Osterbrunnen Fahrt (Easter Fountain Tour)

Hi everyone,

Well our first tour this year was with Wolfgang's school friends on a daytrip to see the Easter Fountains. There is an area of Germany called the Fränkische Schweiz where the towns decorate their communal fountains with beautiful easter eggs. It started with some towns decorating for Easter with white eggs and greenery around their original town fountains and then it grew from there to 194 towns decorating their fountains. It also went from white eggs to dyed eggs to handpainted eggs and the fountain decorations grew bigger and bigger. So now these fountains are decorated two weeks before and stay so for two weeks after Easter. During this time, the tour buses tour the towns and enjoy the fountains. One fountain has actually made it into the Guinness Book of Records. All right so here we go....

We stopped for Lunch in a very nice town called Ebermannstadt. OK, this town means Hogman City when you translate it. Anyway, we had a wonderful lunch, walked through the town, saw some great fountains with statues and our first decorated fountain.

Here is Wolfgang remembering how to do something he had to do every day as a boy.

A casual shot of Rosi, Günther and Sarah after eating a very nice lunch.

Rosi by the first Fountain. Remember these are all real eggs and hand painted. Many of the towns have local school children decorate the eggs.

The next couple of pictures will show you the eggs and their decorations.

A lovely water mill at the edge of town as we walked back to the bus.
Notice the water jugs pouring the water.

The next town we went to had a really big fountain but not the Guinness Book fountain, that comes later in our blog. This was the first big one we saw and each side is decorated by a different elementary school class.

Real egg, cut open and decorated on the inside. Many of these on this fountain.

These eggs were painted by the first graders. The town is Heiligenstadt.

A special Ladybug egg. Ladybugs are a symbol of luck in Germany.

Aren't we great tourists!

There was an Imker stand (a beekeeper is an Imker) selling Honey.
I thought this was a wonderful decoration.

Some fountains we saw along the way.

Ok, this is a kick. If you look closely, you will see that this is a guy on a
bicycle at the top of the mountain. You ask why is he there, no idea.

OK, this fountain belongs to the Basilica in Gößweinstein. A Basilica is Cathedral that has been blessed by the Pope. The inside was designed by the same man that designed the inside of the Residence in Würzburg.

Again, along the way. This town is celebrating their 25th year
of decorating their fountain. Of course, written with eggs.

Had to include this picture. Some guy is raising Kangaroos. Not to eat, just to prove that they can live in Germany. If you look closely at this picture, you will see a second little guy.

OK, the last fountain is the one from the Guinness Book of Records.
There are over 11,000 handpainted eggs on this fountain.

Hey we are in Germany so rain is not too big of a surprise.

Proof that they are real eggs.

OK, so the end of our tour is with an Easterbunny school. These are bunnies all carved from wood. Notice that the school house is by a Toadstool. We enjoyed seeing this very unique tradition and hope you enjoyed the tour as well. Auf Wiedersehen!