Christmas markets 2009

It's that time of the year again ... when Christmas markets open up all over Europe and you can barely walk 5 steps without running into a Gluehwein hut ... and you suddenly find yourself having the urgent need of shopping, eating or drinking something. This is however not the case in Zurich, where the entire Christmas-market, including the Christmas tree decorated by Swarovski crystals is hidden within the main station. Very practical set-up, no snow storm or sudden rain can ruin the 'business' ... but: there is no Christmas spirit either.

So we decided to visit some 'real' Christmas-markets in the last couple of weekends. This year we booked our room in Strasbourg early enough (in August already) as we found out last year that there is no chance finding a room several weeks in advance for any December - weekend within 60 kms radius around the city. No wonder there are so many people visiting Strasbourg this time of the year. It is called "la Capitale de Noël" – the Christmas capital ... the entire old town is one huge Christmas market with hunderds of little shops selling a huge variaty of toys, candles, Christmas-deko, crepes and vin chaud ... and thousands of people wondering around and enjoying the holiday-spirit. The only thing missing from turning the place into a real winter magic was the snow (looks like someone forgot to 'order' it from Santa this year :-))

You can see some of the photos we took in Strasbourg in our album here:

From EUROPE - FRANCE -Strasbourg

Strasbourg was however not the only (and first) Christmas market we visited this year. One week earlier we had a weekend trip to the Netherlands and Germany: first a housewarming party in NL with Krisztina's colleagues, then the Weihnachtsmarkt in Cologne. We had the feeling that german Christmas markets are all about eating an drinking (you can find here tons of tradional food, showing the many different nationalities living in the country) and of course, plenty of Gluehwein. See some of our photos here:

EUROPE - GERMANY - Cologne_by Christmas

Santa also arrived to our home in Zurich, bringing nice presents not only for us, but also for our little friend Gulliver.

From 2009 - Karacsony