My Weihnachtsmarkt Tour!

So here in Germany, for those of you who don't know, they have beautiful Christmas markets in almost every big city, little city, village, etc. The size of the market ranges in size depending on the size of the city where it's located. From what I have seen this year, they are all very beautiful and have wooden stand after wooden stand that are decorated for Christmas and filled with everything from wooden toys to Christmas ornaments to hand made Christmas sweets for sale. For those of you who are geeky (like me!) and like to learn about the history of things, they have a wonderful article about them on Wikipedia. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_market) Everyone who knows me well knows that I LOVE Christmas. I love everything about it; the decorations, the atmosphere, the decorations, the smells, the decorations, the gift-giving, etc. So, I made it my mission to visit as many Christmas markets as I possibly could while I was here. Of course, even if I went to two Christmas markets every day for the four weeks before Christmas when they run, I couldn't visit all of them in Germany in one year....but I was determined to see as many as my pocket-money could afford. One time when we were talking about the markets in my German class, I mentioned all the ones that I was planning on going to and my friend sitting next to me said "It's not a contest Cori!" Haha. Oh yes it was! Anyway, I only got to see a few in the end, but they were all simply lovely. I went to Stuttgart, Esslingen, Nürnberg, Prien, and Ludwigsburg, Germany as well as Salzburg, Austria.

These festivals are where the best places to buy those little, wooden, smoking Santas, snowmen, etc. and the little windwills where the smoke/air from the candles make the blades of the fan turn which then turns the little figures of angels or other things around at the bottom. I bought several little wooden ornaments and a tiny snowman smoker and Vincent bought me a bigger Santa smoker. One of my favorite parts of the markets was the Glühwein they serve in many different stands, with different recipes, around each one. Glühwein is a spiced/mulled red wine that is served steaming, hot in cute little mugs, normally with the name of the market on them. I was always very glad for the taste and most of all the warmth of the Glühwein because it was always freakin' cold. Seeing that you normally go to the markets as it is getting dark so that you can see the lights all lit up and glowing, it's even colder than you can imagine! Standing in the markets at night, drinking Glühwein, still freezing your butt off, looking at all the little wooden ornaments, decorations, and lights is probably one of the best ways that I could imagine to spend a cozy, lovely winter night. If you ever have the chance to get to Germany, go at Christmas and go to the markets. It's worth coming if only just to experience them. Okay, now for some pictures!

This is a picture of some random people looking at all the cool wooden smokers.

This is just the candle area in the Stuttgart Weihnachtsmarkt. You can buy already made fancy ones there or dip your own.

This is the Stuttgart City Hall decorated as a huge Advents calendar above the market.

This is a Lebkuchen house in Salzburg. Sooooo darling!

This is the main street area in Salzburg all decorate with lights for Christmas.