It might sound like a festive fairy tale, but there really are places where shopping for presents is as much fun as receiving them. Join us on a tour of Germany’s Christmas markets, and then read our round-up of the best of the rest in Europe
words: alison tyler
ARE YOU TIRED of battling to park at out-of-town shopping centres during the festive season? Of being elbowed as you desperately try to find the toy department in your local department store in your quest to find this year’s must-have toy? Of the general scrum on the high street as you carry umpteen bags of Christmas shopping home? Don’t despair. There is another, more relaxing – and dare I say it, enjoyable – way to do your annual Christmas shop.
Every year in Germany, in market squares across the country, pretty mini-towns of Alpine huts sprout up beneath the spires of Gothic churches, selling all sorts of seasonal goodies. Entire cities come alive to the heady scent of spiced cookies, roasted chestnuts and mulled wine, casting an enchanting festive spell over everyone in them. For an atmospheric alternative to the usual commercialism of Christmas, Germany’s
christmas markets
The fairy-tale setting evokes a festive glow of nostalgia, and the activities on offer are a joy to watch
Christkindlmarkts, as they are known locally, are hard to beat.
Hanover is no exception.The city is transformed into an impossibly picturesque winter wonderland each year between 30 November and 22 December. The city has no fewer than three markets taking over the historic old quarter around the medieval Alte Rathaus (old town hall) and the Gothic Marktkirche (market church). There are more than 150 cute wooden stalls, festooned with everything from Christmas tree decorations and carved nativity figures made in the Ore Mountains, to candles, traditional wooden music boxes and hand-painted nutcrackers.
There are exquisite handmade ornaments and exotic Christmas wreaths that reek of seductive herbs and spices. There’s linen, lace and porcelain as well as beautifully sculpted toys and crib sets for the children.
The fairy-tale setting, against a backdrop of timber-framed buildings and typical lower Saxony pavement bars, evokes a festive glow of nostalgia, and the traditional activities on offer are a joy to watch. In Hanover the ancient arts of glass-blowing, pottery, and candle-making still flourish, and watching someone create a Christmas present before your very eyes is far more satisfying than queuing at a mall can ever be. Wandering down “Craftman’s Alley” will fill your children with the kind of wonderment usually reserved for Harry Potter books. And if that doesn’t enthrall them, there’s even children’s entertainment featuring puppeteers and storytellers.
And there’s another surprise in Hanover. On the Ballhofplatz there is a Finnish Christmas market, complete with a real Lapland tent, and Finnish specialities including reindeer furs, handcrafted jewellery, grilled salmon and glögi – Finland’s potent answer to mulled wine.
But aside from the shopping, by far the best thing about German Christmas markets is the food. There are waffles stuffed with fluffy cream, mountains of marzipan – often shaped into figures – and chocolate, huge piles of warm, fruity Stollen (Germany’s Christmas cake, which is a sweet bread-like cake, dusted with lashings of icing sugar) and spicy, soft gingerbread biscuits called lebkuchen.
When you’ve shopped down to your last €10 note, stop and re-fuel with grilled sausages, sauerkraut and spätzle – a kind of pasta served with onion and bacon. The drink’s not bad either: jolly crowds gather around alfresco bars serving piping hot glühwein – mulled wine – quite literally drinking in the festive spirit. On crisp winter days it’s hard to resist. Being Germany, beer also features heavily, though the Christmas brew is spicier and more cinnamon-y than usual.
It’s not just Hanover, though. There are markets across the country and each offers something different. The gifts are often local specialities, unique to each region.
Dresden is Germany’s oldest Christmas market, dating back to 1434.
Specialities include hand-blown glass baubles and hand-carved wooden curios from the Erzgebirge mountains (
www.dresdentourist.de).
In Leipzig, the city of Schumann and Mendelssohn, is one of Saxony’s finest Christmas markets, featuring the world’s biggest Advent calendar, which is 857 metres square (
www.leipzig.de).
In Cologne, the site of Germany’s greatest Gothic cathedral (and one of its greatest modern art galleries), there are half a dozen Christmas markets, including a “medieval” market outside the Chocolate Museum and a floating market on the Rhine (
www.koelntourismus.de).
Nuremberg, one of the oldest and best-known Christmas markets, will delight children with puppet theatres, a merry-go-round adorned with reindeers and sledges, a steam train, lots of freshly baked lebkuchen and a rosy-cheeked, smiling Santa Claus welcoming them with sweets. If you’re there on the evening of 13 December, 2,000 children will parade through the town centre carrying handmade lanterns.
A German Christmas market may not restore your belief in Santa Claus, but it should send you back home with enough goodwill to survive the Yuletide marathon to follow – and some spectacular presents.
