Week 80: So Many Christmas Markets

Wow, we had such a busy week, mostly due to it being opening week for most Christmas markets. We managed to fit 19 into this week alone!

We started on Tuesday at one of the big, local markets in Esslingen. There are two markets in the city, one regular and one medieval, and we met up with some friends to celebrate one friend’s birthday.

Esslingen’s market was really fun because there was a lot of stuff for kids as opposed to just shopping and glühwein, which bores our kids to death. The medieval market had a ton of games like axe throwing, archery, and candle making. The kids also found a ton of trinkets they wanted in the shopping area. The medieval band and punch were the icing on the cake. They also had two cute mugs that we kept.

Just so we’re clear: We’re not thieves 😂: You pay for your drink and your wine glass/bier stein/glühwein mug and then return it for your deposit back if you don’t want it. If you do, you can keep it and most places will even let you exchange your used one for a clean one. Each mug is unique and often has the name of the city and the year so we have a pretty good collection going that we are keeping as mementos.

Wednesday after school, we dropped the dogs off and hit the road for our Thanksgiving road trip. First stop was Linz, Austria, where we were just staying the night en route to our next destination. We got after 8pm, which was later than expected, and after checking into the hotel, rushed to the Christmas market which was closing at 9pm. When we got there, most of the shopping stalls were closed, and only a few food and glühwein stands were open. We got a drink and called it a night.

Thursday morning, we continued on our drive to Bratislava, which was about another three hours away. Bratislava is only about 20 minutes over the Austrian border and as soon as we crossed, we starting driving past miles and miles and soviet housing. It looked straight out of the Cold War.

We got to our hotel in the Old Town around lunch time, checked in, and then started our walk. The Old Town is really small and the surrounding areas were also all Soviet bloc architecture. The Old Town itself was pretty cute and had a decent selection of shops and restaurants. We noticed that there were a lot of empty buildings though. It was weird to see a trendy restaurant or cafe, then pass two empty buildings, and then another trendy restaurant. Slovakia was half of the old Czechoslovakia. The other half, Czech Republic, with its capital city of Prague, is such a hot tourist destination with so many things to do, it was interesting how different it was. We are thinking that in another 5-10 years, Bratislava will have caught up and be the new “Prague,” because it seems like they are just behind them.

We walked all around the Old Town and then up to the Castle. According to the map, there were a lot of exhibitions at the castle, but we had a hard time finding the entrance to any of them so we walked around the walls and gardens, and then walked back down the hill for an early dinner.

We ended up choosing a cute Irish pub that was decorated for Christmas for our Thanksgiving dinner.

After our dinner, we walked over to the Christmas market. It was definitely a mistake to go to this market so soon after dinner because it was mostly food and drink stands. We tried our best though. Instead of glühwein here, they had hot punch in a million different flavors and we tried as many as we could. Ryan still had room for a bratwurst and Matt got a chimney cake. Unfortunately, no mugs from this market although they did have reusable plastic cups that we kept.

Friday morning, we got up early and drove back to Vienna, which is about an hour back west.

We had tickets for the Spanish Riding school at ten so left pretty early. I have seen the Spanish Riding school on multiple TV shows and it had been recommended by some friends so we were excited to go and see these horses that supposedly do synchronized dancing. What I didn’t realize was that the only show available on Friday was the training session where nothing is synchronized. We were literally watching riders train their horses individually. It was OK but would not recommend unless you are a horse person. I want to go back though and catch an actual show, which only happens a few times a month.

Next up, we visited the Hofburg Palace and saw the State Rooms and the Sisi Museum. Sisi was Empress of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of the 19th century and was the Princess Diana of her time. She has never stopped being popular in the German countries but she is becoming popular again internationally thanks to the new HBO show. Brooklyn has started to become interested in her so we made sure to make it to this museum. You can see the State Apartments in the same tour and since you can do both in a little over an hour, it was the perfect amount of time.

Afterwards, we stopped by the Christmas Market that was just outside and got food for lunch and our first Viennese glühwein in an adorable heart-shaped mug.

