December 14, 2006
Glühwein (mulled wine) & German Christmas markets
After reading this article and checking out the accompanying photo gallery, I've added a new location to my travel dream list: German Christmas markets. It seems that most cities have them and have more than one, so there are quite a few markets. Here's a brief summary of a few of the markets:
Nuremberg's Christmas market is one of the most famous partly for it gingerbread cake and sausage (click here for more on German sausage and don't forget part 2).
Dresden's Striezelmarkt is the place to go for Stollen fruit cakes (my grandfather used to make excellent Stollen).
Berlin's Gendarmenmarkt is an upscale market with better quality goods than other markets.
Cologne's Christmas market has medieval-theme (I love that stuff).
Hamburg's St. Pauli pleasure district has an erotic Christmas market (hard to imagine actually).
Munich has a Christmas market on Marienplatz that's geared more toward presents than food. The Munich Christmas tree beneath the Munich Glockenspiel sounds good too.
Aachen's Christmas market "Aachener Printe," Lebkuchen (gingerbread) that is special to Aachen.
The article I linked to above has more details and more Christmas markets (it's several pages long). Enjoy. I'm going to go see if I can find a video on these Christmas markets for my 93-year-old grandfather. He's nearly impossible to shop for, but he is descended from Germans so you never know - he might actually enjoy watching a vide about German Christmas markets.
Posted by James Trotta at December 14, 2006 2:43 AM | TrackBack