2nd top destination for Easter and spring Greece

Instagram: 2nd top destination for Easter and spring Greece

The DiscoverCars.com used data from Instagram to create a list of the 20 most popular countries to visit at Easter and the 20 most popular countries to visit in spring. The car rental company investigated how often hashtags were used on Instagram referring to each country’s Easter festivities, as well as spring for each destination.

Greece achieved an impressive ranking in both reports – ranking 2nd for Easter destinations and 18th for spring.

Aleksandrs Buraks, Head of Development at DiscoverCars.com, comments:

“Greece has so many rich traditions for both Easter and the coming of spring. We enjoyed exploring this piece and reading about all the different ways people in Greece celebrate the changing seasons as well as Orthodox Holy Week. One of the customs that impressed us the most was the beautiful litanies of Good Friday, where the Epitaph will be carried down the street and followed by a crowd singing hymns.”

“One thing we like about the list is the fact that spring in each of these countries will be a different experience depending on the time of year. If you were to visit Australia or New Zealand in spring, you’d be traveling from September to November, meaning you might see two seasons of spring in the same year!

The Greek Orthodox Easter is a very important period in the Greek calendar and is world famous as a celebration. One of the most special parts of the Greek Orthodox Easter is the Holy Saturday service, held in the churches on Saturday night. Just before midnight, all the lights will go out and the waiting church candles will be lit by the priest. It’s beautiful to see! Afterwards, in many cities and towns, fireworks will be set off to celebrate the Resurrection.

And the next day, Easter Sunday itself, families will gather for a traditional Easter feast, where roast lamb will likely be served, a dish perfected by generations of Greeks.

Greece also ranked in the top 20 spring destinations. One of the nicest Greek spring traditions is that of making and wearing a “marti”. Children often make these red and white bracelets at school on the last day of February, to wear in March. It is supposed to protect against the incoming bright spring sunlight. Some people choose to wear it until the last day of March – others will take it off when they see the first swallow of the season, often tying it to a flowering tree. You can also find variations of this tradition in the neighboring countries of Albania, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Moldova, North Macedonia and Romania.

The top 5 Easter destinations were as follows and you can see the top 20 in the chart below:

The UK ranks 1st as the country was tagged 3655 times on Instagram. Hot cross buns are a traditional British Easter food, dating back to the 12th century. Greece was tagged 2927 times with Easter-related hashtags – an impressive score.

Coming in at 3rd place, Australia achieved a score of 2793. An interesting fact about Easter in Australia is that as part of a conservation effort to protect the country’s wildlife, you will often find references to the Easter Bilby rather than the Easter Bunny. This adorable long-eared marsupial is said to bring children Easter eggs, and you can find chocolate bilbies in many stores in the run-up to the holidays.

Canada ranks 4th, being tagged 1394 times. Every year in the city of Toronto, thousands flock to the Beaches Easter Parade to watch the colorful floats, stilts and bands march through the city. With over 100,000 attendees, last year’s was the largest ever.

Finally, rounding out our top 5, Ireland scored 662. Historically, the Irish tradition of a pageant or dance would take place on Good Friday night and the winner would be awarded a cake.

DiscoverCars.com also compared the order in which countries were ranked for Easter celebrations on Instagram in 2023 with this year’s results.

It is the second year in a row that Greece is in 2nd place. However, Greece is actually one place higher in the ranking than it was in 2023 for the list of spring destinations, having been in 19th place last year.

Dimitris Vambakouris

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