Text by Fran Tehan and images by Jemma Watts

When I told people that I was heading to Crete for a long weekend of festivities there was much animated talk of plate-smashing and dancing the Sirtaki à la Zorba the Greek. We weren’t too far off the mark. Factor in some crazy firework dispays and nocturnal feasting against a dramatic landscape reminiscent of an ancient Minoan civilisation and you’re there.

Easter – or “Pascha”, (Passover) is the most important event in the Greek calendar, and incorporates ceremony, celebration, tradition, feasting – and fireworks. ‘”300 million fireworks were confiscated in Athens alone this year” our host George, an ex-mayor, tells us. It transpires that even the laid-back Greeks have recognized that the rather lax control over these fireworks needs to be tightened.

On Easter Saturday night the local church in Palaikastro (near Siteia in the North-East) is full to bursting with families carrying their Easter candles and preparing for the burning of the effigy of Judas in the town square. A small makeshift table in the square offers an array of traditional Easter fare – a basket of kokkina (dyed red eggs), some kalitsouni (Easter sweet bread filled with cheese and honey) and some large bottles of ‘soft drink’; I’m thinking raki, or Cretan firewater, the drink of choice here.

The bonfire is lit and fireworks whizz erratically through the night sky. None of the locals seem particularly fazed. Babies continue sleeping in their prams. We’re wondering whether we’ll make it to the other side of the square. We do – and celebrate with a shot of raki: it would be rude not to.

Food is a major event in the Greek Easter celebrations. When we arrive in the island’s capital Heraklion on Good Friday at the end of Holy Week, the enticing aroma of charred octopus fills the air. Traditionally Good Friday is the strictest day for fasting in the Lenten calendar and no blood or dairy products (or oil) are allowed.

After the church service and pyrotechnic display on Easter Saturday, the traditional supper – at 1am – is an offal extravaganza. The thrifty Greeks cleverly use up all the innards of the lamb that is being prepared for the Easter Sunday feast and create a rich, lemony soup called magiritsa. Or, they just serve it straight up, no frills. It’s a daunting concept either way, the idea of offal at any time of the day but particularly at one in the morning. The belief is also that, after so many days of Lenten fasting, this is a good and gentle way of re-introducing meat to the digestive system.

We eat liver and heart, two types of cheese, sweet bread and a Greek salad, all washed down with a delicious local organic wine from the Toplou Monastery nearby. This, it transpires, is just the starter and sets a precedent for our next 24 hours of Easter feasting. The main course is a delicious slow-cooked lamb and risotto-style rice cooked in its juices. We then roll – quite literally – back into town for more celebrations.

The next day we emerge, bleary-eyed and still replete to the smell of spit-roasting lamb and more gastronomic delights. We are to be welcomed by Abbot Philotheos at the Toplou Monastery, situated just outside Palaikastro in a remote and rugged corner of the North Eastern Sidero peninsula. The Abbot is a local celebrity here – famous throughout Greece for his pioneering organic farming collective and award-winning olive oil, so we are honoured to be his guests.

The atmospheric Easter Sunday service takes place and we are then invited to join the Abbot for lunch in the refectory, decorated with colourful Byzantine frescoes (painstakingly reproduced in recent years by a local disabled artist). We sit on a long table with a group of friends from Heraklion, most of whom are called George, and jokes are made accordingly as we tuck into more succulent lamb, especially as the ‘Name Day’ for George is traditionally the day after Easter Sunday. There is much cracking of red eggs as is customary and – unsurprisingly – more raki.

The next day, St George’s Day, finds our host George out of action. It seems that he’s had a heavy night, as would be the case for a large percentage of the male Greek population. He surfaces eventually, and we wish him a Chronia Polla (‘Many Years’), a customary greeting. We drive up one more time to see the Abbot and to do a quick tour of his winery and distillery. As we leave the factory site, we walk past a large weighing scale, probably used for olives. The Abbot indicates for me to stand on them and makes emphatic hand gestures. He laughs heartily. I feel fat, but enlightened.

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