{"id":6021,"date":"2016-03-18T17:45:26","date_gmt":"2016-03-18T17:45:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/test\/?p=6021"},"modified":"2016-03-16T11:42:58","modified_gmt":"2016-03-16T11:42:58","slug":"celebrating-easter-on-corfu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/celebrating-easter-on-corfu\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating Easter on Corfu"},"content":{"rendered":"

Corfu is a popular place for Greeks to flock to at Easter, it is a place transformed with colour, marching bands, and religious fervour. Palm Sunday starts the celebrations and each day of holy week has special significance. On Good Monday Greeks go shopping to prepare for the week and bake Fogatsa and Mandolato, similar to brioche and macaroons.<\/p>\n

\"Corfu<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Image credit: Michael Paschos<\/a> \/ Shutterstock.com<\/a><\/p>\n

On Tuesday \u2018hymed\u2019 stories about Mary Magdalene in the churches take place, often followed by music and poetry in the evenings. Wednesday it is Holy Unction and ecclesiastical hymns.\u00a0 Maundy Thursday brings services of holy passion, and readings from the twelve gospels.<\/p>\n

Red eggs are boiled in dye, traditionally made from onion skins and balsamic vinegar. These eggs are seen as a symbol of life, (Mary Magdalene offered the Emperor Tiberius a red egg while announcing “Christ is risen\u201d). On Easter Thursday they also bake tsoureki<\/em>, a kind of hot cross bun that is decorated with the eggs.<\/p>\n

Good Friday is a day of mourning, when women and children decorate the church and in the evening a lit funeral procession walks the parish to sanctify the area, often marching and playing Chopin and Verdi.<\/p>\n

Easter Saturday there are processions in honour of Saint Spyridon and thousands celebrate the first resurrection by hurling water filled amphorae and red painted pots out of every available window. This is accompanied by banging on anything handy, car horns and sirens. The Easter Resurrection culminates at the stroke of midnight on Saturday to celebrate the second resurrection. The Church is plunged into darkness, a single candle lit from the Eternal Flame in Jerusalem is carried carefully, and the priest announces \u2018Christos `Anesti\u2019\u00a0 \u2018Christ is risen\u2019. Everyone\u2019s candle is lit from this one, until the church is full of light.<\/p>\n

Later the revellers attempt to walk home with their lit candle without it going out, so that they can make the sign of the cross on their front door for luck. To end the day, the town of Corfu is usually lit up by loud explosions and fantastic fireworks over the castle. After parading icons with choirs and marching bands on the Sunday morning, family and friends gather together to enjoy whole roasted lamb and goat, and cracking their red eggs, the person with the last un-cracked egg will be lucky that year. Many head for the countryside to see what else is going on in the other towns and villages.<\/p>\n

No Greek Easter would be complete without music, dancing and drinking, celebrations continue on Easter Monday, which is a national holiday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Corfu is a popular place for Greeks to flock to at Easter, it is a place transformed with colour, marching bands, and religious fervour. Palm Sunday starts the celebrations and each day of holy week has special significance. On Good Monday Greeks go shopping to prepare for the week and bake Fogatsa and Mandolato, similar<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":6023,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-things-to-do-in-corfu"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCelebrating Easter on Corfu - Vintage Travel - Blog Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Corfu is a popular place for Greeks to flock to at Easter, it is a place transformed with colour, marching bands, and religious fervour. Palm Sunday\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/celebrating-easter-on-corfu\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Celebrating Easter on Corfu - Vintage Travel - Blog Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Corfu is a popular place for Greeks to flock to at Easter, it is a place transformed with colour, marching bands, and religious fervour. Palm Sunday\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/celebrating-easter-on-corfu\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Vintage Travel - Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-03-18T17:45:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/shutterstock_382797538-1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"700\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"466\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sarah Dewsbury\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/celebrating-easter-on-corfu\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/celebrating-easter-on-corfu\/\",\"name\":\"Celebrating Easter on Corfu - Vintage Travel - Blog Blog\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/celebrating-easter-on-corfu\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/celebrating-easter-on-corfu\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/shutterstock_382797538-1.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-03-18T17:45:26+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/1c1c7f172635b4d4e08980ab6dac88a8\"},\"description\":\"Corfu is a popular place for Greeks to flock to at Easter, it is a place transformed with colour, marching bands, and religious fervour. Palm Sunday\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/celebrating-easter-on-corfu\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/celebrating-easter-on-corfu\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/celebrating-easter-on-corfu\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/shutterstock_382797538-1.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/shutterstock_382797538-1.jpg\",\"width\":700,\"height\":466,\"caption\":\"Corfu at Easter\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/celebrating-easter-on-corfu\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Celebrating Easter on Corfu\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Vintage Travel - Blog\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/1c1c7f172635b4d4e08980ab6dac88a8\",\"name\":\"Sarah Dewsbury\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/86fa14acf9ab0d239419b63a0d0dc834891053256c20ebbe72b9723db3004d28?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/86fa14acf9ab0d239419b63a0d0dc834891053256c20ebbe72b9723db3004d28?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Sarah Dewsbury\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/author\/sarah-dewsbury\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Celebrating Easter on Corfu - Vintage Travel - Blog Blog","description":"Corfu is a popular place for Greeks to flock to at Easter, it is a place transformed with colour, marching bands, and religious fervour. Palm Sunday","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/celebrating-easter-on-corfu\/","og_locale":"en_GB","og_type":"article","og_title":"Celebrating Easter on Corfu - Vintage Travel - Blog Blog","og_description":"Corfu is a popular place for Greeks to flock to at Easter, it is a place transformed with colour, marching bands, and religious fervour. Palm Sunday","og_url":"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/celebrating-easter-on-corfu\/","og_site_name":"Vintage Travel - Blog","article_published_time":"2016-03-18T17:45:26+00:00","og_image":[{"width":700,"height":466,"url":"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/shutterstock_382797538-1.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Sarah Dewsbury","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/celebrating-easter-on-corfu\/","url":"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/celebrating-easter-on-corfu\/","name":"Celebrating Easter on Corfu - Vintage Travel - Blog Blog","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/celebrating-easter-on-corfu\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/celebrating-easter-on-corfu\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/shutterstock_382797538-1.jpg","datePublished":"2016-03-18T17:45:26+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/1c1c7f172635b4d4e08980ab6dac88a8"},"description":"Corfu is a popular place for Greeks to flock to at Easter, it is a place transformed with colour, marching bands, and religious fervour. Palm Sunday","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/celebrating-easter-on-corfu\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-GB","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/celebrating-easter-on-corfu\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-GB","@id":"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/celebrating-easter-on-corfu\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/shutterstock_382797538-1.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/shutterstock_382797538-1.jpg","width":700,"height":466,"caption":"Corfu at Easter"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/celebrating-easter-on-corfu\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Celebrating Easter on Corfu"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/","name":"Vintage Travel - Blog","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-GB"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/1c1c7f172635b4d4e08980ab6dac88a8","name":"Sarah Dewsbury","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-GB","@id":"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/86fa14acf9ab0d239419b63a0d0dc834891053256c20ebbe72b9723db3004d28?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/86fa14acf9ab0d239419b63a0d0dc834891053256c20ebbe72b9723db3004d28?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Sarah Dewsbury"},"url":"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/author\/sarah-dewsbury\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6021"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6029,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6021\/revisions\/6029"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagetravel.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}