Easter Wells 2011

[selenak]

Today we made our annual trip through Franconian Switzerland to admire the Easter wells, and like every year, I have a pic spam of the gorgeous, gorgeous results. We were especially lucky, because not only was the weather great, but in one town there was dancing next to the well. By children. In dirndl. And thus my above cut picture to wish everyone who celebrates happy Easter and induce you to check out the rest of the pic spam featuring hand-painted eggs, lots of wells and cute kids, is this one:







Maybe it's because the weather has been really nice these last days, but I had the impression we got far more hand-painted and far, far less plastic eggs this year. Starting of the trip:







Moving on to my Dad's favourite Easter well, in Tiefenpoelzig. Why is this his favourite? Because it's the one that offers you actual eggs to eat. Also because it's gorgeous, but I do suspect the salty eggs tip the balance for him.





And check out that detail:





And the passion:



While the aged parent....



On to wells with only hollow eggs. These were spotted en route:





But then we came to Heiligenstadt, where there was dancing. Warning for adorableness to follow, but first the well itself:





Detail:







And now, on to the kids:













Also on the market place with the well and the girls:



Next, we visited Ebermannstadt:





Detail:



It was time for the biggest of them all, in Bieberbach. Unfortunately, it's also the most crowded of them all, but I got some pretty photos nonetheless:







Time for close ups:












Knut forever! (Also, he's recently deceased, so it's nice to see a tribute.)



Remember the bunny school from last year? Still there:



We drove through Gößweinstein, and got a particular good shot of the castle:



Then we checked out the well at the Behringersmühle, which was a nice, quiet counterpoint to all the people at Bieberbach:





Using bridges and wells is also nice:



And then we visited, for the grand finale, an Easter well we had never seen before but had heard about, in Lauf:









The creators of this particular well decided to immortalize both their family members and the pope plus arch bishop plus local priest:





And check out that bunny in the swing! He wishes you a happy Easter as well, till next year:

Comments

[lilacsigil]

Those hand-painted eggs are astonishing! I'm glad you got to see more of them this year.

[selenak]

So am I!

[watervole]

Wow! I really loved looking at the well-dressing photos.

Those large half-hoop garlands round so many of the wells - does anyone ever dance with them? There's an English tradition of garland dancing with hoops and I'm trying to trace possible origins. Church decorations is one possibility.

I'll post a link in my journal to your post and to english well-dressing traditions - which look quite different visually. They make pictures from flower petals.

[selenak]

The dancing of the little girls was the first Easter-related dancing I've seen; normally we never stay in a village long enough to catch something like that because there so many to visit! So the answer is that I don't know, unfortunately...