Leipzig Christmas market

Jana and I are German - we need our annual dosis of proper Christmas market atmosphere with Glühwein (mulled wine)! The Scandinavians do have Christmas markets as well, but as far as I can judge until now they are just a very bad copy of the real traditional German ones. And then they sell something supersweet here called "Glögg", some kind of wannabe-Glühwein.

So in order satisfy Jana's and my "needs", we travelled last year (2011) together with our friend Audrey to Munich where we were joint by another friend of mine, Sarah. It was just a long weekend, just to go to the Christmasmarket in the first place and secondly to visit the city. We had based our choice for that destination pretty much on the flight timetables and prices, i.e. affordable tickets for flights leaving/departing early/late in the evening in order to spend as much time on the spot as possible.

The trip to Munich [click here for the post about the trip] was a real success and also in 2012 Jana and I would need to breath in the Christmas market atmosphere. So the trip had to be repeated - just to another city and again with Audrey and Sarah :-). So where would we easily get without losing a whole day travelling? The answer: Leipzig! A flight on Friday 7th of December after work would bring us for pretty little money to Berlin Schönefeld Airport and a train straight from the airport further on to Leipzig and on Monday 10th of December back via Berlin to Oslo. That way we'd have 3 full days to enjoy in the former GDR city.

Friday, 07/12/12:
Jana and I leave the office some 30 minutes earlier to proceed to the airport where we met Audrey. All together we headed towards Berlin. And just after having set foot on German soil, we felt the urge for some real German "currywurst" for dinner, right at the airport before taking the train further on to Leipzig.

When we finally arrived in Leipzig, Sarah was already waiting for us. She came with some car sharing occasion from Neuss and had just arrived an hour before. Together we walked from the train station some 15-20 minutes to our accommodation, a hostel with the nice name "Say Cheese!" :-) It's always Jana that finds those cool and funny places - like last year in Munich "Hotel Achterbahn" (lit. = Hotel Rollercoaster) which was also very special.
"Say Cheese" was a hostel right in the city centre, close to the Old Town of Leipzig, clean and not expensive and we got a 4-bed-room with private bathroom for ourselves. Thus: perfect!

Saturday, 08/12/12:

The next morning, right outside our hostel, blue sky, wonderful sunshine and beautiful alleys.

 

The hostel was very centrally located, very close to the square infront of the Old Town Hall where the Christmas market was held, but also just a stone's throw away from the known Thomaskirche (St. Thomas Church), most famous as the place where Johann Sebastian Bach worked as a cantor and home to the renowned boys choir Thomanerchor.

 

The hostel was very centrally located, very close to the square infront of the Old Town Hall where the Christmas market was held. So the visit of St. Thomas Church it was just a minute's walk to reach the first package of roasted almonds, the many booths filled with all the traditional artisan craftwork, the wonderful smelling food and the warm Glühwein :-)

Yummy - we fell in love with that oven-fresh "Handbrot" filled with bacon, onions, melted cheese and topped with sour cream with herbs! That was not the one and only time we bought those :-)

The new Paulinum Church of the University of Leipzig with the 36-storey Leipzig "City-Hochaus" in the background.

At this location they had actually set up a Scandinavia oriented Christmas market where they offered things such as moose burger, that "glögg" I had mentioned earlier...

...and freshly smoked salmon (burgers)!

After a long day walking outside discovering a bit of Leipzig's city centre, we went out for dinner at "Zum Caffe Baum".

Unfortunately we had to hurry quite a lot with the dinner. We had bought tickets for Johan Sebastian Bach's famous Christmas Oratorio at "his" St. Thomas Church. The concert was supposed to start at 19:30. Well in advance we had proceeded to the restaurant which was just next to our hostel at the little square. However, the waiter misunderstood our orders a little bit. She didn't get that Sarah wanted her soup together with the little salad at the same time as we had our dish. But instead we had to wait for Sarah to finish her soup before we we were brought our dish - only that by that time it was already 19:15. I think I have never eaten a big plate filled with meat rolls, potato dumplings and red cabbage that quick before, i.e. in 5 minutes.

Despite the hurry, it was very delicious. But what a pity to eat such typical Christmas period dish in such a hurry!

However, we eventually made it on time to the concert.

It was the first time for me to listen to this well-known piece of music and I really enjoyed it!

Sunday, 09/12/12:

Unfortunately this morning wasn't as beautiful as the day before. It had started snowing and it actually had kept on doing so heavily over the whole day.
Nevertheless we enjoyed a longer walk through some park area and the Southern area of town.

The back of St. Thomas Church:

The New Town Hall:



The Eastern German traffic lights figure - which is different to the one in the rest of Germany:

The Federal Administrative Court of Germany:

The amount of snow fallen during just a few couple of hours:

Back in the centre for another stroll over the Christmas market and to warm up with a hot cup of mulled wine :-) ...because it was damn cold that day!!!

Monument of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - who came with the age of 16 to Leipzig to study law:

After a long day out walking we deserved a big dinner at "Auerbachs Keller" (Auerbach's Cellar), the best known and second oldest restaurant in Leipzig, dating to at least the first half of the fifteenth century. It was already one of the city’s most important wine bars by the 16th century and is described in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's play "Faust" as the first place Mephistopheles takes Faust on their travels.

After a filling Christmassy 3-courses dinner we headed for a drink at a bar nearby our hostel to end the day.

Upon return to our hostel:

Monday, 10/12/12:

And as if we hadn't walked already for quite some hours the day before, we went on another discovery tour, along the river.

Back in the city we passed another known church of Leipzig: the Nicolaikirche (St. Nicholai Church) for which Bach was also responsible.

Early in the afternoon we walked one last time over the Christmas market. The reason being again those yummy filled breads ("Handbrote"). We didn't only eat one on the spot for lunch. No, we had even bought at a 1-€-shop some plastic containers/food boxes to be able to buy one extra one to take on the flight.

After that we accompanied Sarah to the train station as she had her train back to Dusseldorf at around 3 p.m.

Shortly after that it was also time for Audrey, Jana and me to pick up out luggage from the hostel and to take the train back to Berlin. Despite some delays which really made us worry about losing our plane, we eventually managed to be at the airport on time and to fly back to Oslo.

Thanks, girls, for another wonderful Christmas market weekend :-) To be repeated - in 2013!!!