A visit to Germany's famous Christmas market - An experience of traveling back in time!

in #travel7 years ago

As Christmas is around the corner, everyone is getting ready for the celebration – people have started decorating their homes, trees are being decorated with sling lights, gleaming lights casting their gorgeous patterns on city streets, oh! those Christmas markets blooming in every town, luring all its visitors are everything! It is said that Christmas markets are originated in Germany and are now being held in other parts of Europe.

A Christmas market is a street market that arises during the four weeks of Advent in every possible town. Having said that, these markets can even befall for less than two days in small villages. But, these Christmas markets are one of a kind. When days get shorter and temperature gets cooler, all look forward to experiencing the Christmas markets with friends and family, chatting about endless topic over a cup of steaming Glühwein (Mulled wine) or two, hopping on to never-ending street food and other shopping stalls until your feet start hurting by tiredness or numbness or until your stomach gets filled indulging favorite snacks.

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Esslingen Christmas market


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Ornamented interior of a shopping center in the city of Jena

It was my first time experiencing the Christmas market and I was all excited to know how people celebrate it, what it looks like inside of Christmas markets and everything in between. So, we decided to go to one of the famous Christmas markets in Germany – Esslingen, also it will be, we thought, a great chance to meet few of our friends who will be moving away from Germany soon. Score!

It was a gloomy day and temperature was around -2 degree Celsius peppered with snowflakes. As we were chilled to the bone, we took help of a cup of hot Glühwein to stand the cold. After a cup of Glühwein and a couple of snacks, we started our walk inside of the Medieval market.

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Medieval market


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People buying Glühwein at Medieval market


This is when I truly experienced the feeling of traveling back in time! The continuous feeling of walking inside of a Medieval movie made me want to be inside of Medieval market forever. To add on to the Medieval flavor, all vendors were dressed up in Medieval style, so did few visitors. The whole setup was constantly reminding me of few clips from “Lord of the Rings” and “The Chronicles of Narnia” except the winter wonderland part of course.

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Eye-catching Medieval attire


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Is he Mr. Tumnus? The faun from Narnia?


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Butterfly fairy strolling through Medieval and Christmas markets


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Food stall with a Medieval touch


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Later we headed to “Middle-age market” and then to the Christmas market. It was a great walk on cobblestone streets, passing quite a few markets in front of typical German style houses. Despite hundreds of thousands of people rushing into every possible corner of the market, we loved strolling around aimlessly.

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Markets swathed by colorful German houses


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Esslingen main square


The other side of the Christmas market had much more crowd than the Medieval market. The market had more of a wooden touch in every stall. The market square had a Christmas pyramid where miniature figures were carved along with multi-level structures and a roof.

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Esslingen Christmas pyramid


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Colorful shops of Esslingen


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After breathing in everything that Esslingen Christmas had us to offer, we decided to check out another small Christmas market of the town Aalen.
Aalen Christmas market was quite smaller compared to the Esslingen market nevertheless, it had its own charm. We once again tasted Glühwein with fresh potato chips and the famous Hungarian street food Lángos that made me fall for it instantly. Here are few pictures from Aalen Christmas market.

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Entering into Aalen Christmas market


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Prettily decorated main square of Aalen


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Aalen Christmas pyramid


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Sipping hot Glühwein at the center of the market


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Second round of Glühwein with my favorite Hungarian street food - Lángos


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Aalen Christmas market


To condense, it was an amazing experience strolling the streets of Christmas markets. It made me pinch myself only to realize I'm not standing inside of any Medieval movie set 😊

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Chaithra Bhat

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The Christmas markets in Germany are so nice. It sucks being back in America for Christmas.

Make sure you get a crepe with salami, cheese and krautersalz. That was always my favorite at fests and markets (I don't like sweet food).

Thanks for the suggestion @fronttowardenemy, I will definitely give it a try :)

Hey @chaithrabhat

I love the pictures, christmas decorations lighten up the city. I think festival seasons are best to travel specially christmas as it's world recognize.

Hello @asolopreneur I'm glad you liked them

Festival seasons are best to travel only if you are traveling to see the celebration but not the city/place. I myself averse to touristy places but, as we are not new to these two places and have explored them quite thoroughly well before, we were okay to travel just to see the celebration. Nevertheless, to condense, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

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