Happy Easter: The Easter Wells Pic Spam

[selenak]

Last week we had an actual hurricane in Germany, and there's still clean up in progress, but yesterday was unexpectedly sunny in Franconia, and thus the APs and yours truly followed (Franconian) tradition and hit the countryside to gaze at our Easter Wells.



This neat combination of baroque church and modern day well sculpure surrounded by Easter decorations is actually close by Bamberg, in Pödeldorf.



En route to Franconian Switzerland, you often find wells at the road side and have to have your camera ready, like here:





Or here, where they also have the most adorable Easter bunnies:







What's truly amazing about many of these wells, though, is that the eggs are by no means all standard plastic. No, a lot are individually painted. Like these calender eggs:





Which belong to this well:



There are also tourist guide eggs:







My Aged Parent's all time favourite Easter Well is always this one, both because it is very pretty and because you get boiled easter eggs with salt there for free:



Have some detail:







The Passion:




Franconia is a very dry area, which is the reason for all the Easter wells - to praise, give thanks to and encourage water - but there are little little rivers, like this one:



Which is next to this well:



Always one of the favourites: the one in Heiligenstadt, where the eggs are painted by the children from the local schools. These are some eggs:





quoting the 23rd Psalm:





With a shepherd:



and the local attractions:



and the bunnies:





and the village wildlife :):





And this is the Heiligenstadt Easter Well in totem:




But really, the roadside wells can be charming, too:





Like the one in Gößweinstein:






And for the grand finale, always: Bieberbach. Where they have bunny schools:



And the crown of wells:

Comments

[jesuswasbatman]

I hope there wasn't much damage near where you live!

[selenak]

I was lucky in my misfortune, so to speak, because on the one hand, the Munich central railway station was pretty much laid to waste, and I had been planning to leave Munich for Bamberg on Wednesday,right after a lot of the Bavarian railway system had broken down. But on Sunday morning, I had woken up with food poisoning and in an awful state, so my father was heroic and drove to Munich to retrieve me right then and there. On Sunday evening, when we were safely in Bamberg, the winds started and didn't let up until Thursday afternoon. (Though Tuesday was the worst day.)

[st_aurafina]

This post is an Easter tradition! I'm so glad to see the beautiful wells again. I hope you have a happy Easter.

[selenak]

Thank you, so far, so good, and I hope the same is true for you!

[littlerhymes]

The children's eggs are the best! Oh, and the bunny school. :D

[selenak]

I love it a lot, and am always glad when it's still there a year later.

[ratcreature]

Wow so many painted eggs. That's a lot of work. Here the popular local Easter tradition is Easter Fires (over a dozen public ones in the city), which is somewhat less involved because you more or less just need a pile of wood and some fire safety supervision (and to make sure nothing started to nest in the convenient wood pile shelter). I guess around here you more often wanted to get rid of water rather than invite it, what with the area having been a swampy river delta infested with malaria that needed draining.

[selenak]

I can imagine! Here fire is strictly related to St. Johannis, not Easter.

[ratcreature]

Yeah while great for wildlife swamps are not very popular nature if you have to live near them. Probably why not everyone is thrilled with eco-friendly wetland restoration projects when they happen nearby, no matter how important they are for nature.

Like, I remember a few years back people opposed to some such projects caught a bunch of local mosquitoes as sampling to show that the species that used to transmit the temperate climate kind of malaria around here isn't actually exinct just much rarer now, and argued that along with the more natural environments you might also get the natural endemic malaria back if their habitat was restored. However I don't think they found any that carried the actual parasite, and the last small outbreak cluster of malaria in Hamburg was right after WWII iirc and none since. So the parasite would have to resettle too, and the concern wasn't really proportional. Though personally I'm quite in favor of getting rid of even malaria-free mosquitoes, since more often than not I have allergic reactions to their bites with fairly extreme and long lasting swelling.

[yvi]

Wow, I didn't even know that tradition! They look so nice.

[selenak]

It's a specifically Franconian tradition. I think I've spotted some Easter wells in Swabia as well, but only one or two.

[jae]

Wow! Somehow this is a tradition I've missed out on entirely. So cool.

-J

[selenak]

It's a Franconian thing, and originally hails from praying for water in what is a pretty dry area. If you're from the north, water shortage should not be a problem...

[sholio]

Oh, how lovely! :) I didn't know about this tradition; it looks really fun and delightful - so festive to have the beautifully decorated wells everywhere! Thank you for sharing.

[selenak]

You're very welcome. It's a Franconian tradition, and while I've seen a few imitations in the rest of Bavaria, so far the rest of Germany hasn't followed suit. It makes for lovely Easter trips every time (provided there's no storm!), driving through the countryside admiring these wells.

[monanotlisa]

Amazing. Thanks for sharing -- and happy Easter!

[selenak]

Frohe Ostern auch dir!

[fallingtowers]

Happy Easter!

[selenak]

And the same to you!

[watervole]

I love the wonderful colour and variety of all the hand-painted eggs. I look forward to your Easter post every year.

I've always wondered... Do Easter Bunnies lay Easter eggs? Or do they just collect them?

[selenak]

I vote for collect! :) (Also paint. I remember reading a picture book for children in which there was a bunny school where they painted all the eggs.)

[maidenjedi]

What a special tradition - thank you for sharing these pictures!

Hope the hurricane damage wasn't too terrible. :-/

[selenak]

It was unusual for Germany, because we don't get hurricanes otherwise, but that only means it wasn't that high compared with hurricane ridden regions! Anyway, it's been repaired by now as far as the trains etc. are concerned, according to the news.

and you're very welcome!