Christmas Markets

Christmas markets are deeply woven in the traditional cloth of German Christmas.  Every city has one and the bigger ones runs through the whole Advent season.  The wooden booths fill the city square and all manner of gifts and food can be found.  It has become part of our Christmas tradtion as well, to visit at least one market and enjoy the sights, sounds, and tastes.  This year we visited several markets enjoying each one. The first market we visited was in Dresden.  This market was being held this year for the 577th time.  That is quite the tradition.  It was a very lovely market.  The wooden booths were quite decorated and many of the were selling tradtional wooden Christmas decorations.  These booths were my favourite.  Dresden is famous for its Stollen and we had some chances to taste the real Dresden kind - delicious!

  On our way home from Dresden we stopped in Nuernberg to take a peek at the famous Christkindlmarkt there...

One of the most unusual and beautiful markets that we visited was held in the Ravennaschlucht near Freiburg.  It was only a short drive - less than an hour - but in that distance we left rainy and dreary Holzen behind and drove up into a snowy wonderland.  This market was set up under the train bridge and tucked away into a an opening in the woods.  Lights were used to make everything look quite magical.