2019 – Bad Reichenhall Florian Fountain

Every two or three years, there is a special reason to visit Bad Reichenhall at Easter: The Easter Fountain (Osterbrunnen).

Once a yearly event, the Saint Florian Fountain is now decorated every two to three years with other villages in the surrounding area decorating their Easter fountains in the other years.

The Facts:

Eggs: Total amount of hand-painted eggs in 2019? 4,300. Egg sizes range from quail to ostrich.
All the eggs are real eggs blown out and dried before being hand-painted locally.
As Thomas said, “That’s a lot of crepes.”

Garlands: 54 meters of hand-made double-stranded garlands created out of local evergreens and laurel bushes. Every aspect of the Catholic Palm Branch is included in the complex and heavy garlands.

Hours to Create: over 4,500 hours of volunteer work.

Decorating the Fountain

This fountain is traditionally decorated around Palm Sunday and remains decorated until about a week after Easter.

Every fountain is fundamentally different. It is decorated by a volunteer group who takes over 12 hours to carefully drape and place all of the garlands.

After placing them on and around the St. Florian Fountain, the eggs are pulled out and carefully fastened to the garlands and secured into artistic baskets decorating the fountain.

First come the unpainted and single-colored eggs at the top of the fountain. These eggs are all dip-painted and do not count to the hand-painted eggs. The fountains four sides each have a different color scheme and the fountain top was all in blue this year.

In the middle of the fountain, four ostrich eggs with pictures representing Bad Reichenhall, the region and Easter were hung.

After placing the base eggs came the difficult part: placing the hand-painted eggs around the fountain. Each egg has a story. The school children of all grades painted eggs, as did the local artists and church members. Every egg is different and unique to the person who painted it. The Kindergarten eggs painted to look like Easter bunnies complete with paper teeth are just as artistically placed as the intricate flowers painted by the known local artist.

Visiting the Fountain

This year, the official unveiling matched up with the spring Market Sunday of Bad Reichenhall., but as Thomas is certifiably allergic to both large groups of people and shopping, we decided to skip it. We were not aware that this year was the “Year of the Fountain” until the next day when I saw its picture in the news.

It’s times like that when I really love this blogging thing I’m starting to do. It is a great argument for getting to go see things that Thomas just may not have on his radar.

If you have a chance to come visit us around Easter time, please keep a look out for these fountains. If you want to know where the next ones will be placed, just keep a look out here or ask me. I’ll make sure you know when you can see the Easter Fountains of Bavaria.

Once you get here, just follow the signs.