An expat's Easter in Germany

Often when my US office colleagues hear that we have both Friday and Monday of Easter weekend off as office holidays, they start the good-natured commenting about how Euros have it so good, and that they will be working hard one of those days, blah blah bah.

What they do not understand is that Easter in Europe, and in particular Germany, is not like Easter in the US. First of all, everyone gets the days off, across the board--offices, supermarkets, etc. So everyone has a four day weekend with all businesses shut. You can imagine the chaos that ensues on Thursday evening when the entire world is in the supermarket picking it clean. Because the supermarket will be shut for four days, they're not exactly loading up on stock. If you get a can of beans to hold you over, consider yourself lucky.

For those who have family here, it's a perfect family visiting time.
For those who are religious, there are plenty of religous activities.
For those who have gardens/yards, the weather is just starting to get nice, and with four days off you can get some serious work done.

For the rest of us, what to do? TRAVEL. However, that is not as easy as it sounds.
--First of all, you're up against Germans who regularly schedule their holidays a 51 weeks in advance, so flights to all the warm sunny places are ultra expensive.

--All the cheap airlines as well as the trains know the traffic patterns, so you're up against it to find a cheap mode of transportation out. For those of us who love traveling and the planning of travel, it can be considered the 'ultra challenge'.

--Finally, you must take into account that many things that you may like to visit such as museums or shops will be closed, so you need to adjust your plans to take advantage of things that will be open.

Here's my track record since being here:
Easter 2003 - Belfast, Northern Ireland with Flybe. I was working in the UK, so I took a cheap flight up to Ireland. This city remains as one of my top five favorites. It's much less touristed than Dublin and you can get a real feel for the life there.

Easter 2004 - Stockholm, Sweden and Helsinki, Finland with German Wings. We flew into Stockholm and spent a night/day and then took the overnight ferry to Helsinki where we spent another night/day. Both cities are expensive, but the ferry was great, in particular watching Finnish karaoke. However, Helsinki is so shut down on Easter Monday, we had problems to even find someplace to eat, so bring along rations.

Easter 2005 - Malaga, Spain, with LTU. I was feeling that winter too hard and needed to go South. Malaga was a nice city, mainly filled with Spaniards on holiday. In the evening people created religious scultures in the sand and surrounded them with lighted candles. My other major memory of this weekend was seeing what looked to be someone in a KKK get-up, pointed hood and all, but all in purple instead of white, and then seeing more of them on a televised Easter religious procession. I later found out it's a costume worn in that region of Spain for Easter week celebrations. Scroll halfway down this page to see an example: http://www.carnaval.com/spain/semanasanta/

Easter 2006 - Katowice, Poland with German Wings. What's there you ask? It's the closest airport if you want to visit Auschwitz. That was something that should be visited by everyone, once. In addition, Katowice has a megamall that is open on Sundays until 21.00, including Easter Sunday and Monday. Glad to see that the Poles can embrace Catholicism and capitalism simultaneously.

Easter 2007 - will be Linz, Austria with TUIfly (formerly HLX). Why Linz?
-It is a cheap flight and thus far I've not really visited Austria, unless you count the time we took the local bus from Lichtenstein.
-Plenty of camping possibilities.
-I am extremely impressed with what they have put together for visitors. http://www.linz.at/english/tourism/default_630.asp I filled out their online form and less than a week later I received a large envelope filled with the free maps and such as I had requested, as well as a signed welcome letter in English. In addition, they had a comments box when requesting maps/brochures, and I requested any camping information that they have, and they kindly sent me a beautifully detailed map with camping sites marked. This is the most impressive tourist office I have seen so far in Europe.
-Planning is currently underway!