Easter: Spain vs. Slovenia

How does Slovenia celebrate Easter? From my point of view slovenian people are more religious than spanish... we could say that it's a traditional country, just 10,1% of the population is non-believer. 

Like every holiday in the world, in Easter, it's all about food. What shocked me the most was that they eat horseradish with smoked ham and bread, and this have an special symbolism connected with the Passion of Christ.
They also paint empty eggs (pirhi) with beautiful colors, symbolizing Christ's drops of blood. Two years ago me and Darko painted our own Pirhi egg for Easter and it looked more like Mr Potato than a drop blood...

There's something else with pirhi, it's a really craft work, the artisans drill the egg to make beautiful and delicate drawings. Amazing!

It's also traditional in Slovenia the lectovo srce, heart shaped ginger bread with love verses written. But in Easter, they change the hearts for the bunnies. It's funny and nice, but I prefer the traditional chocolate "mona" from Barcelona! Also they eat the fomous potica (if you still don't know what  the hell I'm talking about, visit this old post)

What about here?

In Spain we also mix the festivity with the lunch. We lean more for the sweet taste: torrijas, pestiños, bunyols... but my favourite is the mona, in the past time, the mona was a sweet bread with a boiled painted egg embedded, but nowadays it has become a cake with a chocolate figure on the top, and that's really an art! all the good bakeries in town have a competition to make the most spectacular mona, but usually the Escribà pastry in Barcelona is the winner. Just check the chocolate sculpture they made a few years ago (down in the pic). The mona holiday is just celebrated in Cataunya and Valencia now, they don't have it anymore in the rest of Spain.

The Traditional mona

The 21st century mona

But there's something that makes spanish Easter different from any other in Europe: the processions. Specially in the south, people live the Semana Santa with passion and emotion. I must say that in that part of the country people are more religious and traditional, but almost every city in Spain (but in Catalunya) has his own procession where thousands of locals and foreigns follow the procesión all the way through the streets. Just some lucky men can carry the religious icons and symbols of their faith, and as far as I know, women are not allow to take part of the main ritual. Anyway, there's something magic and I can't find the words to explain the feeling of respect, solemnity and even fear that this tradition radiates. I must confess I'm not friend with that kind of fanaticism, but I have to recognize that is something impressive.

So, what do you prefer? Slovenia or Spain?

We are planning to repeat the pirhi experience and paint our Easter eggs. I will report soon! Enjoy the holidays!