Unusual Easter Traditions Around the World

Easter is right around the corner and if you haven't made any plans yet, there's no time like the present. Rental prices are bound to rise the closer we get to the event, and fleet availability is a concern particularly in our most popular destinations. To save even more, you can also take a look at our Early Easter Bookings newsletter.

While the religious aspects of the Easter celebrations have the same origin throughout the Western world, many countries have their own unique traditions. Here are some of our favourites.

The Easter Bunny - Easter Bunnies are too mainstream for our Australian cousins, who think an Easter Bilby is a far superior choice for a chocolate egg carrier. An Easter Bunny would have to stray from its duties to go off and destroy crops or carry on some other sort of mischief, as Australian rabbits are wont to do. Bilbies, on the other hand, are totally dependable. The French aren't big fans of the Easter Bunny either. They decided that the best way to explain the mysterious appearance of coloured eggs and rabbit-shaped chocolate is simply to say that 'bells did it'. I kid you not. Legend has it that church bells - which are silent from Maundy Thursday to Easter Sunday - are silent because they went off to Rome. When they finally come back - like everyone's favourite aunt - they come bearing gifts. In Switzerland, rather than by Easter Bunnies, eggs are brought by Easter Cuckoos. Because Switzerland.

30 pieces of silver - In southern American countries, particularly in Brazil, it is traditional for communities to build a real-sized Judas effigy out of straw, cloth or paper and to parade it around town while hitting it with sticks. Finally, the effigy is hanged near a church or cemetery and burned. The amount of pomp and dramatic license of what has become an extremely popular tourist attraction varies from city to city. In Itu, for instance, a city near São Paulo known for its fascination with size, they make a point of each year increasing the size of the effigy. And instead of burning it, they blow it up with dynamite, a tradition that goes back over 100 years These eggs will eventually hatch into unusually coloured birds.

The Christmas Tree's less well known sister, the Easter Tree - It is a little known fact that the habit of decorating trees for Christmas was popularized in Britain by Queen Victoria - whose mother was German - and by her consort, Prince Albert - who was German himself. As it turns out, the German are fond of decorating trees, and not just at Christmas. It is also traditional in Germany for people to decorate trees for Easter, by hanging painted eggs on the branches. One of the most famous Ostereierbaum (literally 'Easter egg tree') is the Saalfelder Ostereierbaum, which in 2012 was decorated with over 10,000 eggs. The record for most eggs on one tree goes to a tree decorated by the Rostock Zoo, which used an astounding amount of 79,596 eggs, earning it a place in the Guinness World Records.

Something wicked this way comes - In Sweden, kids love Halloween so much that they decided once a year was clearly not enough to get the best value out of the holiday, so they also dress up as witches for Easter and go house to house collecting candy, in exchange for pussy willows. I'm not sure exactly what the exchange rate for pussy willow to chocolate is, but it's fair to assume the children get a good bargain out of it.

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