Navibration reveals Easter traditions from some of its favourite cities
We have already launched experiences for several world cities. You can now navibrate in Athens, Barcelona, Brussels, Hollywood, Madrid, London and Washington D.C.
Let’s look at some of the more unusual Easter traditions you’ll find in these cities?
- Brussels bells go on strike
The people of Brussels are used to the sound of church bells but there are three days when these are oddly silent. On Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday, church bells don’t ring because it is said the bells have gone to Rome to be blessed by the Pope. They return from Rome on Easter Sunday and bring chocolate eggs for Belgian children. Check it out when you visit Notre Dame de Sablon or the Cathedral of Saints Michael and Gudula. If the bells don’t bring you any chocolate, don’t worry. You can find delicious treats in the city’s many chocolate boutiques.
2. Processions in Madrid
The crowds are a giveaway. Suddenly you hear a rhythmic thud. The orchestra strikes up and there is a smattering of applause. The Nazarenes are the first to turn the corner in their conical KKK-esque hoods and long tunics. Some are barefoot. Others are barefoot and wearing chains around their ankles. And then comes the wooden platform holding a moving carved image of Christ or the Virgin Mary and decked out in flowers and illuminated by the flames of hundreds of candles. You can’t help being moved.
Welcome to Easter Week in Spain.
Welcome to Madrid.
3. Palm decorations in BCN
If you have ever visited Barcelona around Easter, you might have seen balconies festooned with long golden-coloured leaves in incredibly intricate designs and wondered what the hell they were. These palm leaves are painstakingly woven into the smaller palmas for girls and the longer and less intricate palmones for boys (pictured above). They are blessed at church on Palm Sunday and people dry them out on their balconies or windowsills during the following year. They are burned the following Ash Wednesday to produce the ash used by priests to anoint parishioners.
4. Queen Victoria and the Egg Hunt
This very long-lived queen is the guide to our London Westminster-Buckingham experience and she is credited with introducing many Germanic traditions to her British subjects. Her mother and her husband were both German, after all. Nowadays, British parents still hide chocolate eggs at Easter and kids have hours of fun trying to find them. In Anglo Saxon mythology, eggs were a symbol of fertility and were presented to the goddess Estra around this time of the year. If you get peckish while Navibrating in London this Easter, pop into any supermarket or newsagents and you’ll find an overwhelming array of chocolate eggs to choose from.
5. Egg Cracking in Athens
Well, it wouldn’t be Easter if there weren’t a few eggs, even in Greece! Greek Orthodox Christians take the celebration of Easter very seriously and wait patiently for the light of the risen Christ which is distributed in churches and guarded carefully as it is carried back home from church. Then, the celebrations can begin. One of these is called Tsougrima which is an egg tapping game. People take hard-boiled eggs which have been dyed red and crack them off each other until only one egg is left. We’re not sure if our Athens tour guide, Athena, has ever played tsougrima, but she certainly knows everything about her city.
Wherever you are in the world, enjoy your traditions!
If you are travelling this Easter, be open to the traditions of others.
You will learn.
You will have fun.
And we will be there with you. Navibrating our way around the world together.
