Ausflug: Zons & The Easter Egg Market

The Saturday before Easter (a few days after we returned from our trip to Switzerland), J very sweetly agreed to take a trip to Zons with me to check out the Ostereiermarkt (Easter egg market) and to see the small medieval town. Zons is only about 25 km from our apartment, but it took us 2 hours to reach it due to some poor planning on my part. The trip home involved walking/jogging 4 km from Zons to the train station to make it to the station in time! It's definitely one of those places that is much easier to see by car since the bus schedule and the train schedule don't align well. But I'm glad that we went :)

Zons was originally an toll station set up by the archbishop of Cologne to collect tarifs from boat traffic. Now the Rhine has silted up and Zons is about 0.5 km from the river bank, but the old part of the village is still very charming.

The Easter egg market was held in the Kreismuseum, which is part of an old castle in the village. There were about 40 artists selling their eggs. You weren't allowed to take pictures at many of the tables, but I did manage to get a few shots.

every kind of egg you can imagine (except platypus)

the red and black pattnerned egg near the front is made by placing tiny pieces of straw in a pattern--incredible!

I also bought 3 eggs, 2 made by painting eggs and then scratching designs to reveal the lighter shell underneath and 1 made by painting on the egg.

Apparently, Zons is also famous for its pig statues, which commemorate the local legend in which the town gets the Archbishop of Cologne to pay back the citizens of Zons for some pigs he stole (termed the "Schweinefehde").

We are touring around Germany with the New Hampshire Ferwerdas for the next few days, but I'll be back soon with pictures and stories from our adventures!