German Christmas Markets

Last winter was a bit of a momentous occasion. Not only did I visit some German Christmas markets with my girlfriend; it was also my first holiday away with the in-laws. A fairly daunting prospect I'm sure you will agree!

Given I have German heritage (my granny was born and brought up in Berlin and I undoubtedly still have relatives there although for various boring family reasons I haven't ever really been in contact with them and probably wouldn't recognise them in the street) I haven't really spent much time in Germany. I certainly haven't been to a Christmas market despite them achieving an iconic status. So it was with a sense of cautious optimism tinged with a slight sense of apprehension that I embarked on the trip.

Things did not start well. We were going by coach and the prospect of 13 hours in transit was not a happy one; less so given that it started at about 6am. It got worse. Rather than taking a direct route, we toured the South of England picking up many, many others along the way. Each time new people got on we were greeted with an overly jocular, "Morning" and some facetious patter that tried to pass for bonhomie. My heart sank. I had a horrible feeling I was aboard a mobile Butlins and we were all expected to be bestest of buddies because we shared the same mode of transport.

The journey improved marginally when we got on the ferry as there was the opportunity for a rest from the people, some scoff and a pint or two. I was rather hoping for some high seas for a bit of fun but sadly the water was flat enough to row on. Never mind.

A good book got me through the rest of the journey and the hotel provided some excellent hearty soup and another beer or two to see me off to sleep nicely.

The next day things got a bit better. People still insisted on greeting everyone like long-lost friends before going into excruciating detail about how much they had eaten at breakfast. Fortunately the thing I was dreading most didn't happen. My biggest fear was that the coach drivers were going to bombard us with every banal fact that could be mustered about our location, the market and anything else they could think of creating an impenetrable wall of white noise that couldn't be escaped. Let's face it; these days everybody has google in their pockets so if we want to know anything we can look it up. This didn't happen. Quite the opposite in fact. The coach drivers were gloriously professional telling us our drop off point, pick up point, pick up time and how to get to the market and nothing else. Well done boys!

Sadly this was spoiled a bit by everyone else frantically commentating on what could be seen out of the window. Apparently everybody but them (plural) had gone blind and needed the audio-description version. The coach echoed to genuinely astonished cries of, "Look, there's a market!". I was having to work VERY hard not to bawl, "Well done dipshit. The holiday was advertised as a tour of German Christmas markets so what the fuck did you expect... a bloody Turkish Bazaar? Perhaps an overly elongated trip to Westfield Stratford? Or maybe, just maybe an excursion to bloody Tesco. Of COURSE it's a fucking Christmas market you cretins!"

My misanthropic streak was not eased by disembarking. I then had to encounter the crowds. Oh the crowds. I don't especially like being manhandled (womanhandled I can cope with). I especially dislike being jostled. In fact if I see it coming I am known to brace myself to provide something of an immobile obstacle just to be awkward. You can imagine then that the alleys between the stalls which had capacity for, at most, half the number of people that were actually inhabiting them was great fun. One particular highlight was the people who seemed to think that stalls had only been properly viewed when EVERY item on it had been in some way physically fondled and in the process either body-blocked the entire stall or moved into my eye-line just as I was seeing something I rather fancied buying. AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I digress. Despite the above rant, I had an absolutely magical time (and this isn't written just in case my girlfriend stumbles across the blog!). Genuinely, I thought it was wonderful. Everywhere I looked, there was a certain picture-postcard feel that I usually get in St. Andrews. The atmosphere was genuinely festive as well. Everybody was smiling and cheery and the spot the silliest hat competition I had going on internally kept me amused for hours. I will admit, most of the stuff on sale was absolute and unmitigated tat but it was pretty tat and I was parted with not insubstantial sums of my hard-earned pittance in exchange for it. There were also some absolute gems there too and I did manage to get some wonderful Christmas presents. Between all of us we also managed to amass quite a collection of mulled wine mugs (sorry anyone reading in Germany, I am translating for a British audience AND - crucially - my computer doesn't have an umlaut on it!). Sadly neither of the ladies in the party drink alcohol so it fell to my girlfriend's father and me to drink the lot. Tough life!

In previous posts I have written about how much I hate feeling like a tourist and I have to say, one of the best things about this trip is that I really didn't. I'm not going to spin you some sentimental bollocks about 'coming home', I don't feel a particular connection to my German roots but that said I didn't feel out of place. This is probably partly due to the fact that the German Christmas markets are so internationally famous that there is a fairly cosmopolitan crowd there but we did venture off the beaten track and into the cities. It probably helped that we all spoke varying levels of German and I like to think earned the respect of the locals for giving it a go (despite knowing we were making complete tits of ourselves). My love of protein (meat), carbohydrate (bread) and fat (cheese) also marked me out as being ideal to feast on standard German fare and I made sure to do so with gusto. Apart from the standard sausages with some of the best mustard I've ever tasted, a particular favourite was a giant hash brown with apple puree. Yum!

So in short, would I advise someone I knew (and liked) to go on one of these trips. Of course, without hesitation. It was great fun (despite the previous rant). I would caution anyone doing so that you are unlikely to find anything vastly different from the Christmas markets that are springing up around the UK so if it's just a shopping trip you want then head to Hyde Park. What it can't replicate though is the experience and the atmosphere and for that I would urge you, go to Germany in the run up to next Christmas.

JR