Easter Holidays: Tips for weekend breaks

Historically there are several colours associated with Easter but for me Yellow is the one that is redolent of Easter.  The primary colour yellow relates to the rays of the sun, now riding higher in the sky, and is a harbinger of summer joys and happiness to come.  The cold white associated with winter snow is now gone (we hope).  Greens are also associated with Easter spreading glimmers of hope from the carpets of grass and tiny new leaf buds.

Easter is one of the most important annual religious festivals but it is also just as much celebrated for the over indulgence of all things chocolate.  The shop windows are exceptionally alluring, particularly shops in continental European countries such as Switzerland and Austria, where they take infinite pride in their Easter window displays.  The Cafe Demel in Vienna is a very famous coffee shop and its cakes and pastries are simply divine.  Their displays are regarded as confectionery art –stunningly beautiful to look at and delicious to sample.

Perhaps a little trip to Switzerland for Easter might be a good suggestion as both Aer Lingus and Swissair have very good schedules to Zurich and Geneva.   For art aficionados a new art exhibition in the Pully Museum featuring landscapes by one of Switzerland’s greatest artists, Ferdinand Hodler, has just opened.  Hodler was renowned for his studies in parallelism. Pully is on the outskirts of Lausanne, a compact city with lots to do and see and plenty of night life.  It is also one of the cleanest places in the world; they were hoovering the cobble stones on the street when I was there last week. The Royal Savoy in Lausanne makes for a good base, being a five star hotel on the shores of Lake Geneva.

Back home in Ireland and keeping with my Yellow theme The Mustard Seed at Echo Lodge in Ballingarry, Co. Limerick have Easter offers which are very tempting indeed.  Ballingarry is such a pretty little village and being located not too far from Adare it is an attractive option for those who don’t want a long tedious drive to get to their destination.  Their website mentions a hike up the nearby Knockfierna ‘The Hill of Truth’ as a good outdoor activity and one that might work off some of those chocolate excesses.  You could always avoid the chocolate eggs (almost impossible) and just opt to visit their chicken run first thing in the morning and choose your own real eggs for breakfast – now that’s sensible.

For me, well I have my Easter Tree up already and am trying to avoid little nibbles of those seducing little chocolate eggs; otherwise there will be none left for Easter!