More Christmas market

There is another Christmas market within walking distance of my work at Neumarkt, so I have been over there a few times too. It's nicer than ours, but not as kid-friendly.



I have to repeat how the smell of a Christmas market wafts through an entire city. When I open my window at work, I smell the most amazing mixture of smells - the sweets mostly, with the spices from the wine, a really strong anise smell, and the fried stuff too. It lures you back.

I heard there were ponies there but I couldn't find them, not even a trace of them. *sigh* I enjoyed the carousel horses and detail in the whole thing a lot. There was gorgeous fabric hanging down.

I always felt bad for the real horses who lost their tails for carousels. A little kid said "Mommy, watch me ride the carousel" and her mom said, "No, I have to go to the toilet trailer. You just ride it and have fun."

Here they are. I realized she was leaving her kid unsupervised in a busy market. It's different here.

The Neumarkt Christmas market is awesome with its hundreds of glowing stars in the trees above. Here's another booth with those advent stars that I love. There is also an Ice Queen on stilts who walks majestically thru the crowds and gives people handfulls of fairy dust. She has lights in her hair.

She seemed really nice, not like you'd expect an Ice Queen to act.

I did run into a lady with a giant snow owl on her arm and her Australian shepherd done up like a unicorn. Wish I had a photo of the dog!

The nativity scenes were interesting. Some were scary looking.

This one was the nicest I've ever seen. The characters had real fabric clothing on, and the sheep had real wool. You expect them to come to life.

I had to pick carefully what food I wanted to try this day. I've been to the markets a lot recently and I'm trying to try eveything.

Big trough full of chestnuts. MMMMM!!

This guy's stand makes the strongest smells of any I think. He's the candy man. I'm a little afraid of these candies - I'm American and they all look and smell so odd to me. I would try one if there were samples, but samples don't really exist here.

There's a person in there somewhere, selling things.

I came across this booth and was stunned by the gorgeous glass jewelery. These necklaces are so pretty, oh no get me outta here, so many pretty things!

I'm gonna try these next time. It's Kassler - thick sliced fried ham. Can you just smell it?

There was a soccer game that night between Cologne and their arch-rival. The market had a lot of beer drinking yelling guys in red/white crest jackets with the Cologne goat. I was scared of them, they were chanting someting loudly and one of them lit off a firework that sounded like a bomb.

At first I was annoyed at this bratwurst booth. Why would anyone here buy bratwurst when you can get it any day of the year in any city? Then I remembered there are lots of tourists who visit the markets.

I have to admit this - this is what I decided on, and have almost every visit to the market. It's called reibekuchen, they're deep fried shredded potato patties and are soooo yummy! I bet this guy's hands hurt from the hot oil popping up at him. They make these things contantly and they are being purchased constantly so you always get one piping hot. Usually people put applesauce on it but I tried that once and it ruined it. I don't like applesauce at all. I noticed later that there are bags of potatoes and eggs behind him. I didn't know there were eggs involved in reibekuchen.


I spent some time just hanging out at the reibekuchen booth at one of the tables, reading my book and enjoying the happy people all around me.

Then I wandered down this street back to my office to go home. I love these markets!