Thursday before Easter: a visit to an ancient craft market. We show you old Cretan crafts: a pottery, wood carving, distillation of raki and a wine tasting room. Here you can learn more about the traditional Greek cuisine; you can see a loft with Cretan herbs, candles factory, beekeeper and honey. You can also visit a Cretan farm with various animals, and drink coffee on a Greek square. Along the way we will visit several villages to show you how people on the island prepare for Easter.

Friday before Easter: Good Friday in Crete is called "Big Friday". On "Big Friday" everybody is busy with final preparations for the Greek Easter celebration.

Rivers Tour: This is a hike of 10-12 km. This hike is suitable for everyone. During this river tour we will hike through beautiful nature, and we will show you undiscovered Crete. This walk is nature, culture and a lot of Crete. Registration is required.

Saturday before Easter: Greek Cooking class and preparation of Greek Easter dishes. Start 13.00 am. At 23.15 hours we will walk from the apartments to the big church in Gournes for the Easter celebration. At midnight a Judas doll will be burned at this church. There are a lot of fireworks and the whole village goes out to herald the Easter festivities.

Sunday, Easter Day in Crete: Greek Easter, starting at 12.00-13.00 hours. We will have a traditional lamb barbecue and enjoy an extended Easter lunch & dinner in the sun. A day with a lot of Greek (live) music and culture. On this day you will celebrate the traditional Easter in Greece.

Monday, Easter Monday:  an Easter hike of 10-12 km in Crete. This is an adventurous tour through a beautiful area with lots of flowers and wildlife. We will depart from the accommodation at 11.00 am, and we will be back around 17.30 pm.

Tuesday after Easter: Cooking class in the mountains; a cooking afternoon on location. In the morning we will visit the big gypsy market in Alikarnassos. We leave at 10.00 am and we will be back at the accommodation at 12.30 pm. Then we will leave to go cooking in the mountains at 13.00 pm. During the cooking class you will learn about various methods of Greek cooking, we will pick herbs and make herb tea from the mountains. We are back at the accommodation at 17.00-17.30 pm.

Many people are not really familiar with the celebration of Easter in Greece. We will tell you something more about it: nowhere in the world is the Easter week experienced as intense as in Greece. Nature is at her best during this period. From the Monday before Easter every day is called "big" here: "Big Monday", etc. On all these "big” days it is fun to go look in the villages at the preparations for the Easter festivities. There is a lot of activity. Almost all villages make an Easter bonfire, which is lit on the Big Saturday. The young people are busy all week to collect wood. In one village the stake is even higher than in the other. Often there is a sort of rivalry between the villages which one will have the largest fire. During this week a lot of fireworks are lit already during the collection of the wood.

During the preparations of Easter, it is worth it to just go and sit at a market square. Old Greek women will walk by with bread that they make at home. Their own Easter bread is then baked in the oven of the local bakery. Eggs are painted red everywhere, and sometimes that will happen the old fashioned way, so that the eggs after just as red on the inside after two days! On Good Friday, "Big" Friday, everyone goes to church in the evening. From the church the priest will walk in front and behind him a symbolic tomb of Christ is carried by young men.

The boys who carry this ornate symbolic tomb are almost always the guys who will leave for military service the following year; this is basically an unwritten village rule. The boys go with the tomb past all the chapels and churches of the village.

Old women pass crouching underneath the symbolic tomb, hoping for miracles. When the procession returns to the church where they began, everyone goes home. At home often soup and salad are eaten for dinner. On “Big” Saturday Easter actually begins. After 40 days of fasting (this is usually only the older generation) everybody can get back to meat and milk.

On Saturday evening (Easter), the priest proclaims at midnight that Christ has risen, but let's say that the priest is almost never heard, because as soon as he comes out the fireworks start exploding! The sky is red and there is a lot of explosive popping noise. In the earlier years in Crete this was done with guns.

Everyone now goes with a candle to get the "sacred" fire from the candle of the priest. This is fire from Jerusalem. Then everyone goes home with a burning candle. What you see is really great: people are driving by car from the church to their house trying to make sure that the candle does not extinguish! Actually, the tradition is to walk home with a burning candle in your hand. At home with the candle a black cross is burned on the wall above the door for a good year.

Just watch when you're in Greece: you will frequently encounter a black cross over a door. Are eggs are broken, egg against egg. People eat until late at night.

Easter Sunday in Crete: the tradition of Easter Sunday is still fun. Early in the morning the lamb is put on the spit and the timber made of grapes and olives is ignited. It is a real chore to get the lamb on the spit the right way. The lamb has to be on the spit for at least 6 hours, so the Easter lamb starts to be roasted over the fire as early as 8 am already. The first wine is consumed early in the day already. At about 2 in the afternoon the family sits around the table, and everywhere sounds of pleasant Cretan music can be heard, and we do this again on Monday.

If you are interested in Easter holiday in Crete, please send us an e-mail. We offer you options in combination with accommodation in Crete, Greece. Check out our accommodation page: Easter vacation apartment rental

Easter Excursions Crete  This page gives you a lot of information about: Easter holiday opportunities in Crete.