Aachen Christmas market

It is a tradition: every year I spend with "my girls" a long weekend in a city to visit the local Christmas market(s), drink Glühwein, eat the various German and international Christmas specialties offered at the many food booths and to have a great time together, chatting and catching up. In previous years we had been already to München (2011), Leipzig (2012), Hamburg (2013), Dresden (2014) and Berlin (2015). The 2016 trip was suspended as Jana got her little baby girl Mila :-)
This year, 2017, we continued with our tradition. However, we all didn't have much time (i.e. not many holidays left to take), so it was going to be a short trip. Therefore we were looking for a rather smaller town that doesn't require three or more days to explore and visit all its Christmas markets. And so it became Aachen, a cosy 250.000 inhabitants town in the very west of Germany close to the border of Holland and Belgium. Aachen is also just an hour drive away from my home town, which allowed me to add some days at home to see my family which I wasn't going to see for Christmas this year.
I had my flight already on Thursday 07/12 early in the morning (precisely at 06:20 a.m. - damn, that was an early start of the day!).

My mum had picked me up and together we drove for a mum-daughter day in Aachen. Jana would only arrive that Thursday late at night and Audrey and Sarah only on Friday evening. So my mum and I had the day for ourselves, to spend some time together chatting and shopping (mainly Aachen's specialty, the famous "printen").

Later on in the afternoon we met with my cousin Stephan who used to live in Aachen for many many years (but was right in the phase of moving back to his home town Mainz) to have a few Glühwein and dinner together.

After dinner, Stephan and my mum left and I went to our ho(s)tel to wait for Jana to arrive.
The next day, we enjoyed to sleep in before having breakfast/brunch at Café Lammerskötter which was - understandably - highly recommend by my cousin. We liked the place and breakfast there so much that we tried to book a table for the next morning when Audrey and Sarah would have been arrived.
And then it was already time for our first Glühwein :-) ...and to send a picture with greetings to our colleagues in the Oslo office that were having (unfortunately without us) our company Christmas party that afternoon/evening.

We used the afternoon to stroll around the Christmas market, drink some (more) Glühwein & coffee here and there, to check out the town for things to do together with the others on Saturday and to go to the movies (something Jana hadn't really had a chance to do since the birth of her daughter) to watch "Murder on the Orient Express".
Later in the evening of that Friday finally arrived, nearly at the same time, Audrey (by train from Holland) and Sarah (by train from Dusseldorf/Neuss). They just arrived on time for going for a Glühwein together.
Saturday was our day together in Aachen. As mentioned: we really loved that Café Lammerskötter Jana and I went to the morning before. So in four we returned there for that morning's breakfast together. From there we went at noon to one of Aachen's original and still family run "printen" bakeries (Printenbäckerei Klein) to join a guided tour that Jana and I had organised the day before.

Very interesting I think. I got to know a lot of things about this so typically German Christmas pastry. And the question of the day: "when printen come out of the oven, are they hard or soft?"
Afterwards it was time to hit the Aachen Christmas market together, get our first Glühwein together and get spoilt by the many titbits :-)

And not to be missed in Aachen: a visit of the Aachen Cathedral. It is one of the oldest cathedrals in Europe and was constructed by order of the emperor Charlemagne, who was buried there after his death in 814. For nearly 600 years (from 936 to 1531), the Palatine Chapel in the heart of the cathedral was the church of coronation for thirty-one German kings and twelve queens.

This place with soooo many deliciously looking cakes definitely deserved to be visited - at least for a warming cup of coffee.

Last Glühwein of the day together.

Afterwards we went for dinner. Our goal was to find a place with typical German cuisine, but all of the places we went to were already fully booked. No space to get if one didn't prebook - which we hadn't :-( So we ended up in a rather alternative place. A vegetarian restaurant. Not that we didn't eat well there, actually all our dishes were very good and there was a quite good piano player accompanying the evening with music, but it was just not what we had initially on our mind for dinner.

On Sunday morning, Jana already had to leave us. Well, understandably: she still had to get all the way up to the top of Europe, to Tromsø. Audrey, Sarah and I took a last round on the Christmas market and then spent some time in a café until also they had to leave and take their trains back home.
I was picked up by my father and his wife Andrea. We had actually met them with Sarah and Audrey for a Glühwein on the Christmas market. Once the two girls had taken their trains, we left Aachen as well and headed towards Cologne. After a quick stroll, a Kölsch (typical beer from Cologne) and some fries on one of the city's many Christmas markets, we met with my brother at 17:30.

The reason for our meeting in Cologne was my father's birthday present. It was his birthday end of November and my brother, his girlfriend Anna, Marco and I gave my father a giftcard for playing an escape game as a present. For those that don't know what an escape game is: you can find them now more and more all over the world in various towns. It's a kind of quiz/adventure game. I had done this game once in Oslo and thought this would be the perfect gift for my father. He'd love this! And in Cologne there are many escape room providers (we had chosen "Quest-Room"). During an escape game a group of players (that can be 2 up to 6 or even 8 people - depending on the provider) gets locked in a room. The room usually consists of a locked door, objects to manipulate and hidden clues or secret compartments. The players must use the objects to interact with other items in the room to reveal a way to escape. One solved riddle leads to the next one. You only find your way out if you work coordinated and as a team combined with logical thinking. Then you might manage to find your way out by yourselves (before the staff anyway releases you when the playing time of 60 minutes has elapsed).
And we managed to "escape", after 54 minutes we found the last clue, resolved the last quiz that opened us the door :-) Unfortunately Anna (who was ill) and Marco (who was in Oslo) weren't with us, but we did have a lot of fun and enjoyed this adventure, especially my father - which is important as it was his present!

After the game we went for dinner in a nearby "Brauhaus" to finally have some typical German cuisine with dumplings, deer and a Kölsch :-)
That was really a nice evening together and I'm happy my father enjoyed it!
In Cologne we separated and all drove home. I stayed over at my father's place for the night. My dad brought me to my mum's place the next morning where I spent some more days, doing some shopping of things to bring back to Oslo, going to the hairdresser and having a great evening joining my former volleyball team for training followed by a "Stammtisch" with beer and pizza :-)

And on Wednesday 13/12 my mum accompanied me to the airport - it was already time for me to fly back to Oslo, but just for a few days before already heading southwards again for the Christams holidays.

Jana, Audrey, Sarah: thanks for the lovely weekend together! It was so good to see you all again. Already looking forward to our 2018 Christmas market edition - in Vienna?!