The German National Tourist Office’s website for all the Christmas markets is
www.germany-christmas-market.org.uk
OTHER EUROPEAN MARKETS
TOP SHOPPING SPOTS TO PUT A SPRING IN YOUR STEP THIS CHRISTMAS
AMSTERDAM
Good for… an aerial view
From now until 7 January, the city’s central Dam Square is renamed “Winterworld”.
As well as a neat Christmas market of around 25 stalls offering everything from presents and crafts to wintry snacks and mulled wine, there is a large ice rink, a Santa and a children’s train that puffs across the cobbled square. But most unusual of all is the hot air balloon that lifts guests high above Dam Square, offering a fabulous festive view of Amsterdam from above.
www.visitamsterdam.nl
BRUGES
Good for… chocolates and romance
While the Christmas market in Brussels is busy and sprawling, just 45 minutes north is a more compact version in the picture-perfect town of Bruges. Bruges’ Christmas market takes place at the Gothic Grote Markt (Market Square) and Stevinplein Square (open until 31 December).
With its quaint cobbled streets, charming architecture and pretty canal, this medieval town offers traditional surroundings complete with outdoor ice rink lit by fairy lights and based around a Christmas tree. This year there is also an ice sculpture festival on Station Square.
The market sells toys, local handmade lace, clothes and, of course, rich and delicious handmade Belgian chocolates – head to Sukerbuyc for the best in Bruges. Couples can take a horse and cart ride around town, hire a boat with a guide around the picturesque city canals or get cosy with waffles and a hot chocolate at one of the cafés around the square.
www.brugge.be
COPENHAGEN
Good for… kegs of (strong) local Christmas beer
Almost every Danish brewery launches a yuletide beer or “Julebryg”. Tuborg’s Christmas brew, with 5.7% alcohol, should add some party to the atmosphere. Or try Carlsberg’s Julepilsner at a mere 4.7%.
Wrap up warm and prepare to be dazzled by thousands of fairy lights at the Tivoli Garden Christmas market (from now until 30 December), housed in the city’s oldest amusement park. Besides the market, which sells everything from Royal Copenhagen porcelain and Christmas decorations to spices and sweets, there’s also an outdoor ice rink, reindeer, and Elf Train. And for 2006 there is a giant snow globe on display.
There is also a traditional Danish Christmas market along the quaint Nyhavn canal off Kongens Nytorv, featuring presents from chocolate and honey hearts to glass and ceramics (open until 22 December).
For something much more contemporary, head out of town to the Design, Arts and Crafts Christmas Market in Helsingør from 1-3 December (Building 13, Helsingør Shipyard;
www.hal13.dk), where 50 selected artisans and designers will fill their stalls with handmade products ranging from textiles and graphic design to modern jewellery, ceramics and art.
www.visitcopenhagen.dk www.tivoligardens.com
DUBLIN
Good for… carols and craic
You needn’t travel as far as Germany or Denmark to experience a traditional European festive market. Dublin, a city that knows how to have a good time, has been hosting its own Christmas market for the past three years.
From 12-23 December, the Dublin Docklands Christmas market takes place at the newly regenerated George’s Dock in the IFSC. There’s a true Dublin-style party atmosphere with fairground attractions, carol singing, mulled wine, a German theme bar, eating area and Christmas entertainment.
Visitors enter through the arch at Custom House Quay, which is transformed by twinkling fairy lights and a corridor of Christmas trees leading to the market. Stock up on decorations, seasonal food and unusual craft gifts.
Across town is Smithfield Christmas market, which boasts an ice rink, Victorian Carnival and Santa, who will be up the 170ft Smithfield Chimney. Other entertainment includes an Enchanted Village, a Festival of Light, Parade of Light and carols every Sunday.
www.visitdublin.com www.ddda.ie
STRASBOURG
Good for… the whole family
You’ll find nativity plays, parades and one of Europe’s longest-running Christmas markets in Strasbourg, one of the prettiest cities in Alsace, France.
From 1 December until New Year’s Eve, the cobbled streets around the cathedral are filled with the scents of mulled wine, sweets and spicy cakes.
The traditional wooden stalls are decorated and illuminated with Christmas lights and sell specialities including Bredele (biscuit-like cakes), spicy sausages, toys, jewellery and ceramics.
Across town on Place Broglie, in front of the Opera House, there are more stalls and a small funfair for children.
www.noel-strasbourg.com
[2708] bmi flies direct to Copenhagen from Glasgow and Edinburgh; to Brussels from London Heathrow, Nottingham EMA, Leeds Bradford and Edinburgh; to Amsterdam from London Heathrow and Aberdeen; and to Dublin from London Heathrow. For more information and to book, visit flybmi.com
photography: dirk aiger/lhh, torsten krüger/hannover tourismus service, andrew cowin, nuremburg tourism,
www.copenhagenphotos.d k, piotr and irena kolasa/alamy,
www.ot-strasbourg.fr,
www.foto.brugge.be
|
Bookmark 
