Spending Easter in Greece is just so different from being the UK. Yes the weather will be better, but the main point I am making is the Greek understanding of the "real meaning" of Easter.
To start with, whilst there are some Easter eggs in the shops, it is far more traditional to give red painted eggs; even more traditional is the giving of candles, and they are in the shops in their thousands ranging from religious painted to candles to "power rangers!!"
The religious ceremony starts of course on Good Friday and continues daily through to the Monday. Processions are seen in the villages at midnight on the Friday and Saturday (it is on the Saturday the candles are lit at the churches and carried home by the villagers). There are plenty of details on the internet (and my blog from last year) as to what actually takes place in these ceremonies rather than me write again.
More so however is the bringing together of families. People come together mostly in their birth villages with their extended family for the tradition Sunday roast lamb feast; and here its not roast lamb dinner but whole lamb roasted on a spit in the open.
I'm off to have mine with my friends here in Greece.......thankfully they were up at 0700hrs roasting the lamb and turning the spit !!!!!
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