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Orthodox Easter Sunday falls on 2 May 2027. Good Friday, with the epitaphios processions, is 30 April, and Holy Saturday, with the pot throwing, is 1 May. Palm Sunday, 25 April, opens Holy Week in Corfu Town with the longest procession of Saint Spyridon's relic.
On Holy Saturday morning, when the Metropolitan chants the hymn of the First Resurrection, the church bells ring and residents drop clay pots, called botides, from their windows and balconies. The pots are filled with water and break on the street below.
In the lanes of the old town around the Liston and the Spianada, where the tall houses have balconies over the street. Those lanes fill quickly on Holy Saturday morning.
The epitaphios of each church in Corfu Town is carried through the streets with choirs and bands, from early afternoon into the night. Last of all, the three philharmonic bands of the city together accompany the epitaphios of the Metropolitan Church.
On the bandstand of the Upper Square of the Spianada, just before midnight on Holy Saturday. The three philharmonic bands play the march Grekoi together, and fireworks follow.
Saint Spyridon is the patron saint of Corfu Town, and his relic leads two processions in Holy Week. On Holy Saturday morning it leaves his church together with the church's epitaphios, a procession held in memory of the island's escape from a famine. On Palm Sunday at 11am it follows the line of the old town walls.
No. The processions, the pot throwing and the Resurrection service all take place in the streets, squares and churches of Corfu Town, and anyone can watch.
Morning services are held across the town, and two of the philharmonic bands play at the church of Saint Spyridon. In the evening the Vespers of Love at the Metropolitan Church has the Gospel read in many languages.
Corfu Town keeps Orthodox Holy Week with processions, church bands and customs from its centuries under Venice. Orthodox Easter follows its own calendar, so it often falls weeks apart from Western Easter.
The botides, clay pots dropped from balconies on Holy Saturday, go back to the Venetian habit of breaking old jugs on New Year's Day. Corfiots moved it to Easter, and today visitors take the shards home.
30 Apr to 2 May 2027
Be in Corfu Town at 11am on Holy Saturday, 1 May 2027, when the church bells ring and residents drop clay pots full of water from their balconies onto the lanes below.
30 Apr to 2 May 2027. Times are approximate and can change from year to year.
The town's churches carry their epitaphios, the decorated image of Christ in the tomb, through the streets one after another from early afternoon, each with a choir or band.
Inside the church of Saint Spyridon, the procession goes round the nave to a band.
The town's three main bands play together behind the Metropolitan Church's procession, the last of the night.
At the church of Panagia ton Xenon the faithful bang the pews and shake the icons and lamps, acting out the earthquake that followed the Resurrection.
The saint's relic leaves his church in procession, and the three bands play in a fixed order.
The bells of every church ring for the First Resurrection, and the pots fall from windows and balconies across the old town.
On the bandstand of the Spianada's Upper Square, the three bands play Grekoi together and fireworks go up.
Two of the bands play at the saint's church on Easter morning.
At the Metropolitan Church the Gospel is read in many languages.
The pot throwing happens only in Corfu, and so does the sound of Holy Week here: uniformed brass bands with slow funeral marches behind the processions.
On Holy Saturday morning the patron saint's relic is carried through the streets with the bier of Christ from his church. Elsewhere in Greece that bier goes out a day earlier, on Good Friday.
For the pots, stand in the old town lanes near the Liston and the Spianada, where balconies hang over the street. Look for the windows hung with red cloth. Once the pots have smashed, the bands march out again playing Grekoi.
The processions are church services. Keep your voice down and your flash off, and give the bands and the clergy room to pass.
Our pick is Domes Miramare, a Luxury Collection Resort, an adults-only beach resort about 30 minutes south of Corfu Town by taxi. On the procession nights, book the taxi back ahead: the nights run late and traffic round the old town is heavy. To walk to every procession instead, stay in the old town at the Bella Venezia Hotel, a few minutes from the Spianada.
Add the five days to your plan, travel days included
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