 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
• Return to news list
Touring German Christmas Markets
German greetings
Taking in Bavaria's Christmas markets
12:00 AM CST on Sunday, November 13, 2005
By TONI STROUD SALAMA Chicago Tribune
MUNICH, Germany – Outside the train window, bare tree branches wore a rock-candy coating of ice. Fields curving into view were ankle-deep in snow. Village whistle-stops took on passengers – and the sub-freezing chill of late December that hounded them into the compartment all the way to their seats.
Christmas was in the air – and in every town I visited.I was touring the Christmas markets of Germany. Not all 2,500 of them, you understand – even the German National Tourist Office doesn't recommend that – but as many as I could fit into a seven-day trip last December and still savor the atmosphere, sample the refreshments and maybe do a little shopping.
Many companies offer escorted Christmas market tours. I studied their itineraries to determine what was doable in a day's time, then struck out on my own, riding trains from town to town. Along the way I became a statistic: one of the 160 million visitors a year to Germany's Christmas markets, doing my part to generate some $7.7 billion in annual Christmas sales.
Like most marketgoers, once I'd paid for transportation and lodging, I spent most of my shopping money on food and drinks. There's a reason for that. Only a few time-honored market items can be bought for less than $10 or $12: things such as small beeswax candles, tree ornaments made of straw and the ubiquitous (and dearly beloved) prune men – dolls made of fig bodies with prunes for arms and legs and walnuts for heads.
Most market goods are of the highest craftsmanship and considerably more expensive: $70 and up for hand-painted nutcrackers and hand-painted glass ornaments; at least $135 for the nicer "pyramids," candle-powered windmills that revolve angels or shepherds or reindeer round and round inside a multi-tiered conical frame.
In contrast, a serving of three potato pancakes with applesauce costs $3 at one Nuremberg booth; the price is the same for potato pancakes in Heidelberg, with a choice of currants or garlic sauce. A mug of gluhwein, spiced wine served piping hot, goes for $3 to $4, depending on the city and the size of the mug.
All of the shopping and eating is most delightfully done in the evenings, from dark until 8:30 or 9, when you get the full effect of the lights and the camaraderie of local Germans who stop by after work. That leaves the days free for sightseeing and getting from town to town.
Rothenburg
Village Europe doesn't get any more village-y than this. Cobblestone lanes, medieval walls, turrets, towers and half-timbered houses make tiny Rothenburg, pronounced in crisp syllables as ROT-hen-booorg, the Christmas market for those who believe life is an eat-dessert-first affair. Pass through the gates to the old city, and you enter a snow-globe world of jaunty rooflines and lights glowing opaquely behind bull's-eye windowpanes.
I remember this as a musical place, where string quartets and horn duos commandeer street corners, and the iron shoes of crochet-harnessed draft horses ring in time on the cobblestones.
The market here, called the Reiterlesmarkt, is small, filling only the narrow alleyway behind the town hall and the clearing – you couldn't call it a plaza – between it and St. James' Church.
The larger market square proper is reserved for a giant Christmas tree in front of the Counselors' Tavern, with lots of room for people to gather for walking tours such as those led by the medieval-era night watchman on his nightly English-speaking lantern route past houses that have stood since at least the 1500s.
Now's as good a time as any to have a schneeball or snowball, a softball-sized confection made from strips of sweetened dough formed into a ball, then fried and covered liberally with powdered sugar, cinnamon or chocolate. No Rothenburg Christmas would be complete without making a mess trying to eat one. Rothenburg is the home town of Kathe Wohlfahrt's Christmas Village – a store best described as Las Vegas meets Babes in Toyland – and the adjacent German Christmas Museum.
Nuremberg
You know you've got a successful market when the clergy start complaining. One of Nuremberg's men of the cloth once lamented that he couldn't hold afternoon church services on Christmas Eve because all his parishioners were out shopping – and that was way back in 1616. These days, the market attracts some 2 million visitors each season.
