Munich at Christmas

We had a fabulous time visiting Munich, staying with Andrea, Kelly and Josh. After arrival by train and a great Thanksgiving-Friday meal, we got to sightseeing. The weekend was the first of Advent, the Christmas season. The town of Neubiberg where they live was having its Christmas market so we visited there first. After admiring the handcrafted ornaments we found the Gluhwein stand and had our first order. It's a hot spiced wine, traditional in Germany, Austria and northern Italy in winter. A great hand-warmer, too.

Next we decided to go to Nurnberg, which has Europe's largest Christmarket. It's a beautiful old city center with castle turrets, walls, and cathederals. The square in front of the largest church holds the market, with hundreds of vendors of handmade decorations, toys, food - and more gluhwein! All of the markets have different mugs for the drinks (you can also get non-alchoholic kinderpunsch, or chocolate) so we collected quite a few. We spent all day at the market and had to refeul with sausages. In the evening, we strolled the streets of the old city as it was lit by white lights and shooting stars.

There are many more pictures on my FLICKR page, http://www.flickr.com/photos/24327800@N05/

We continued our quest the next day, taking the train into Munich to see the markets. The largest in the main square, the Marienplatz. There are several others, specializing in other handiworks, including the woodworks at the Residenz, and manger-scene figures at the Sigmundstor. All included many gluhwein and sausage stands. We wandered the streets and stalls, people-watching, shopping, and eating. A fabulous day, and we returned a number of times. We especially liked the use of natural materials for decoration; evergreen and bare branches, friut and nuts, figures formed from grass, holly and mistletoe, many adorned only with a ribbon or single glass ball.

The people-watching was terrific. Munich is always fashion-forward and it did not dissappoint this time. The women's trend was to tall boots, skirts over tights, and a short warm coat. Some wore sleek pants instead of skirts, but all wore boots, some leather with spiked heels and the younger ones with pleather uggs-types. In the city center we also saw a lot of traditional Bavarian dress - heavy wool coats with leather trim, Loden coats (dark green felted) and wonderful variations fine wool hats with feather plumes, fur trim or silver derorations. Maybe we'll put together a post just on fashion later.

Our other travels took us to Bad Tolz, in the alpine foothills, a lovely old city center with a fine market. Kelly and family come in summer for hiking, and the winter was also charming. Kufstein, Austria, just across the border was a traditional old street on the river. We had visited there 20 years ago and took some updated photos. We also took a number of drives through the countryside, with new fallen snow making for charming winter scenes.

Check further blog posts below (earlier posts) for our travels to Salzburg, and Italy on the same trip. Thanks again to Kelly, Andrea and Josh for their great hospotality!

Salzburg, Austria Christkindlmarkt

Well, we had to go to Salzburg. It's always beautiful, and special, and the Christmas markets were sure to make it more so. We all drove over from Munich and arrived mid-afternoon, and went right to the market by the Mirabel Garden. Josh needed a break after the ride so we went to the playground nearby and all had a great time. It has a great design with a spring-assisted teeter totter, swings and a set of squares that, when you jump on them, makes a different tone for each one. We all tried it. On to the city center and soon found charming decorations in the old city, in small enclosures and large squares alike. Choirs sang in front of the Cathedral, and as dusk fell the lights added a bright glow. Did I mention they serve Gluhwein there? And sausages? Later we passed by an ice rink where kids were learning to skate with the aid of animal forms. Hungry, we headed for one of the best beer halls in town, in St. Augustines Church. Passing by the statues of Christ and washing our mugs in the baptismal font, we enjoyed the Augustiner-Brau and schnitzel. Look it up in Rick Steve's guide.

We finally walked back across the bridge, admiring the night view of the Salzburg fortress.

Krampus and Perchten, Oh My!

We visited Dobbiacco, Italy on the weekend of St. Nicolas Day (12.6) and found ourselves at the center of the Krampus tradition. This extends through much of Tirol, from Salzburg Austria through the Brenner Pass. It is an old German tradition born from a story of St. Nicholas and a companion, sort of an anti-St. Nick. He accompanies St. Nicholas, but brings the dark side. St. Nick brings presents, while the Perchten or Krampus brings only switches for the misbehaving children. Salzburg had a 'Krampus-run every night of the first week of advent, and Wikipedia notes a run of over a 1000 devils in Schladming, Austria. The locals said the procession wouuld begin with St. Nicholas, accompanied by some small Krampuses, then followed by the 'big Krampus". When we got to the town center, we never saw St. Nick, but a run of over 100 Krampuses. A 'procession' implies an orderly walk; this was not that. The devils would charge up and down the street harassing onlookers and attempting to hit them with their switches. There was a 'Krampus-free zone', but the devils would charge the barricades, pull the barriers down, or reach over the tops to reach the spectators. Most likely targets were children not paying attention and pretty young women. We started out in an unprotected zone, but after being attacked with switches by various monsters, we moved behind the barricades. There were about a dozen groups from different villages, all with a different theme for their devils. All included natural skins and fur robes, animal horns from goats, sheep, ibex, and chamois, and wore huge bells that clanged when they moved. For effect, they lit off red flares that lent an erie red glow and smoke to the scene.

Josh and Andrea were out when the first ones went by, and he just saw the wooly skins and horns and said, "Look, sheep". Andrea ducked inside before the scary ones came by. More photos and video on FLICKR.

Italy, St Nicholas Day

We visited Dobbiaco, Italy with Kelly, Andrea and Josh on the weekend of St. Nicolas Day, December 6. Ellen and I have enjoyed staying here many times and wanted to visit during the holidays. They have local traditions we wanted to witness, and they also had new snow, so we could take Kelly and Andrea skiiing. Dobbiaco is in the midst of the Italian Dolomites, and the new snow made the views spectacular. A recent snowfall made everything snow-bedecked like postcards. Though in Italy, the area is ethnically German. Ten kilometers to the south lies a very Italian Cortina d'Ampezzo, a resort of world renown. We drove a circular route through the Dolomites to Cortina and back, and the mountains were in their full glory, another spectacular view at other turn. We rented skis and Ellen and I took turns tutoring Andrea and Kelly on cross-country skis while Josh got towed around on a sled. He loved the snow, but eventually wore out, slumping over on the sled. We also celebrated Ellen's birthday, and also watched the village Krampus procession, a Tirolean tradition (see another post).See FLICKR for more photos.http://www.flickr.com/photos/24327800@N05/

Visitors to the Glass Studio

We had another visit from the Chinese-language preschool kids in mid-November. Ellen had arranged for them to come over and make creations from pieces of colored glass that has been pre-cut. We showed them what pieces looked like before and after firing, but I'm not sure they got the concept. The had a good time laying up the colored glass, anyway, and we finished up by putting them all in the kiln. Mostly they were impressed with the cool garage and all the stuff inside - bikes! kayaks! tools! A few days later Ellen delivered the finished pieces and all were amazed. It's the same group of kids we had visit our garden last summer, and next spring we'll help them start a garden in their schoolyard.