We traveled to Germany to check out the Christmas Markets, also known as Christkindlmarkt, Marché de Noël, Christkindlesmarkt, Christkindlmarket, and Weihnachtsmarkt, a street market generally held in the town square and adjacent pedestrian zones, the market sells food, drink, and seasonal items from open-air stalls, accompanied by traditional singing and dancing. It is associated with the celebration of Christmas during the four weeks of Advent. These markets originated in Germany, Austria, Northern Italy and the eastern French regions of Alsace, Lorraine and Savoy. The history of Christmas markets goes back to the Late Middle Ages in the German-speaking part of Europe and in many parts of the former Holy Roman Empire that includes many eastern regions of France and Switzerland.
We flew to Munich, Germany and stayed at the LeMeridien. It was right by the train station, and perfect central location. Munich was very cute, and had some nice markets.
We took a day trip out to Dachau Concentration Camp. It's the first of the Nazi concentration camps intended to hold political prisoners. It was located on the grounds of an abandoned factory about 16 km (10 mi) northwest of Munich. Opened in 1933 by Heinrich Himmler, its purpose was enlarged to include forced labor, and eventually, the imprisonment of Jews, ordinary German and Austrian criminals, and eventually foreign nationals from countries that Germany occupied or invaded. The Dachau camp system grew to include nearly 100 sub-camps, which were mostly work camps. The camps were liberated by U.S. forces on April 29, 1945. This was a very moving experience and a sobering day. It was freezing and I could only imagine the prisoners outside for roll call for hours upon hours with no jackets. It was very upsetting to hear and see examples of the treatment the prisoners experienced.
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| Snowing! |
We took a train to Frankfurt, and stayed at the Hilton Frankfurt. The hotel was very central, but off the main street so it was nice and quiet.
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| My favorite form of travel |
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| Homemade applesauce |
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| Romer Square |
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| Frankfurt skyline |
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| Langos, our favorite! |
Another train, this time to Cologne AND we got our own little room because of the baby. It's called a Kinder room, and it was amazing! Plenty of room for the stroller and space for him to move around. We shut the doors and enjoyed the quiet trip.
Cologne was beautiful! The best Christmas Markets so far. They were all over the city and each one had a fun theme that it was decorated in. We stayed at the Marriott, it was nice but a bit of a walk from the station.
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| Cologne Cathedral |
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| Best meal of the trip...Spatzle |
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| Cathedral at night...stunning |
Last stop Berlin! This had a big city feel, very different than the quaint little cities we just came from. We stayed at my favorite hotel thus far in Germany, the Waldorf Astoria. They rolled out the red carpet for us and went above and beyond to be sure we had everything we needed. They brought tons on baby comfort items for Harvey, including Legos. We had a great view too, and it was right across from the train station.
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| Playing in the hotel |
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| Fanciest market, it was indoors |
We went on a walking tour to see the sights of Berlin. It began at the Hotel Adlon, where Michael Jackson dangled his baby, Blanket, over the balcony. This is also the fanciest hotel in Berlin with a bomb shelter for the inhabitant of the penthouse.
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| Flowers outside the French Consulate for the recent attack victims in Paris |
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| Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe |
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| Berlin Wall |
Check out the pedestrian symbol! Its called Ampelmänn. It is the symbol shown on pedestrian signals in the former East Germany. Prior to German reunification in 1990, the two German states had different forms for the man, with a generic human figure in West Germany, and a male figure wearing a hat in the east.
The Ampelmänn is a beloved symbol in Germany, and one of the few features of communist East Germany to have survived the end of the Iron Curtain with his popularity unscathed. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Ampelmänn became a popular souvenir item, and is so charming! Its a great visual difference too so you know when to walk...Germans only cross on the green, no jaywalking!
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| Concert Hall |
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| Bebelplatz |
The Bebelplatz is known as the site of one of the infamous Nazi book burning ceremonies held in the evening of May 10, 1933, in many German university cities. They burned around 20,000 books, including works by Karl Marx, Albert Einstein and many other authors.
The memorial by Micha Ullman consisting of a glass plate set into the cobbles, gives a view of empty bookcases big enough to hold the total of the 20,000 burnt books, commemorates the book burning. A plaque inset in the square: "Das war ein Vorspiel nur, dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen." Translated "That was only a prelude; where they burn books, they will in the end also burn people."
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| Trabi Communist car |
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| Swimming at the hotel |
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| Beautiful Market |
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| Cheers to our last night in Germany |
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| Very curious to watch the plane take off |
Germany was beautiful and had so much rich history along with stunning markets. We loved every city, and would go back to any of them, but my rankings for the entire experience are:
4th. Berlin
3rd. Frankfurt
2nd. Munich
1st. Cologne
