Prague Part III: Easter Delights

Fearing the notion of wandering a city in which everything was closed, I at first thought it was unfortunate that the time I had off to visit Prague would be over Easter. I was delightfully mistaken. Easter in Prague means Easter markets and Easter markets mean kraslice (above). These decorative eggs tempted me at every turn. They were the perfect souvenir: small, pretty, handmade, and cheap enough that I could afford them (but not so cheap that I felt like I was buying kitsch). I bought a few and then lurked around several stands photographing them, probably much to the annoyance of the craftspeople manning the stands. I have now started brainstorming ways to safely transport hollow eggshells across the Atlantic.

The other souvenir I bought was a pomlázka, or "woman-hitting stick." (note: That translation is one that I made up. "Braided switch" is the one Czech tourism sites are pushing). I first heard about the tradition associated with this item when a Slovak student on the IES program was encouraging others to go to Bratislava, but not over Easter, because that's when "we hit women with sticks." I thought he was joking for quite some time. He wasn't. And the Czechs do it too. I particularly enjoyed watching a Czech toddler turn the tables by chasing her father and gleefully hitting him with the stick he'd bought at the market.

Part three of the Czech-Easter-tradition triad was particularly magical because I stumbled across it accidentally. When, on Easter morning, I got up at 5:00 am to walk across Charles Bridge at sunrise, I was surprised to find that the 5:30 tram was rather full of Czech people and that many of them were carrying Easter baskets. They differed from American Easter baskets both in their appearance (brown and undecorated, but often covered by a piece of lace fabric) and their contents (no candy; decorated but also undecorated eggs, sausage, lamb-shaped bread/pastry). When the tram stopped, the people all walked off towards a nearby church while I headed for the bridge. As I crossed the bridge, I encountered more groups of Czechs with baskets and as I walked around the nearly-deserted city afterward, I saw others clustered outside the doors of churches, chatting with baskets hanging from their arms.

Since American Easter baskets rarely if ever leave the house, I became a little curious. I did a bit of online research when I got home and discovered that Catholics in the Czech Republic often have the contents of their Easter baskets blessed by a priest before taking them back home to be eaten later. Those early-morning hours, alone in Prague's Altstadt with the Czechs and their Easter baskets, are among the most memorable of my time in Prague. I fear this evidence supports much of what my mother has told me about the benefits of getting up earlier than, say, noon, but I share it anyway and suggest that it makes up for the fact that I spent most of Easter on a train.