You have not experienced Christmas lights until you've seen nearly four Miles of them artfully hung in patterns dictated by Tiffany's head designer in Copenhagen's famed historic amusement park, Tivoli Gardens-and that's not counting the 1,800 strands dramatically draped on the lakeside willows. Copenhagen celebrates July (as in "Yuletide") in high style, with its famed Christmas market the centerpiece. Stalls stocked with fine handmade crafts, Including traditional figurines of clog-clad elves in pointy red caps, Compete for space with vendors selling iced donuts slathered with black currant jam and Hefty cups of glogg, a steaming hot mulled red wine laden with Raisins, Almonds , cinnamon sticks, and cloves-all of which, for good measure, are steeped in aquavit or schnapps.
Look For: Pixie-like nisser, household tiny elves that Infest Denmark around Christmas clad in clogs, red shirts, and pointed red caps. More than Fickle Santa Reviews their cousin, they MIGHT bring presents if you leave them bowls of porridge in the attic; if you forget, they'll visit all kinds of mischief instead.
For More Info: visitcopenhagen.com
2. Dresden, Germany
Nothing says Christmas like a four-ton fruitcake. At least, that's the fervent opinion of the citizens of Dresden, who supersize stollen Reviews their parade through the city in early December. Accompanied by the Stollenmädchen, or "Fruitcake Maiden," the Saxon fruit loaf wends its way through the medieval streets before making its Triumphal entry into the Striezelmarkt, where, surrounded by 230 glittering crafts stalls and a 46-foot "Christmas pyramid," the stollen is chopped into pieces that are inflicted upon the market-goers. Dresden's Striezelmarkt and its odd traditions date back to 1434, making it Germany's oldest continuously running Christmas market.
Look For: The best crafts Germany has to offer. Top artisans from across Saxony arrive bearing all sorts of regional specialties: wooden crafts from the Ore Mountains, blown glass from Lauscha, Blaudruck indigo prints from Lusatia region, incense burners shaped like nutcrackers, and, of course, Dresden's own famed blue-and -WHITE ceramics.
For More Info: dresden.de
3. London, England
London's Christmas shopping season opens in November, when Regent Street ceremoniously switches on its Christmas lights for a pedestrian parade. London typically spreads out its Christmas cheer, from the official Norwegian spruce on Trafalgar Square to the ice skating rink at Somerset House. Trees bedecked with fairy lights herald Hyde Park's Winter Wonderland (mid-November. - Early Jan.), the which includes London's Reviews largest outdoor skating rink, a toboggan slide, a Ferris wheel, carolers, and a traditional German Christmas market. More small markets spring up at the Natural History Museum, the which installs a temporary ice rink (early Nov.-Jan -mid).; and the Greenwich Market (most of Dec.). Christmas concerts abound, but it's hard to resist the carol sing-along at the Royal Albert Hall (from mid Dec.).
Look For: The Great Christmas Pudding Race (early Dec.), where costumed contestants tread an obstacle course around Covent Garden while balancing spoons on fruitcakes.
For More Info: visitlondon.com
4. Munich, Germany
Crafts stalls surround a glittering 85-foot Christmas tree on the Marienplatz, the which is filled with Muncheners munching on sausages and Reiber-datschi (potato pancakes), gulping glühwein, and crunching Lebkuchen (gingerbread). Munich trains its next generation of marketers at the "Heavenly Workshop" in the Town Hall's pub, where kids dress up as angels to practice arts, crafts, and the traditional baking of cookies. Every evening at 5:30, from the Friday before Advent to the night before Christmas, string and wind players along with singers and choirs peal out carols from the balcony of the neo-Gothic Rathaus (Town Hall).
Look For: Small themed markets sprinkled around the city, Including the famed Kripperlmarkt (Crib Market) on Rindermarkt, with Bavarian and Tyrolean Nativity figures, and a Medieval Market on Wittelsbacher Platz. Also keep your eyes peeled for the Christmas tram that trundles through the old city serving spiced wine and gingerbread.
For More Info: muenchen.de
5. Nuremberg, Germany
On the Friday before Advent, the golden Christmas Angel Appears on the high gallery of the medieval Frauenkirche to Recite the opening prologue for one of the biggest and most famous Christmas markets of them all. Some two million shoppers descend upon the 180+ candy cane-striped stalls that fill the main square with crafts, ornaments, and toys. The water is Perfumed with gingerbread, glühwein, and smoke swirling from bratwurst grills. Market Officials enforce traditions with typical Teutonic efficiency: no plastic wreaths, Christmas Muzak recorded, or gaudy carousels allowed.