The sort of person who organizes the sock drawer, trusts in PDAs and sees beauty in perfectly balanced ledger sheets should most enjoy the Christkindlsmarkt, or Christ Child's Market, here, for Nuremberg has a knack for bringing glorious order to the chaos of Christmas.
In what was once a Jewish ghetto until the pogroms of the mid-1300s, vendors are regimented into 190 booths covering 27,000 square feet. Every booth is hung in red-and-white striped awnings, which may be the reason people have nicknamed this "the little town of wood and cloth." But with 3,182 linear feet of storefronts – that's six-tenths of a mile – little it isn't. The old town has a craftsmen's market at Kings Gate and a separate children's market with modern amusement rides. But what distinguishes Nuremberg's market in the main square is its adherence to strictly traditional standards. Stalls are decorated with garlands of real fir boughs, not plastic ones. Cardboard boxes can't be shown. Recorded background music is forbidden. Mulled wine must be served in ceramic cups. Only time-honored market items such as nutcrackers, prune men, candles, glass ornaments, nativity sets, cookies and sausages may be sold.
Munich
The market in Marienplatz lets visitors wander aimlessly to make wonderful discoveries.
Here, it's natural to go with the flow of foot traffic, which seems to move counterclockwise through the Christmas stalls of Marienplatz, down to the nativity-set booths in Rindermarkt and swinging back around to finish among the butcher shops and bakeries of the Viktualienmarkt, or victuals market. The stalls here are neither as orderly as Nuremberg's nor as cozy as Rothenburg's. But Munich's trump is the ornate neo-Gothic New City Hall: both backdrop and star attraction, imposing and comforting all at once.
Choirs sing from its balcony at 5:30 p.m., and there's a seasonal post office in one of its courtyards where letters get a special postmark.
If you don't let yourself be distracted by the windows of the big department stores – I was waylaid last year by a Euro-punk display of backpacks designed to look like bullet-proof vests – it's easy to find yourself drawn to the booths of Rindermarkt (the lane), where all the shops and booths sell wooden manger pieces hand-carved in Bavaria and the Tirol.
Shift one street over to Sparkassentrasse, and your wandering will be rewarded with 140 stalls and shops stocking meats, fish, butter, honey, bread, cheese, flowers, vegetables, fruits and wine – all more enticingly displayed than at any of the Christmas booths in Marienplatz.
WHEN YOU GO
GETTING AROUND
Pay-as-you-go train tickets within the state of Bayern (Bavaria) can cost as little as $11 one-way between Nuremberg and Rothenburg or as much as $27 one-way between Munich and Nuremberg.
ESCORTED TOURS
Many tour operators conduct European Christmas market tours. Here is a sampling of those whose itineraries include German cities:
• Maupintour's "German Christmas Market Towns" trip departs Dec. 20 for two nights in Frankfurt, two nights in Rothenburg and two nights in Baden-Baden. Land-only rate is $2,770 and includes most meals and an excursion to Strasbourg, France. Contact: 1-800-255-4266; www.maupintour.com.
• Collette Vacations' "Europe's Christmas Markets" trip has several departures in late November and early December for three nights in Oberammergau, Germany; two nights in the Black Forest; and two nights in Bern, Switzerland. Land-only rate is $999 and includes most meals and excursions to Innsbruck, Austria; Strasbourg; and Bern and Lucerne in Switzerland. Contact: 1-800-340-5158; www.collettevacations.com.
• Uniworld's "Rhine and Moselle Christmas Markets: Lucerne to Cologne" is a cruise that departs Dec. 1 for two nights in Lucerne and seven nights aboard the River Queen in an outside stateroom. Cruise rates from $2,130 include air from New York or Boston. Among the port calls are stops at Cologne, Koblenz, Mainz and Heidelberg in Germany; Strasbourg; and Basel, Switzerland. Contact: 1-800-360-9550; www.uniworld.com.
CONTACT
German National Tourist Office in New York: 1-800-651-7010; www.cometogermany.com.
|
|
 |
|
|
