How to Make Easter Epic

Hiking down the hills.

If you're not careful, Easter can become April's blah long weekend.

For some lucky folks, we see the family and eat a decent meal. In Canada, there’s the Friday off, and a Monday too if you work a cushy government job. 

For many, it doesn’t always feel like a big deal. The weather in my corner of Canada can still be downright Arctic-esque. A lot of people just aren't religious. And still others don't know how to make the most of a long weekend.

The only folks who might appreciate it are the young ones, who crave the Easter chocolate, and the university students with late April exams who crave the studying… or partying.

Maybe there’s the lesson to be learned here: Gather the family for a good meal. Hide eggs all over the place for the kids (and remember where they are, unless you want to find a melted chocolate egg between the couch cushions in July). Hit a patio on Good Friday and pour one out for JC. 

After all, it’s up to you to make Easter epic.

In Europe, we get both the Friday and the Monday off, so if you don't get off the couch on Friday, you can rise and redeem yourself on Monday. It's also easier to catch a flight to wherever. 

And people take advantage of these two precious extra days. They go home. They go somewhere warm. They hike. They get day drunk. They make Easter epic.

This year, we escaped to Hungary – the land of smoked ham and boiled eggs this time of year. Along with many fine family dinners and many deep conversations with toddlers in my broken Hungarian, we also made off to the hills for a 25km hike (my calves are still recovering from this glorious ordeal).

The route, planned by Kata’s dad, took us up and through the hills in the north of the country where we wandered through Hollókő. This small town is like walking into a time machine. It’s been preserved as it was hundreds of years ago with its traditional wooden houses and its residents decked out in their traditional costumes.

There’s an Easter tradition where the boys say a poem and splash the girls with cheap perfume or a bit of water. Because boys are involved, this tradition easily goes off the rails and men spray entire crowds with buckets of water, or soak one girl in particular. We arrived just in time for a man on stilts in traditional costume to do the former.

We walked through the crowds of tourists, up a hill to the castle that overlooks the valley, and back into the forest and hills.

By the end of such a long hike, your feet are tired, your calves feel like they're on fire, and your pace has slowed enough that you can drink in the sights, sounds, and smells of the forest. It's a natural high on nature.

The next day, with my calves still burning from the Hollókő Hike, we ventured down from the hills into the Great Plain of Hungary – by car, not by foot – to visit more family. 

The day after that, we rode on Budapest for a haircut, sausage-shopping, and lunch and still crammed in a visit to Lake Velence to see Kata's brother's new house before catching our flight back to Dusseldorf.

Easters doesn't need chocolate eggs or spring weather or Jesus to be great. Take a note from the kids, the university students, and the Europeans: make your Easter epic.

The folklore girls look on as the man with the stilts and bucket of water recites his poem to them.

The leader of the hike and the castle... and a sword fight in the background.

The traditional time machine to olden times Hungary.