It's that time of year again. My favourite season in Germany: Advent season. Christmas Markets are springing up in nearly every city, town and village and I love nothing more than visiting them in any free moment I can carve out. Yesterday we kicked things off with a visit to the Market in Speyer--where the huge old Cathedral is now flanked by flags and a big tree:
It's been a while since I popped into Speyer's market, but my memory is of a market lining the main street which leads up to the cathedral. So, I was surprised to find that it only lines the sidewalk on one side now (in teh photo below you can see the street and the backside of the market stalls, decorated with trees, so who how much space was not given over to the market). The result was a much more cramped market, and also fewer stalls overall, than I had expected. It was still a nice market and fun time, but definitely not up to the standards of lots of other places.
As always, the vendors who were there had many pretty things and lots of hand made items:
There was a nice model train set up for the kids, and a phone booth with a "direct line to Santa Claus"
Dave had the first gluhwein, near the statue of a pilgrim to Santiago de Compostela --which was a gift to the city on its 2000th birthday back in 1990:
I like the tall, thin glass mugs in Speyer better than the classic ceramic mug style popular at most markets:
Hot roasted chestnuts and almonds are a staple at the markets and always smell so good:
There is a smaller market set up down by the city gates--we called this the "low rent area;" as you can see the market stalls were much plainer and lacking in the charm that makes markets so pelasant. There was a carnival ride for kids in the area though:
All in all, it was a pleasant afternoon, but a small market, needing only an hour to fully experience and I am looking forward to a better experience at the also small but (based on last year) fabulously lovely Michelstadt Market today.
--Hadley
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