloons, more silence, prayer and reflection. Lent — the forty-day period of penance and fasting from Ash Wednesday to Easter, excluding Sundays — gives the whole season a completely different rhythm from what we see in American films.

Semana Santa in Spain

I live in Spain, and I'll be honest with you — Semana Santa, or Holy Week, is something you have to experience at least once in your life. The celebrations begin on Palm Sunday with a church ceremony and the distribution of blessed palm leaves. Then, throughout the week, processions take to the streets of cities across the country.

Málaga is famous for its most impressive ceremonies. Enormous wooden structures known as Pasos — adorned with candles and flowers, depicting scenes from the Passion of Christ — are carried through the city. The first time you see it, you simply stop. You just stand there and stare. The Easter Vigil begins between sunset on Holy Saturday and sunrise on Easter Sunday, with Mass celebrated after midnight.

Italy, Russia and Poland — every country has its own ritual

In Italy on Good Friday, the Pope celebrates a grand Mass at St Peter's Basilica in Rome. A spectacular crucifix is then raised towards the sky during the Easter Mass. It's an image that stays with you.

In Russia, families prepare kulich — a sweet bread filled with raisins — along with paskha, a pyramid-shaped cheese dessert. The exchange of decorated eggs is a ritual in its own right, every bit as meaningful as the feast itself.

In Poland, Easter is all about babka — a traditional baked treat decorated with raisins and icing. Easter Sunday is a time for breakfast with the whole family. And on Easter Monday, Śmigus-Dyngus takes over — known as "Wet Monday", it's an age-old tradition of splashing each other with water, celebrated throughout Central and Eastern Europe.

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Traditions that genuinely surprise

When my clients travel somewhere for the first time, they often ask: "What's worth seeing there?" When it comes to Easter, I always have a few stories up my sleeve.

Easter witches in Scandinavia

In Finland and Sweden, children dress up as Easter witches — påskkärring — painting their faces, putting on headscarves and wandering through neighbourhoods in search of sweets. Sounds like Halloween? Because it's remarkably similar. It's one of those customs that doesn't fit the image of a chocolate bunny at all, yet it's been alive for generations.

Norway went in a different direction entirely — publishers there release special editions of crime novels every Easter. Festive reading with a chill down your spine. That one I really didn't see coming.

A giant omelette and the Australian bilby

In the French towns of Haux and Bessières on Easter Monday, the whole community gathers around an enormous frying pan. Over 10,000 eggs are cracked into it. It's a feast for the entire town — and a sight to behold.

In Australia, the Easter bunny has been replaced by the bilby — an endangered native animal that looks a little like a rabbit. Australians have used the holiday to draw attention to the conservation of local wildlife. Clever and rather touching at the same time.

Are Easter traditions disappearing in a globalised world?

In the age of social media and universal access to television and the internet, American Easter traditions have become recognisable almost everywhere — egg hunts, baskets filled with sweets, the Easter Bunny. Children in Germany and Switzerland believe it's the Easter Bunny who hides the chocolate eggs, and off they go to search for them. The same is true in the UK.

But beneath that global layer, local traditions are alive and well. Witches in Finland, crime novels in Norway, omelettes in Normandy, Pasos in Málaga — every Christian community celebrates in its own way. And that is precisely what makes travelling the world during the holidays so wonderful.

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For me, Easter is one of those holidays that shows just how differently people can give the very same symbols — an egg, spring, resurrection — a completely new face. When I sit here in Spain and hear the distant drums of a procession, I think of Finns with painted faces, of Russian kulich fragrant with raisins, and of the French cracking tens of thousands of eggs into a giant pan. The world celebrates differently — and that's exactly why it's worth exploring.