Holidays Down Under

Hello again!

Quick time traveling post to wrap up the holiday season in Australia!

We typically spend the holidays shuttling between our home in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Lake Tahoe mountains. This year we swapped skiing for surfing and rain for…. well… it still rained, but it was much warmer!

A few highlights from our Holidays in Australia:

Found Santa on the beach

Xmas Jammies appropriate for the weather!

We are suuuuper lucky to have friends living in Sydney who “adopted” us for the Holidays!  Our friends from London invited us to an Christmas Eve-Eve party hosted by one of their friends, to their family Christmas Eve dinner, and Christmas Day celebration. Traveling during the holidays can be tough for the kids but its such a great experience to see another country and cultures’ holiday traditions.  

Surprise festive bus ride back to our house on Christmas Eve

Boxing day for the Sydney to Hobart sailing race, view from North Head

New Years Eve we were back at the Bland’s House to welcome 2024 with a fantastic view of the Harbor over Rose Bay.

Traveling in style to NYE on the Ferry

New Years Eve in Sydney Harbor is absolutely the best fireworks show we have ever seen!

Now back to a whole lot more beach time before the Sydneysiders return to work and life on January 8th! We are excited for the many adventures we have planned for the School Holidays (aka “Summer Break” as we know it back in the states…).

Merry Christmas from Team Mahoney!

Wishing you and your families a very Happy Christmas!!

We have arrived back in California after a long a sleigh ride across the north pole (aka united flight 931Heavy from LHR to SFO, the flight really does go across the top of the globe! We saw Santa in his sleigh up there)  are now home to celebrate Christmas with our families before heading on part two of our four month adventure.  There are still a few European destinations to catch up on next week, however, for now we wanted to share the fun we had chasing Santa around Europe this December!

Found him in Berlin!

Found him jamin’ in Paris!

And he was skiing in Dresden!

And enjoying his großes Bier in Baden-Baden

And he was also in Berlin trying to blend in by disguising himself as a lego…

And he sent a toy soldier on a recon mission to Dresden too

And also disguised as a gummy bear in Rothenburg ob der Tauber (and i kinda wanted to eat him in this guise)

Merry Christmas!!!

Dresden…why you goin’ there??

Here is what we knew about Dresden before arriving…

Facts about Dresden:

• Historically significant city, once known as “Florence on the Elbe”
• Lies on the eastern edge of today’s Germany and was part of the former East German territory
• Much of the city was leveled during a Firebombing towards the end of WWII (Feb 1945)
• Much of the city has been rebuilt over the last 50 years, mainly in the last 20
• Rick Steves had good things to say about the city but we have not met many travelers or friends who have visited and reported back (other than some people Dennis met in a Hostel in 2007)
• I have changed trains in the train station twice on my way to Prague.
• Dresden is awesome!  (wait, we figured this part out after arriving)

So, with all this in mind, we didn’t have super lofty expectations going into our visit, but all three of us were more than pleasantly surprised by the city.

First of all, although much of the city was rebuilt after the war, it was done incredibly well and no expense was spared to rebuild the cities monuments to the way they were before the firebombing, often using the original materials salvaged from the rubble.  As a result, you would never know the monuments and historic buildings are not the originals.  Other great aspects of the city are that everything is very reasonably priced (i.e. ETDS has not hit this city too hard as of 2011) and the public transit system is incredibly efficient and well planned (which I guess is something you get to have when you completely rebuild a city from rubble).

Some of the most impressive of these monuments are the Zwinger, the historic Green Vault which is a baroque treasury collection from the early 1700’s and most impressive, the Frauenkirche (The church of our Lady).  The new Frauenkirche was complete in 2005 (reconstructed from 1992 to 2005) and it’s beautiful.  Its only 150 feet wide but its very tall, with a main dome of 120 feet.  The color scheme is all pastel (appropriate for a church of our lady) which makes the round interior very bright (and very different to the long and sometimes dark interior of most large cathedrals we have seen around Europe.  We popped in to have a look around and ended up staying for the mid day service (and yes it was in German.)  We also found that they have several important WWII memorials embedded within the church including the original cross which had fallen from the top of the dome into the burnt out church rubble and now stands inside the building intact but scarred from the events.

In addition to being a clean, beautiful, authentic and well planned city, Dresden also takes the award for best Christmas market visited so far.  Competition has been steep but Dresden blew the earlier markets away.  The city has several markets, the most impressive being the Altstadt Markt where we found each stand to be uniquely decorated.

And the “Stallhof Advent Festival” market within the walls of the Dresden Royal Palace which had a historic and very traditional atmosphere (i.e. like a cross between a renaissance fair and a Christmas market).  There was a huge working blacksmith tent, you could shoot a bow and arrow(s), great food and drink (like the curly cue potatoes chip) and all the people working there were in costume and everything was decorated true to the period.

