Friday, December 2 - Sunday, December 4 2011
December is here and this is
the time of year when Christmas markets are at full force in Europe. We realized that this may be our last
opportunity for a while to experience some European Christmas market action, so
we are getting as much in as possible (you’ll hear of additional adventures later
this month). We decided to start it off
big by going to Köln (aka Cologne), Germany, which sits on the top
of the list of Europe’s best Christmas markets! |
| Prague Market - 2009 |
Our friends from work Peter,
Jana, and Jana’s roommate (Traci) were all interested in seeing some Christmas
markets this year, too. We cooked up
plans for the trip while at the FleetFoxes concert in November, and through a slight mistake in travel plans
(we’ll save you from the details) our overnight train trip accidentally turned
into a crazy road trip. The term “crazy”
is somewhat appropriate because Cologne is over 7 hours away from Geneva by car
and we were only going for the weekend.
We left Friday after work
and, anticipating a late arrival, stayed the night a couple hours outside of
Cologne, in Griesheim (Germany). The road trip itself was a good time – we
spent hours reminiscing about music of the past as we made our way through a
long stretch of the “80s” and “90s” playlists on Jana’s iPod. Of course we had the pleasure of driving on
the famous German Autobahn
again. However, this time Dave only got
above 170 kph (105 mph) due to some cautious passengers and variable weather
conditions.
By Saturday around 11am we
were finally in Cologne. We checked in
to the hotels and hit the town. It’s
hard to go chronologically through all of the six markets (scattered around
town) that we visited because we often visited markets multiple times during the
trip. Instead we’ll show some highlights
of each in no particular order…
The first, and probably the
most popular, is the Cathedral Market,
located at the base of the Cologne Cathedral (more on this later). Besides having the gigantic cathedral as a backdrop, our next favorite part of this market was
that it had a huge Christmas tree in the middle, with lights that would spread
out over much of the market. And, of
course, Santa Claus himself was hanging around this market.
The Harbor Market, much like it sounds, was located on Cologne’s
harbor. Technically there were two
markets here, but they kind of blended together. The best we could figure is that the Medieval Market portion had old-fashioned
looking stands, like this special baker (below left).
A couple of things stood out about the Harbor market. The first was a special mulled (aka spiced)
wine drink that was topped with a brown sugar cube, doused with 150-proof rum,
and set on fire. The end result was delicious.
Even more strange was seeing
Die Arche Noah (aka Noah’s
arch)! In the middle of the harbor sat a
surprisingly large replica of the real thing.
We aren’t sure if this was a traveling show or a permanent exhibit, but
it looked like it would be a lot of fun for kids. Maybe someday we’ll come back with our own…
:)
The Angel Market was the largest and oldest of all the markets. We passed through this one a couple of times,
the last time was on our way to see the Fairytale
Market, which was dressed up with brother’s Grimm fairytale stories. Seeing as they wrote hundreds of stories and
we’re only familiar with a handful, we weren’t able to pinpoint all of the
decorations to specific stories. Maybe
you can recognize this one on the rooftop?
It was all great décor nonetheless.
You’ll also notice the small castle in the background, which was most
impressive to us.
They even had a Floating Market, which was housed on board a riverboat. The novelty eventually
wore off, as it seemed more like a trade-show at a fair than a Christmas
market. It did give us an opportunity to
see more of the river and surrounding waterfront though. Below you’ll also see some general pictures
of Cologne, lit up for the season. 
The market we spent
the most time in was the Elf Market, in
Cologne’s Old Town. This market had an
extremely fast Ferris wheel (which the ladies participated in—seriously, that
thing whipped around so fast) and an ice skating rink, which wasn’t so inviting
because it of the puddles from all the rain. We stayed much of Saturday night hanging at
this market and chatting it up with the local Germans.
Another neat thing about
each market is that they have different mugs, which double as collector
items. Out of the 6 different markets,
there were over 10 different mugs containing your mulled wine, hot chocolate or
coffee. We told ourselves we’d only keep
one or two… and of course we came back with five. It’s so easy to keep them though as they are
just an extra $3 deposit when you order a hot drink. If you return it you get your money back, and
if you keep it you have a pretty cheap souvenir. Jana has over a dozen at home now from
previous market visits - haha.
The Elf Market was close to
where we had dinner Saturday night, at Peters
Brauhaus. Cologne’s beer culture was
a little different than what we’ve experienced in Germany – we’re used to the
large steins at Oktoberfest, or at least a pint-sized glass. Instead, all throughout Cologne, beer is
served in these cute little, unflashy glasses, containing about 7 oz of
beer. At the Brauhaus they just walk
around with a handful of the beers and you raise your hand if you want
another. Ang loved it because the beer
doesn’t have a chance to get warm. Dave
wasn’t quite convinced, as there’s something about holding a big stein of beer
in Germany.
Another big reason we chose
to visit Cologne was a particular art museum.
Yes, this sounds a bit odd for a couple of non-art lovers, but there is a
good reason. The Wallraf-Richartz-Museum was touted by reviews on TripAdvisor.com as the art museum for those who don’t appreciate
art. This is primarily because of the
layout – each of the three floors and dozens of rooms were summarized nicely,
including explanations of different trends and features throughout the art’s
history. The timespan of the art display
started in the 13th century with religious artifacts (that weren’t
even considered art at the time), and moved through different waves of trends,
sizes, and themes.
The museum collection ended in the 19th century with the beginning of Impressionism. Honestly, it was a really good experience and we learned a lot, which will help (although not solve) with appreciation in the future. Dare we say that impressionist art makes a little bit of sense now? :) We might not go that far, but we did learn that impressionist art was partially inspired by scientific discoveries about the eye – when small strokes of different colors are side by side, they blend together for an observer who is standing at least a certain distance from the painting. Test out your eyes with the three paintings below (click on the images to make them bigger)…
Cologne has a little Roman
history as well. This Roman arch was
found nearby and placed here as a reminder of the cities roots dating back to
50 A.D. Additionally an original mosaic
floor from a rich Roman merchant’s house is on display and still in remarkable
shape – you can see it through the window of the Roman-Germanic Museum, which was actually built around the floor to
maintain its authentic placement.
Hands-down the biggest
(literally) attraction in Cologne is the massive
Cologne Cathedral (aka Dom). The
measurements speak for themselves: at 516ft it’s currently the third-tallest
church in the world. More impressive is
that it was the tallest building in the world from 1880 to 1884, and remains
the tallest Roman Catholic cathedral in the world. That large black thing you see in the photo below is actually a full-sized replica of the two spires on the top of the church - incredible because they look so small from ground level! Another claim to fame is that it is home to
the skulls of the Three Wise Men (how
fitting for a Christmas market weekend).
The only problem? We could never
see them! Somehow every time we visited
the cathedral there was a service going on, so that part of the cathedral was
closed (I think we were 0 for 5 on our attempts).
The good news is that we
were still able to enter the cathedral, if only just to feel the sheer size of
the interior. On one of our last
attempts, there was actually a large band/orchestra and choir playing and
singing Christmas music in German. If we
weren’t going to see the bones of the Three Wise Men, we decided this treat was
an acceptable replacement!
Tired from lots of market
action and walking all around Cologne, we decided it was time to head on our
journey back to Geneva Sunday evening. After
another rain-filled drive we rolled into town around 2am and, like little kids,
went to bed dreaming of our next Christmas market experience… ;)
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