Christmastime in Germany

City Sidewalks, Busy Sidewalks

December 8 is a holiday in Bulgaria that falls right before the end of the school year.  Anne and Mark decided to take advantage of that scheduling quirk by leaving town for a long weekend and visiting the Christmas market in Munich, Germany.  Many people associate Munich with a festival that occurs a little earlier in the year, as Munich annually plays host to a huge Oktoberfest celebration.  However, the Christmas market is no slouch, as Anne and Mark found out.

There are several markets set up around the city.  Anne and Mark looked enough like locals that they were asked to give directions once or twice.  At first, they stated that they did not know their way around, as they were not actually from around the area.  After a little thought, though, Anne and Mark decided that a flat denial was just not in the Christmas spirit.  The next time someone asked for directions, Anne and Mark decided that they would give some (left, right, left, right, up, down, up, down, B, A start?), for better or for worse.

One of the large Christmas markets starts in Marianplatz (which roughly translates to "Mary's Plaza"), which is right in the center of Munich and spreads along the adjoining streets.  If you go to Munich with a travel guide, it will send you to Marianplatz so that you can view the famous Glockenspiel.  For those who don't know, the Glockenspiel  kind of looks like a huge cuckoo clock.  Everyday at 11 and 12 o'clock, the clock chimes and the glockenspiel re-enacts a joust from four hundred years ago (or something like that).  After the home team (the Bavarian knight) wins, some little coopers do an interpretive dance.  According to our guide, the coopers were the beer makers of the time.  Unfortunately, the city was hit by plague.  As often happened with plague, they blamed it on the cats.  So they killed the cats.  This allowed the rat population (which actually spread plague) to balloon and things got really bad.  The people started quarantining themselves in their homes to avoid getting sick.  This was bad news for the coopers (because no one buys beer if they never leave their house).  So, long story short, they imported some cats from Italy, took down the rats, plague goes away, everybody wins.  The people, though, still did not know that the coast was clear.  So the coopers turned to the most logical form of communication for this type of situation - interpretive dance.  They invented a little twirling dance to symbolize that the plague was over.  The coopers in the glockenspiel do it every day.  The coopers in the city of Munich do it once every seven years, to commemorate .... well, I guess to commemorate the day that the imported Italian cats got after the German rats.  So, if you're interested in seeing the coopers of Munich do a swirling dance down the streets, head's up - the next one is in 2012.  Anyway, for some reason the Glockenspiel is a famous tourist attraction.  Anne and Mark were more impressed with the Christmas market.

The Christmas market at Marianplatz was pretty extensive.  Even so, the vendors could mostly be categorized into one of two camps: (1) arts & crafts or (2) booze.

Possibly selling arts & crafts AND booze.

Anne and Mark eventually found their way to a stand that was peddling Gluhwein, which is mulled wine.  Anne and Mark were encouraged because although the arts and crafts vendors were frequented by fellow tourists, Anne and Mark had to elbow their way past Munichians Munchkins Munichese people from Munich to get to the counter of the Gluhwwein stand.  When eating or drinking on the road, always go where the locals go.  If you need to fight past the locals - all the better.

What does that lady have in her hat?

Later, Anne and Mark took a short trip to a town called Fussen.  Fussen is much smaller than Munich, but also had a market.