The idea of an Easter Market seems counterintuitive. Lent is the time of penance between Carnival and Easter. The idea of a market selling food and flowers during Lent seems odd. But then there is Palm Sunday, a time to stroll with palm fronds. In places where palm trees do not flourish early spring blossoms like forsythia and pussy willow are a good stand-in. So markets selling spring blossoms sprung up around churches in Europe on the Saturday before Palm Sunday and on Palm Sunday itself. Then bakery goods started appearing, and then decorated Easter Eggs, and Easter Wreaths, with Eggs and flowers.
Now cities advertise Easter Markets that, from their websites, seem as much a way as attracting early season tourists who don’t make the Christmas Markets as a preparation for the celebration of the resurrection. We will learn more about this together. This year, on our way home from work in Georgia, we will stop at three of the most heavily advertised Easter Markets, located in our old stomping grounds, two in Vienna and one in Bratislava. When we lived in “Blava” we didn’t see Easter Markets. I will post what I see on this blog in the week before Easter. Between now and then I will post Palm Sunday and Easter pictures from places we’ve visited and some pics of some Easter Eggs designed by a Slovak craftsman. The picture on this post is of an Easter Display at a farmhouse restaurant in Northern Serbia.