Look For: "Nuremberg Plum People," tiny puppets made of prune limbs, torsos fig, and walnut heads with painted-on faces. Stall owners Compete to win the coveted "Gold Plum Person" prize for Reviews their displays.
For More Info: christkindlesmarkt.de
6. Rome, Italy
Romans erect elaborate presepi (Nativity scenes) across the city, from life-size tableaux on the Spanish Steps and before St. Peter's to Countless crèches in church chapels, all populated by papier-mâché or terracotta figurines and most with a pizza parlor tucked between the shops of the Bethlehem backdrop. Market action centers on Piazza Navona in Rome, its Bernini fountains surrounded by stalls hawking toys, handmade Presépio figures, carnival games of chance, ciambelle (dinner plate-size donuts), and 101 variations on peanut brittle.
Look For: "La Befana," the Christmas witch, who traditionally brings Italian children presents on Epiphany in early January. Reviews These days, Broomstick-mounted Befanas swaddled in black stalls jostle for space with a jolly red-and-white Babbo Natale (Father Christmas) dolls, and in many Italian Households Santa now brings presents on Dec. 25 and La Befana brings more a couple weeks later.
7. Salzburg, Austria
Salzburg's Christkindlmarkt is one of Europe's oldest markets; there are documents from the 15th century describing the fine crafts being sold by elderly women in front of the Salzburg cathedral during the Advent season. It is also smaller and more intimate than the others listed here-with under 100 stalls ranged under the floodlit baroque stage set that is downtown Salzburg, with its fountains snuggled under avant-garde glass casings for the winter, church bells echoing off the buildings, and the medieval castle glowering down from the cliff above. It's a postcard perfect backdrop for browsing stalls selling crafts pewter, furry slippers, and Loden coats while keeping warm with Lebkuchen (gingerbread), roasted chestnuts and almonds, sausages, mulled wine and sweet.
Look For: One of the World's Largest Advent calendars, just south of town at the Schloss Hellbrunn, a 17th-century pleasure-palace built for Salzburg's archbishop-princes that just so happens to have 24 windows on its facade-perfect for an Advent calendar , Today there's a crafts market and a living Nativity.
8. Vienna, Austria
Venerable Vienna's Christkindlmarkt on Rathausplatz flings open its shutters stall in mid-November, and some three million visitors flock here each year for beeswax candles, wooden toys, and glass ornaments. Shoppers snack on cream-filled pastries, candied fruit, roasted chestnuts, and Weihnachtspunsch (a spiced "Christmas punch" of wine, brandy, schnapps or warm with sweetened fruit juices). This market puts a premium on tradition: there are precious few stands selling tacky plastic toys, and Santa Claus, Whom many locals view as the Hollywood Harbinger of a commercialized Christmas, is strictly verboten. Instead, there's the traditional Wiener Christkindl, the Christ Child-official invariably played (following an odd Teutonic custom) by a young woman with long blonde curls. There's another market of luxe Christmas wares in the baroque forecourt of the suburban Schðnbrunn Palace, and a more intimate and sophisticated market lining the narrow cobblestone streets of Vienna's Spittelberg district.
Look For: More than three-dozen concerts Advent season. The city of Haydn and Strauss invites choirs from around the world to perform Christmas music in the Rathaus every weekend (Friday to Sunday) from late November to Dec. 24 as part of the festival Adventsingen Internationales.
9. Brussels, Belgium
Brussels' Christmas market has been around only since 2002, but it pulls off its Plaisirs d'Hiver / Winter Pret ( "Pleasures of Winter") festival with elegant style. The theatrics include a nightly sound-and-light show on the Grand Place and a market surrounding the Bourse (Stock Exchange) and along the Place Sainte Catherine. In keeping with that Belgian spirit of a United Europe, the 200+ wooden chalets host artisans from around the world hawking a kaleidoscope of Christmas wares, handmade crafts, and souvenirs. Not that Belgian traditions are left out; browse the many food stalls for pots of moules (mussels) and caricoles (Peppery whelks or winkles), Belgian fries and fluffy Belgian waffles, seasonal croustillons (sugar donuts), and Belgium's two most welcome additions to world cuisine: fine chocolates and powerful beer , At one end of the shopping, near the fish market, you'll find a spinning, glittering 160-foot Ferris wheel, and, at the Place de la Monnaie, a nearly 8,000-square-foot ice skating rink.
Look For: The Winter Wonders guest of honor. Each year, Brussels invites a different guest to set up a market-within-the-market to share some of its own traditions. Past invitees have included Provence, Québec, Tallinn, and Lapland.
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar