Pre-Christmas

If any country does pre-Christmas well, it’s Germany. Fairytale-like. Twinkling lights. Ice-skating rinks. Beautiful markets. People dressed up as Santa-Pope chimeras (I actually had no idea which one it was…).

Christmas market #1

Christmas market #2

Twinkling lights #1

Twinkling lights #2

Ice-skating

Pre-Christmas in Germany in a wonder to behold.

Tübingen

All good things come in chocolate sized packages. By happy coincidence, the dates of my stay in Tübingen coincided perfectly with the Tübingen Schokoladenmarkt. Everything that you can possible imagine was made of chocolate or doused in chocolate or had a component of chocolate that would, under normal circumstances, be a little weird - chocolate shoes, chocolate artwork, chocolate alcohol, chocolate fruit, chocolate, salami, chocolate tools.

Chocolate art

Chocolate deliciousness

Chocolate tools and shoes etc etc etc

Apparently, the testers are taken away during the weekends because the tourists come and eat them all. Jokes on them. I didn’t take many snaps as I was too busy eating. They clearly didn’t plan on tourists attending during the week. But this could also arguably be a joke on me as I ate so many tasters that I felt ill.

I also went to a pre-Christmas market in Roetlingen, and while it was really nice, nothing amusing enough happened to warrant a detailed mention in my blog.

Roetlingen Christmas Market

Cologne (Köln)

Cologne reaches “Super City” status, with the population being just over the one million mark. However, the markets, on a relatively warm Sunday evening, were indicative of a higher population. We literally had trouble moving (because of the crowds – not because we had eaten too much, although this is also a plausible explanation).

Business at the pre-Christmas

Due to the larger size of the city, there were many Christmas markets, each too big and too densely populated explore fully. While each market is definitely a variation on a theme, each has its own distinct flavour. In one market, I was thoroughly entertained by the animated Santa-Pope Chimera who was providing musical entertainment (not just for me). I didn’t even know the songs that were supposedly English in origin. At another, I was delighted to learn that each market has unique (take-home) cups for their mulled wine, to mark which market it originated from.

Santa-Pope music playing entertaining chimeras

In summary, everything about Germany is beautiful and the pre-Christmas markets are no exception.

I’ve got the munchies.