Brian and I have always lived our lives as after-Thanksgiving people. Meaning, you cannot celebrate the Christmas spirit until Thanksgiving has come and gone. However, it definitely was different for us this year since we live in a country who doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving at all. As soon as Halloween was over (which also isn’t fully adopted here like it is in the States), the Christmas lights were up and the carols were playing. Now, don’t get me wrong, stores all over the States do this as well; however, there isn’t, in my opinion, a clear feeling of Christmas spirit until after Thanksgiving back home. But here, October 31st is over and BAM! It’s Christmas time.
So, the weekend after we celebrated our Friendsgiving at the Castle, the Christmas market was set-up in Harrogate. I’ve been to “Christmas markets” before back home, but the Harrogate one put them all to shame. There were tons of vendors selling a variety of items from sheep wool blankets to beef jerky. Brian and I also tried roasted chestnuts for the first time, and they were actually pretty good. We visited the market a few days in a row since it was right around the corner from our house.
But while the Harrogate Christmas market put all of the ones I’ve been to in the States to shame, the German Christmas markets made the Harrogate Christmas market seem like a joke. The Christkindlmarkt originated in Germany centuries ago, so needless to say, they do them right. Brian and I have talked about going to the Christmas markets since we knew we were moving over here, so we didn’t waste anytime to make our way to Deutsche Land over the holiday season.
Our friends Jayson and Jami live in Wiesbaden, which is outside of Frankfurt, so we had multiple reasons to visit Germany. They were gracious enough to put us up for a few days and take us around to four different Christmas markets. Frankfurt is a direct 1 hour and 40 minute flight from Manchester, so it was easy enough to get to!
We flew out on Wednesday, December 11th and arrived in Frankfurt around dinnertime. The first night we just relaxed and caught up with our friends. They, like us, are living overseas away from family, so it was really nice to commiserate with good friends in similar positions; although, they admittedly have it harder since they live in a country with an entirely different language!
Thursday morning we woke up with Asher super early cause that’s what he does now. He’s a 6 a.m. riser, ladies and gents (although, I shouldn’t complain since most of the time he will sleep 10 hours through the night…). Anywho, Brian and Jayson walked to a local bakery and picked us up some delicious treats for breakfast. Brian and I have a local bakery in England that we visit most Saturdays to grab some pastries or flapjacks (which are not pancakes by the way), and they’re good, but no where near as good as the pastries we got in Germany. Brian picked up two different treats for us, one being a cherry treat which was SO GOOD. It was a pretty relaxed morning around the house.
As soon as Asher woke up from his morning nap, we decided to head into Wiesbaden for some lunch before exploring their market. Now, as stated in my previous post, and multiple times before, we had made it clear to Jayson and Jami that one food we did want was a good burger. So, they took us to a local restaurant that was called Das Burger for some burgers and beers. They promised that they offered really good burgers, and they truly did not disappoint. Brian ordered a spicy burger and I got their burger of the day which included a variety of cheeses and truffle mayo.
A side note here. When we arrived, Asher was particularly fussy (for him). We are incredibly lucky because Asher is the most flexible baby I’ve ever met and he takes all of our traveling in stride, so it was weird to see him this way. It didn’t take long to see he was really hungry, which we quickly came to see was a bit of a growth spurt, so I shared some with Asher, along with the food we packed for him and he seemed to cheer up a bit. But he ate a significant amount of food for him, which made me grateful their food portions were generous!
After lunch, we headed over to the Christmas market. Now, when walking into the market, it’s impressive to see all of the wooden structures and decorations they put up just for the brief Christmas season, but I was so grateful they did. If you go to a German Christmas market and don’t feel the holiday spirit, then you are simply a grinch.
The Wiesbaden Market was spread out, so despite the fact that it was relatively busy (particularly for the middle of the day on a Thursday), it didn’t feel that way. Prior to heading to Germany, we learned from friends here that each Christmas market has their own mug. So when you buy a glühwein (the traditional hot drinks of the markets), then you also pay a fond (deposit) for the mug. If you return the mug, you get the 2-3 euros back, or you can simply keep the mug as a souvenir. So, when we got to the market, one of the first things we did was buy some glühwein and the Wiesbaden mugs. Jayson and Jami explained that they preferred weissglühwein, or white wine, compared to the traditional rötglühwein, or red wine. So we followed their lead and we learned that we too prefer the weissglühwein.
We meandered through the market looking for things that we may have wanted—we truly were keeping our eyes peeled for Christmas decorations over anything else. The market itself has tons of food and drink stands, shops, and rides. We spent an hour or so there before heading towards Frankfurt by train to check out their Christmas market.
On the way, Jami explained that she thinks Christmas markets are fun, but that she believed they were definitely better at night. Having arrived in Frankfurt towards dusk, I can see why she says that. There is a bit more magic at night with all of the lights on top of the already ornate and magnificent decorations. Frankfurt’s market was spread out within a section of the city, so this also helped make it feel a little less crowded; however, it was clear that this market was much busier (which was probably a combo of it being in a bigger city and that it was dark and after work hours). We meandered through the market with our glühwein before grabbing a kaiserwurst, a.k.a cheese filled sausage (SO GOOD). We purchased a couple of ornaments, but most of our time in Frankfurt was spent taking in the wonders of a Christmas market at night!
