How Countries Around the World Celebrate Easter

• One of the island’s most beloved is the Good Friday kite flying festival on Horseshoe Bay Beach. Hundreds of Bermudians turn out to fly their kites, which are kaleidoscopic, hexagonal wonders with long tails that hum once aloft. The wooden sticks that provide the structural integrity form a cross or star shape, and their annual flight symbolizes the resurrection.
• Traditional Easter dishes in Bermuda include hot cross buns and codfish cakes.
• The island grows Easter lilies and gifts bouquets of the white flowers shaped like trumpets to Buckingham palace every year.

• It all starts on Palm Sunday when churchgoers receive dried flower bouquets or willow branches in lieu of palms.
• Their version of Easter eggs is much more elaborate and intricate. Called pisanki, they are painted with delicate, ornamental floral patterns.
• On Easter Monday, the Poles celebrate “Wet Monday,” in which boys and men pour water on women and girls, although in recent years the tradition has evolved into water fights where no one is safe.
• Warsaw also is home to the Beethoven Easter Festival, which hosts a classical music program through Holy Week.

• Florence holds a ritual called Scoppio del Carro, in which white oxen carry a centuries-old wagon to Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore. After mass, the archbishop sends a mechanical dove into the wagon, which explodes in a spectacular fireworks display.
• A parade through the city follows, and most Easter celebrations don’t stop when the night ends.
• Easter Monday, called Pasquetta (or little Easter), is for packing picnics of leftovers and getting outside to relax. Or, in the Umbrian village of Panicale, rolling four-kilogram wheels of cheeses through an obstacle course.

• The island of Marinduque’s Moriones Festival takes place during Holy Week each year, and a major cornerstone of the festivities is inspired by Longinus, a Roman executioner of Christ.
• Men and women impersonate Roman soldiers, by donning masks, helmets, and gladiator-inspired garb, and wander the streets.
• According to legend, Saint Longinus was blind, and was cured when a drop of Christ’s blood fell in his eye during the crucifixion, as he pierced Christ's side with a lance. He then declared his faith and was later beheaded. This specific tale is often reenacted during the festival.

In Mexico and throughout Latin America, the Easter holiday is an opportunity to cleanse oneself of evil.

• On Holy Saturday, it’s typical to re-enact the burning of Judas by hanging an effigy and burning it at the stake.
• Theatrical renditions of the rest of Easter’s tales, called passion plays, are performed, too. One of the largest and most elaborate of them all is in Iztapalapa, a borough of Mexico City, which has 5,000 participants and 150 speaking roles. The tradition began in 1843 to rejoice the end of a cholera epidemic. Now, the performances begin on Palm Sunday and last through Holy Week.

Eastern Orthodox communities follow the Julian calendar's holiday schedule instead of the Gregorian's. 

• The Holy Fire, which is said to emit from the tomb of Jesus Christ every Holy Saturday, is flown from Jerusalem to Athens and then delivered throughout Greece.
• During midnight church service, the flame is passed from the priest to worshippers’ candles. People say Christ has risen" and "Truly, He has risen".
• Easter marks the end of 40 days of fasting, and the dishes served that day are appropriately indulgent and symbolic: roasted lamb, sweet and fluffy braided bread,  and red hard-boiled eggs.

• Since 1930, Angelenos have celebrated Holy Saturday with a Blessing of the Animals on Los Angeles's Olvera Street—the procession is full of flamboyantly costumed pets and a cow decked out in flowers leads it.
• But New York City is home to perhaps the splashiest of all Easter events in the country: the Easter Parade and Bonnet Festival. Around St. Patrick’s Cathedral in midtown, hundreds of revelers sport towering, whimsical hats.