Joyeux Noel!, Frohe Weihnachten!, Merry Christmas!

Christmas in Europe has a been a cacophony of color, smells, languages and tastes. I was excited to come to Europe at this time of year so that I could experience the famous European markets and I have not been disappointed. MW & I are now experts on Christmas markets, we have visited them in six cities in three countries. Strasbourg was reputed to be the best in France, followed closely by Colmar so we decided to see both. I found us a nice little room just of the main square, we ended up nicknaming our room the Slanted Strawberry due to a slight slope in the room angled toward the bathroom and it's decoration in red. We still liked it, it was full of personality. We also found great food on our first night. We happened into a small place on a very well decorated square and tried two of the local dishes; flambee and a potato pancake type dish. The flambee is like an extremely thin crust pizza with creme fraiche, lardons and onions on it. MW liked it so much she recreated it back home in Zurich and I do believe it was even better then the original. As usual we had few goals in town but to see the lights and check out the local wares. The stands were positioned in any available square throughout the heart of town. The most common booths contain jewelry, toys, scarves. Some of the other options were preserved meats, cheese, candles and Christmas decorations. However, hands down our two favorite types of stalls were vin chaud and bredle. Vin chaud, or gluhwein in German, is mulled wine and at the Christmas markets they sell it everywhere. Bredle are small Christmas cookies most popular in the Alsace region, and in the markets they are piled up and you pick out how many grams and which ones. You may ask how we knew which one to buy, that is the best part, as you walk by all the sellers are giving away bredle and if you want to try another you just ask. In Colmar, there is a small canal that ran through and instead of being centered on the plazas, the market wound down the streets and along the canal. At one stall we found soap from Marsailles, it was the same as some I had bought in Arles years ago, they smelled so good we had to get a few, or 7. Most of the markets deserve the fuss and definitely made visiting them in the off season well worth it.

Merry Christmas and thanks for reading.