April 21, 2011

Eggs


While in Germany and Austria in the Spring of 2003 we were pleased to see the breakfast rooms of the pensions we stayed in were nicely decorated for Easter. Pink and yellow puffball chicks, rabbits with barrows and twig trees decked out with eggs made an Easter tableau in each window sill. Nothing could compare however to the shop window we saw in Salzburg. At the corner of Judengasse and Getreidegasse, probably less than a minute’s walk from Mozart’s birthplace, was a shop that sold only Easter eggs.

These weren’t chocolate Easter eggs (though I wish they had been) but dozens after dozens of perilously delicate eggs shells, each one hand-decorated to suit just about any taste.

The shop called Easter in Salzburg sold eggs for Halloween, eggs for Christmas, eggs for birthdays. Personalized eggs. Some were very elegant; others just for kids. The deceivingly large store showcased over a hundred thousand of these little oval beauties over two floors. An ostrich egg bearing a picture of Mozart cost €150, but a modestly decorated chicken’s egg was priced around €2. Despite the reasonable price, I had content myself with some photos. I wouldn’t have managed to get a single egg back to my hotel room.

37 comments:

Shokoofeh said...

Oh thank YOU for your sweet comment!
you have a beautiful blog! :)

xo

Ronda Laveen said...

I enlarged the egg photo and it is amazing! Thanks so much for sharing this fantastic post. I had no idea!

lettuce said...

thats an amazing photo! they look so haphazard, for such delicate things! wow

Rinkly Rimes said...

My Egg contribution isn't quite as deliciously elegant as yours, but you may find this Aboriginal fable interesting. I hope so.

http://rinklyrimes.blogspot.com/2009/04/hatching-what.html

Rinkly Rimes said...

My EGG contribution can be found at


http://rinklyrimes.blogspot.com/2009/04/hatching-what.html


Thanks for being the encourager.

Candie said...

This must be an interesting place to go shopping!
Happy Easter :)

The Clever Pup said...

To find out more about Theme Thursday check out http://themethursday.blogspot.com

I'll put a link to their site on my page soon.

Brian Miller said...

wow. thats a lot of eggs. interesting story of your travels. eggs for all occassions...go figure.

Tess Kincaid said...

Wow, they're fabulous! And so many of them! I enlarged the pic for the details and they are just lovely.

Wings1295 said...

Wow, that sounds like a wonderful place! Thanks for sharing. :)

Giulia said...

Ah, a wonderful familiar sight. I tried to explain this to friends one time & they thought I was kidding around. I can't wait to send this link to them. Also, I can't help it, I think of how Julie would love to pounce in like the big cat-bunny she is (& no I would never indulge her in this.) Lovely photo & post, Mme.Pup. xo svs/gg

Polly said...

I saw hundreds of painted egg shells yesterday in Kraków's Main Square, this is a very central European tradition. I love them, too, the patterns painted on them can be so elaborate and colourful. But like you, I would never dare trying to take one with me back to London, I'm sure it would go to pieces on the way!

Thanks for visiting my blog. I am in fact half Polish half German, my German half coming from Baden-Wuerttemberg. I had no idea Toronto has a suburb of Little Poland, but then again most big cities in the world do - us Poles have tendency to spread around the world. Thanks for your comments. Polly x

artslice said...

Amazing photograph ... all those eggs! Great post.

Lyn said...

Every day brings its own astonishment! Thank you for this wonderful post, and blog..if you hadn't visited, so much to miss!!

tut-tut said...

Hi Pup! I haven't heard of eggs decorated for other holidays. Great photo. Were they all blown out? Imagine doing that . . .

New Yorker wannabes said...

Thank you for sharing your mempries of this journey with us! A personalised egg...hmmmm lol

Take care
peace and love

DineometerDeb said...

Sounds like a lovely place to travel to. If only I had the time, money, and frequent flyer miles to go there. : (

Kat Mortensen said...

I saw your remark at Willow's, CP and the question I'm asking myself is, am I actually younger than I thought (please), and were we separated at birth?

Kat

Jelica said...

I know this store! I also made a picture of it during our brief visit to Salzburg a month ago--I couldn't believe the amount of eggs in that shop window :)

Kat Mortensen said...

What a shame you couldn't bring one home, but I guess that was virtually impossible.
Did you ever get those "Paaz" kits as a kid? I used to love decorating eggs!

Kat

CocoDivaDog said...

Ahhhhh,
A Euro take on the egg theme!
I am a rather clumsy person...always tripping. I could NEVER enter a shop filled with such treasures!
Thank you.

Michael Rawluk said...

When the photo is viewed large, we can see how amazing those eggs are.

Mrsupole said...

I am with the rest of them, when the photo is englarged it is amazing to see so many eggs decorated. I cannot say that I have ever seen anything like it before.

Thank you so much for sharing this with us. It would be a wonderful place to visit, but I am like Auntie and would be afraid to walk in unless they had very wide aisles, but even then I would be afraid I was gonna trip and fall on the cases of eggs. Sigh.

God bless.

The Silver Fox said...

Now I want an egg that looks like Mozart! No fair!

Reyjr said...

i loved Salzburg. :D

California Girl said...

My first visit. Amazing to think one little shop would showcase that many eggs!

Love the artwork and looks like more interesting posts to read.

Coffee Messiah said...

The World and the eggs within are amazing ; )

tony said...

A Happy Easter.
It puzzles me..what would those eggs be used for?Paper-Weights?'cant help wondering what Customs at the Airport would make of such eggs? Might think you some sort of Terrorist Eggstremeist?

Evening Light Writer said...

This is a far cry from our Easter egg decorating regime which involved swishing an egg in a cup of food coloring and water. Tose look beautiful.

StimmeDesHerzens said...

Hi H,
sorry bout the confusion, in the entry purple haze(l) you said in a note "I have another, less costumey, one from April Cornell,which I wore out last night." which is what I was referring to in my note 'ohne man' cause I wondered if he was back from muchen. :-) i responded on my site but then couldn't erase which is a feature i don't like~ LOVE the eggs and remember the shop well, its a great art form, you could do it too!

Zuzana said...

What an interesting shop; in my culture it is very common to have "empty" eggs decorated for Easter.;) However I have never seen eggs decorated for Halloween.;)
Thank you so much for stopping by my place.;) In regards to your question, I think the "Easter Lilies" that you mention are often used in a flower bouquet here under the latin derived name "Longiflorum liljer".
Wishing you a wonderful Easter.;)

Elizabeth said...

Your heading is from Rupert.
Wow! Such a blast from the past
and the post below is one of my most beloved photos ever
a lost age if ever there was one
in Europe anyway (men are a little bit more evolved now (maybe)
Glad to have discovered your blog.

Gary said...

Salzburg is such an incredibly beautiful city. I walked around in disbelief that a place could be so clean, colorful and real.

There is a picture that I took in a store window in NYC at 3rd Avenue between 80th & 81st Streets that I am going to post on Sunday that reminds me of yours.

Happy Easter!

Megan said...

Jiminy crickets! That's a lot of eggs!

FireLight said...

Hello, Clever Pup! Thanks for stopping by my little room. This is my first time to visit you, and I must say it is pretty darned EGGciting! Happy Easter!

Kris McCracken said...

Nobody does decoration like Salzburg!

Dakota Bear said...

That is a lot of eggs. It must have been very unusual and interesting to visit a store with all those decorated eggs.