Weihnachtsmärkte part 2

First I will say that if you already noticed the difference in the titles of part 1 and 2 (not the numbers) you are one who pays attention to details.  In the first one, I took the word for Christmas market and added an s to make it plural.  Of course the word is German and doesn't work that way.  So now it is correct.

After our first forays into the world of Weihnachtsmärkte, we went to the bigger more commercial ones at Gendarmenmarkt (a square), Schloss Charlottenburg (a castle), and on Kurfürstendamm (a street with lots of shopping).

The Weihnachtsmarkt at Gendarmenmarkt cost 1 euro to get in, but was beautiful and had live music.  The structures they built for the market looked like white mountains all lit up.  The buildings surrounding market also made a nice backdrop.  This is the market where we did most of our Christmas shopping.

The Weihnachtsmarkt at the Schloss was huge!  It was also beautiful with wooden structures and a giant wooden carousel like the one my family always puts out at Christmas.  After dark, they also lit up the castle in alternating colors and sometimes just made it look like snow was blowing across the walls.

We had gone to Kurfürstendamm to go shopping when we wandered upon this market.  It was a nice surprise.  It meant fun food and drinks and fun things to look at.  This market had a giant metal Christmas tree with random toys hanging from it that every so often came alive.  Music started and then flames came from the end of the tree branches in time to the music.  It was bizarre, but fun.

All of the markets had wonderful food and hot drinks like the markets I mentioned previously.  At these we did try a few new things as well.  I had my first ever roasted chestnut.  I don't know what I thought they would taste like, but they didn't taste like I would have imagined.  However, they were good!  And the stands that sell it are so clever:  they give you a bag with two pockets, one filled with full chestnuts and the other to put the shells in.  We tried Wassail, a hot mulled cider, which was one of my favorites.  The one thing that I already wish I could have another of is Viking Handbrot (handbread).  The one we had was a  sandwich roll size bread stuffed with cheese and mushrooms topped with sour cream (or maybe quark) and fried onions.  It was warm and gooey and wonderful.

Just thinkng about the food makes me wish that at least some of the markets were open all winter!


I would say that in general, Berlin is not the best place to visit in the winter.  The sun sets around 4pm right now, so you lose a lot of time to walk around in the daylight and see things.  However, the Christmas markets make it worth a trip in December.