Here starts the travelogue… I’m calling it GSC for German Speaking Countries.
I spent 2 nights in Zürich; I spent a lovely afternoon with M and then had coffee the next day with an ex co-worker. M and I toured the Christmas Markets, then share some fondue… Jeez, I really like cheese fondue but I think only once every 10 years or so… I stayed at the Townhouse Boutique Hotel which is about 2 blocks from the train station; it’s relatively inexpensive, and it was clean and mostly quiet. Next time I’d try to find someplace a little posher.
Zürich just turned on the Christmas lights, which are affectionately named Lucy. Here’s a view of Bahnhofstrasse, with Lucy, in the Sky with Diamonds. Yep, it was cold. I also stopped for some chestnuts. Note: Chestnuts are nearly impossible to feel once they’ve cooled, so eat them fast!
I had some extra time before my train to Frankfurt left, and it was raining, so I ducked into a church, and failed to record its name. It’s in the old town near the Fraumünster. I popped in to take a quick look; it’s a fairly plain church with a white and wood interior, and as I sat down to look around, the organist began to practice. It was lovely…
On to Frankfurt, where I’m trying to prove that you can easily fill 2 days with things to do. I visited the Städel and spent 3 happy hours looking at art. Not sure if it was the art (which was amazing) or the fact that I was listening to music through headphones… I grabbed this photo from the roof. Is that not the longest river boat you’ve ever seen?
I spent a fair amount of time thinking about art and how pieces “feel” like each other and how artists view something then riff on it. I’ll put comments on the photos in the album…
Afterwards, I found the Christmas Market; it felt like it was a mile long, winding through the old town streets! I’ll put comments on the photos for that too. It was remarkably nostalgic and brought back fond memories of my mother, and I nearly cried a few times… I have no idea where all that emotion came from!! What triggered it was the old style ornaments, the wood things that spin around when you put candles under them, the vanille kipfel, and those wreaths and stuff that are made out of spices. And the advent calendars. I ate too many kipfel. (Gipfel?) I didn’t photo the barriers everywhere to prevent a car/truck from terrorizing the Market, but I did get the long line of Polizei cars…
It feels like the Market is more about meeting friends for a drink and some street food before than about buying presents, but there were a lot of stalls selling small presents, or Christmas decorations. The street food was largely German (and the potato pancakes looked amazing!) but there were a few other stands including one selling Vegan German food and a couple offering burritos and tacos. Lots of Glũhwein.
On the way home I put my cookies in my pocket and ducked into the Archeology museum; it’s got a lot of well preserved artifacts from a Roman town nearby in the 200s or 300s. I believe a sign indicated they’re dug a trench and erected stone watchtower but had never built walls, like they did on the Scottish border. I thought the museum was interesting but I’m not sure it was on the must see list.
I can’t easily move the photos around so I’ll fix that when I get home; I’ll do a second pass on the editing as well.
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