The next day we had a later start because Asher had a really rough night, meaning so did Mommy and Daddy. I think, in hindsight, it was the growth spurt mixed with being somewhere new, but woof, it was brutal. Because of this, we hung around Jayson and Jami’s house so Asher could get in a good morning nap before heading to a local restaurant for lunch. They said their German food was good, including their Schnitzel, but did recommend saving the schnitzel for the next day. After perusing the menu, Brian and I ordered the Chicken Cordon-Bleu and a peppercorn schnitzel to split, and share with Asher. Both were delicious and Asher ate them up too.
After that, we walked to the train station to catch the train to Rüdesheim. This is a quaint, quintessential German town on the Rhine River and the Christmas market was sprawled along the old streets along the river, making it a breezy, crisp night indeed. This market was spread out, but a bit tighter than the others, but mainly because this market was held on their small, old town streets. We had some glühwein here, as well as glùhbier. Warm beer sounds gross, but it was actually delicious. It tasted more cherry-esque, but wasn’t too sweet nor was it sour tasting. Brian tried a smoked salmon dish at the market, but I was still so full from lunch that I couldn’t even eat dinner. I did nosh on a pretzel so that I wouldn’t wake up hungry in the middle of the night, but that was all I needed. We purchased a cute wreath decoration and an adorable gnome here as well. This market was really cute and probably the most aesthetically pleasing market we visited! We left the market around 7 to get back to get Asher to sleep, especially since he had such a rough night before.
Asher’s night went better than the night before (but that’s not saying much). He had a bit of a rough night again, but it was significantly better than the night before. He was waking up pretty early (which seems to be something we haven’t been able to shake since—SEND HELP)! On Saturday, we decided to visit the Kloster Eberbach, which is a monastery and winery. When I think of Germany, I think primarily of beer because, well, it’s me, but Germany is also known for its wines, particularly Rieslings. We just so happened to be in the wine region, so we had to make a stop. This place was both beautiful and neat. We didn’t tour the monastery for many reasons, but mainly because we had lunch reservations that we didn’t want to miss; however, it was an interesting place for sure. It was originally constructed in 1136 by the Cistercians, and functioned as an Abbey until the 1800’s, when it eventually came into the state’s hands. In the 1940’s, it was sold to a winery, and has evolved from there. We went into the tasting room to try some of their wines, which was absolutely free as long as you purchased one bottle, which is crazy to me! We tried a few different wines, including a few Rieslings, a rose, and a red. Their one wine was really good, so we purchased a couple of bottles before heading to lunch!
For lunch, we went to a restaurant that Jayson and Jami explained was a place they visit weekly because it’s too good. This is where we were told to get Schnitzel, so we did. I ordered the Wienerschnitzel and Brian ordered a goulash dish. We also ordered a cheese and onion appetizer to start that was very pungent, but it was delicious. This was definitely the best meal we had while there. It was crispy and delicious. This restaurant was also on a vineyard property, so on the way out, they had a box with bottles of wine that you could purchase on the honor system, for 5 euros (how cheap!). Brian wanted the halbtrocken, which is semi-dry Riesling, which of course wasn’t in the box, but a man in the tasting room went to grab us one. It was pretty good, especially for 5 euros!
After lunch, we drove about an hour and a half to get to our final Christmas market in Traben-Trarbach. This market is unique in that the market is held in various wine cellars in the town. That’s right, the market is underneath the town! There were five different sections of the market—the first two sections were shops, the third was predominantly food, the fourth was shops, and the fifth was all drinks. It was definitely a different feel, and unique market that offered some neat things. We purchased as couple of decorations here and some of them truly were steals. We had sausages here as well (so German, and some more glùhwein too!).
Side note: something that I’ve found to be particularly interesting about our explorations in Europe is how different codes, etc. are. For instance, the final market we went to would never fly in the states because there was only one way in and one way out, so fire marshals would shut that down. Also, the lack of accessibility to many places for those with special needs was also astounding—but I guess that’s what happens when you have to preserve things built in the 1100’s!
Anywho, that ended our Christmas market experiences in Germany for the year (or so we thought—more on that later), but we already promised Jayson and Jami we would meet them in Cologne (pronounced Köln in Deutsch) next year as we’ve heard great things about that! This was my first time in Germany and it certainly did not disappoint! This was admittedly a more relaxed vacation for us because we were spending time with friends and shopping, but it was still busy enough!
Germany is a neat country, so we decided to go back three weeks later—no joke, but this time we went to Munich. But, in true Leslie and Brian style, before we did that, we visited Edinburgh with friends from home, so our next stop will be in Jolly Ole’ Scotland!
Globetrotting Garbutts in Great Britain 