Easter Wells

In our part of Germany, it is a tradition to decorate the town well for Easter.  The Franconian Switzerland area is the origin of the so-called Osterbrunnen. It describes the colorful decoration of public water wells during the Easter season. During the time of modernization and the construction of canalization, this custom had lost its significance. Only in the early 1980s, it was rediscovered and in 1986 169 villages again decorated their water wells. Today, more than 200 villages decorate their village well with colored easter eggs. The main reason for this custom is probably the significance of water for the arid high plateau of the Franconian Switzerland.

The Bieberbach Osterbrunnen was admitted to the Guinness Book of Records as "the largest Osterbrunnen of the world".  When Kelli was here, we drove to the town to look at the well.  It is the largest, most elaborate well that I have seen!  Very beautiful and all of the eggs are REAL and hand-painted.

 

As we drove along we came across other towns with wells, so here are some of those!  Not as huge as in Bieberbach, but still very pretty.  Some wells were decorated with real eggs and some had plastic eggs.

Another neat German tradition!