We walked all through the pedestrian shopping center, checked out the Christmas decorations, and made our way to St. Stephen’s Cathedral. There, we found another Christmas market so stopped for another glühwein and mug before visiting the cathedral.

After the cathedral, we tried to head back to the car but realized that none of us knew where we parked. We had been in a rush to get to the Spanish Riding School and had to try several garages before finding one with space. We started wandering around looking for something familiar. Along the way, we walked through three more Christmas Markts by accident- no lie, they were everywhere. We had more glühwein and did some more shopping to help our moods and then finally found the car and headed to the hotel.

We took a short rest at the hotel and then took the metro to Schönbrunn Palace for their Christmas market. We came hungry and planned to eat there but found it to be mostly shopping and only a few food stands. I got a loaded baked potato that was SOOO good and Matt found a pretzel, but the kids were out of luck. We stayed long enough to listen to some of the choirs that were singing. One of them was a group of teenagers from the US.

We headed back downtown on the metro and found ourselves at Karlsplatz, where there was another Christmas Market that was not even on our radar. There is a fountain in front of Karl’s Church that had been emptied and filled with hay and animals, which was kind of cool. Ryan finally found a bratwurst and I found a feuerzangebowle, which is the rum punch that is lit on fire.

Next, we walked down to the Natural History Museum for the Vienna Christmas Village. We found a lot of Christmas gifts here, really good orangenpunsch (my new favorite), and more food. Brooklyn found a chocolate covered apple for her dinner.

Our last stop of the night was the ‘Viennese Dream’ Christmas Market at the Rathaus. There was an ice skating rink so we got the kids skates and Matt and I enjoyed more orangenpunsch because we were dead on our feet.

Saturday morning, we headed back to Schönbrunn Palace for a tour. When we arrived, we found we would have to wait two hours for our tour time and made the decision to pass. We are all (even me) getting ‘palace fatigue.’ Plus, I figured we could save it for another visit in warm weather when we can see the gardens too.

Ryan was THRILLED as he was tired of all the walking we had been doing. He was so excited, he told me that he ‘volunteered for a picture because he was so happy’ in front of the palace. Thanks, Ryan.

We started our drive back to Munich, which was about five hours. When driving in the opposite direction on Thursday, we passed a glowing, gold, massive building and looked it up. Turns out it was Melk Abbey and the gold glow is something it is known for. We decided to check it out on the way back since we had time.

It is indeed very gold up-close. The pictures below don’t show how massive it is though; we could see if from miles away. Please do a Google search to see how big it is. Inside, we saw the libraries, which had books dating back to the 1100s, (that’s over 1000 years old!) and globes dating back to the 1400s. This place was considered a place of elite knowledge on an international scale back in its day. The church contains several religious relics and even the bodies of two saints, which are kept in glass sarcophagi. We were all shocked that these decorated skeletons were just out on display. As such, many, many people made pilgrimages here over the centuries and it made the Abbey very rich. Much of the interior was covered in gold flake. The church itself was covered everywhere in gold, it was a lot to take in.

By the time we made it to Munich, we were starving so we headed out almost immediately to do a route through the city’s main Christmas Markets. I had hoped to do three or four markets, but we ended up walking through eight of them. As we walked, our route took us through more markets that were not even on my radar. We ended up with so many mugs!

Sunday morning, our last stop was BMW World and BMW Museum before we left Munich. What is the difference? BMW World is more of a BMW showroom, where you can actually order a new BMW. There is a big store for BMW accessories and a driving simulator. The Museum tells more about the history of BMW. We did both. The museum was ok, but it was set up as: ‘Here’s a room of engines;’ ‘Here’s a room of motorcycles;’ ‘Here’s a room of M3s;’ as opposed to the Mercedes Museum which took you through the years instead of the products. We did like that it took a lot less time than the Mercedes Museum though. The highlight for Ryan was the driving simulator, which a friend of his had told him about. We almost forgot to do it on the way to the car but thank goodness we remembered at the last minute.

We made it home by late afternoon and had time to catch up on things around the house. Next weekend we are heading to Innsbruck, Austria to go to the Christmas market with my Aunt and Uncle from Italy.