Sylvester in Switzerland

Fireworks over Adelboden valley in Switzerland last year.

New Year's Eve is called Sylvester in the German speaking countries of Europe (as well as in the Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, according to Wikipedia) in honor of the saint and Pope Sylvester I whose feast day is December 31st.  

Europeans generally purchase fireworks to celebrate at midnight, and last year on New Year's Eve we were in Adelboden in the Bernese Oberland.

Fireworks for sale in Adelboden.

We went out to dinner at a Pizzeria Trattoria Alfredo that evening and then returned to Our Chalet for some festivities.

There was dancing:

And games:

 And food:

And Glühwein by a snow campfire.

Good times.

Easter Celebrations in Europe

Just like Christmas traditions, Easter and Holy Week customs throughout Europe vary from country to country and even region to region.  Most customs include religious rituals and church services, candy, feasting and family gatherings.  Easter festivities usually begin filling the streets, squares, and shops during Holy Week, the seven days before Easter Sunday, and it’s a colorful time to visit the Old World.  In some central and eastern European countries, Easter is a greater holiday than Christmas.

The Prague Easter market in the Old Town Square showcases over 100 stalls of handcrafts, toys, Czech crystal, regional delicacies and beer, and beautiful hand-painted eggs.  Folk dancers and residents in traditional costume provide a lively atmosphere.  For the children there are workshops for painting eggs and other activities.

In Romania, after the late evening church services on Holy Saturday, visitors can observe local peoples parading through the streets carrying lighted candles in a solemn procession.  In some villages, intricately decorated eggs are hung from tree branches, strung onto wires, featured in games, and taken to church to be blessed.

Unusual European customs include egg fights in Bulgaria, where whoever comes out of the game with an unbroken egg is the winner and assumed to be the most successful member of the family in the coming year, and the Hungarian tradition of Wet Monday, when boys throw buckets of cold water over girls to make them healthy for the rest of the year.

Wet Monday in Hungary.

Also, not to be missed, are the Holy Week festival in Braga, Portugal, and the Semana Santa processions in southern Spain, most famously in Seville.  The cities are crowded with tourists for the ancient traditions of floats in elaborate processions depicting the passion of Christ.

And, of course, the apogee of all Easter experiences would be in Vatican City.  Blessings, processions, vigils, and Masses in many languages are frequent throughout Holy Week.  A schedule of events is available on-line.  Be sure to check for closures of possible Vatican museum closures this week on-line here. 

Lastly, residents of every country enjoy food prepared for the Easter celebration.  Lamb, sweet breads, cakes, and eggs are traditional dishes for many.  In England, hot-cross buns are popular on Good Friday.  These are sweet fruit buns with crosses on top.  In Western Europe, the pretzel is eaten, and legend has it that the twists resemble the crossed arms of a person in prayer.

Exotic Lands

Beautiful Budapest, Hungary

Greece, Turkey, Portugal, Croatia, Slovenia, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic are what I like to call the more exotic European countries.  They are all fabulous destinations, each with their own character, history, customs, and scenery.  They probably offer the most unspoiled culture and the best travel bargains among European countries.  But for one reason or another – be it because they were once behind the Iron Curtain, or because they have a shaky economy or government, or because they’re less developed, less industrialized, or have a weaker infrastructure – these countries were never my first choice to travel to with young children.  In fact, I even marginally include Italy on this list, since once, in a hotel on southern Lake Garda, the water shut off while I had shampoo in my hair and didn’t come back on for 24 hours.  The management suggested I jump in the lake to rinse it out.  I’ve also seen some sleazy dealings going on among the Brindisi port ferry operators.  (Looked like extemporaneous ticket price escalation due to the crowds, to me.  But that was nothing compared to the palms we had to grease on the other side, in Corfu, to accomplish embarking on the ferry back to Brindisi.)

Brindisi to Corfu ferry

Anyway, these are not the sorts of things that make traveling with young children any easier.  Better to rely on Swiss precision and German engineering, or the remarkable capability of everyone in The Netherlands and Belgium to speak perfect English.  The Scandinavian countries too, are über-civilized and safe.  Besides, I remember that once I became a teenager I was no longer much interested in rustic mountain chalets or reading World War II memorial inscriptions . . . I wanted the white sand beaches of Santorini!  Snorkeling off the Canary Islands!  The open markets in Istanbul!  Fortunately for me my parents were happy to compromise and we managed a few of those dream destinations.  So my plan is to save these exotic lands until my son and daughter get a little older, too.  But have I mentioned that my daughter is already a teenager?  And already pining to see glorious Rome and ancient Athens.  That's my girl.

Family Vacation

Bone Up on Europe

Halloween 1967

Costumes have come a long way since

those sweaty plastic masks, haven't they?

Well, it seems everything's gone global nowadays, doesn't it?  When I was little and my mom mailed photos of my brother and me dressed in our Halloween costumes to my relatives in Germany, they thought we were really confused.  In Germany they only dressed up during Fasching (Carnival), the party season right before Lent, which usually occurs in February.  Never having heard of Halloween, they couldn't understand why we were costumed in October.

But now, just like McDonalds and Starbucks, Halloween has crossed the ocean to Europe.  Actually, Halloween first crossed the Atlantic to America, then crossed back over to Europe.  It started in the British Isles out of the pagan Celtic celebration of Samhain, a harvest festival, and kind of evolved together with All Saint’s Eve, which is October 31st.  In the 1840s, during the large Irish immigration, the tradition traveled to the U.S. and eventually became the children’s holiday we know today as Halloween.

Anyway, Halloween is all the rage now in Germany, Italy, France and the UK.  There’s no trick-or-treating, but they do dress up and party.  The House of Horror in Hamburg, Germany, is stocked full of gruesome, ghoulish costumes.  But if you happen to be overseas on October 31st and are looking for a more uniquely Euro creepy experience, there are a number of enchanting attractions you might visit.

The Catacombs of Paris are fascinating to tour any time of year, but I imagine it would be exceptionally spooky to enter their deep, dark caverns on Halloween night.  (They normally close at 5:00 p.m.  Wouldn’t it be a great marketing idea for them to stay open until midnight on October 31st?)  Children under the age of 14 are not allowed in the catacombs without an adult, but if you think your kids can handle it, take a tour of the miles and miles of tibiae, femurs, skulls and every other type of human bone, stacked upon one another over centuries of underground burials.  (Side note:  there are no bathrooms in the catacombs, nor lockers or coat check.)

Maybe you’ll want to take a hauntingly beautiful stroll surrounded by tombs, sepulchers, and mausoleums in one of Paris’s very large and famous cemeteries on Halloween?  Of course your children don’t know who Jim Morrison is, but you’ll get the added bonus of paying homage at his grave if you go to Pére-Lachaise Cemetery in the northeast corner of the city.  (His grave is the fourth most-visited tourist attraction in Paris!) 

Several other ancient cities of Europe stacked and displayed the bones of their dead, usually because their cemeteries became overcrowded.  Rome has at least 40 different catacombs; the Sedlec Ossuary in Sedlec, the Czech Republic, contains somewhere between 40,000 and 70,000 skeletons, many of them decorating their chapel.  In Halstatt, Austria, one of my absolute favorite Alpine villages in Europe, visit the bonehouse which dates back to the 12th century.  Each of the 1200 skulls displayed there is intricately hand-painted with flowery designs and the date of death.

With Europe's long history of honoring the dead, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when one of my cousins in Germany asked me a few years ago, Do you have Halloween in America?

Family Vacation