Bullseye every time! (riiight)

Yes that is a single potato cut into amazing chips!

Also, on the other side of the river lies the “new town” aka Neustadt (which, in reality is now more the old town because it was not flattened during WWII and rebuild like the more historical “old town” side).   This part of town is reminiscent of the bohemian areas of Prenzlauerberg and Kreuzberg in Berlin (or Berkeley on the Height district in California).   Our walk through the area provided interesting people watching and plenty of street art and other quirky things as well as a peek into how some of the locals live.  We also hear that there is good nightlife over there (Ok, I admit, this is something Rick Steves mentioned in his book) but we didn’t have the opportunity to check that out first hand because we were preoccupied with the amazing Christmas market extravaganza we found on the Altstadt side of the river.

Tandem bicycle fence art makes new town bars cool!

And, check this out, I found this girl walk signal in Dresden, they have “walk man” diversity 🙂

If you ever have an opportunity to go to Dresden at Christmas time or any other time of the year you should jump on it.  It’s a lovely city and I hope I make it back for another visit someday!

What have YOU heard about Dresden before reading this post…  Had you ever heard of it?  Do you know anyone who has been?  Let us know your thoughts!

The Anatomy of a Christmas Market

So what are these “Christmas Markets”?  What makes a good Christmas Market?  Why do so many European towns have Christmas Markets?  What is Glühwein?

So far we have been to five of Europe’s Christmas Markets: London’s Winter Wonderland (more on this later), Krakow, Baden-Baden, Salzburg and Vienna.  Each has its own various themes and unique aspects and all have been a blast – but here is what makes them different:

Location

Location, location, location! For Christmas Markets in historic European cities this is all about taking advantage of amazing historic locations or cool architecture.  The best Christmas Markets from a location perspective: Vienna!  Vienna has at least 8 Christmas Markets, and each is in a cool spot.  There is one in front of the town hall (which in most years opens a window each day over advent to make a giant advent calendar- but not this year… Boo!)  There are two more shoehorned into small squares within the old town and one in the large courtyard between all the major art museums – with famous art work projected on the side of the buildings.  Other good uses of space we have seen included Krakow’s market square, and Salzburg’s Domplatz in front of the main cathedral.

Vienna‘s Maria-Theresien-Platz – with famous artwork projection

Salzburg

Krakow’s Market Square

Food

The first stands you find when entering Christmas Markets are typically the food and drink stalls.  Good Christmas markets do not sell carnival food, but local dishes you can find in restaurants around town.  Best for food so far: Baden Baden!  In Baden Baden we devoured raclette, spatzel and ham (German pasta), and delicious potato pancakes with apple sauce (yes Rob- they were better than those served by Suppen Kuche in San Francisco!).  If you enjoy delicious (and very affordable) meals surrounded by Christmas splendor in place of a much pricier meal in a sit down restaurant, then the Christmas Market gets points for this category (but all of these cities have a fantastic restaurant scene so its good to mix it up).

Drinks

This is possibly the most important category in scoring a Christmas Market, and one of the top tips for staying warm!  We were impressed with the drinks at our first Christmas Market (Krakow), as they seemed to have three types of Glühwein (a spiced hot wine enjoyed throughout the alps in the winter – especially in ski towns!), but once we got to Baden-Baden and discovered flavored Glühwein (cherry has consistently been the best), and then to Vienna and discovered hot Aperol (exactly what it sounds like for those “in the know” on Aperol), our minds had been officially blown!  Other major point gainers in the drinks category include a selection of beers (though these are never served hot!), hot chocolate, flavoured punches, and exotically named drinks like Grog and Black Snow (we can’t even begin to guess what these last two are).

If you are not in the know on Aperol then get in!!

A bit too much Glühwein?

Trinkets and Ornaments

While we have begun to see some repeat trinket stands over the course of the past week, we continue to discover unique offerings at each market.  These unique stands are all about selling Christmas decorations and gifts you just won’t find anywhere else (like alpaca scarves, gloves and slippers).  What you wont find are cheesy souvenirs related to what put your city on the map (i.e. Mozart and Sound of Music in Salzburg etc).  Major “point getters” in this category include old toys from the 50’s, anything handmade or wooden, and ornaments unique to your town (easy to find in Krakow, harder in Baden-Baden).  Krakow gets bonus points here for having a working blacksmith who makes things from iron right infront of your eyes!

If I was made out of a golden walnut I would sleep that peacefully too!

Size

Bigger is better in this category, but it is also critical to maintain variety.  A huge Christmas market cant have 5 stands selling the same drinks and food!  We have seen some smaller markets that have amazing variety, and some larger ones with limited creativity when it comes to vendors.  We haven’t made it to largest Christmas markets of all just yet (but stay tuned!), but so far Vienna does a great job on the size category, with multiple markets all over town, each with a different vibe dictated by its location.

Conclusions

So far tops is Vienna – major “point getters” in all categories.   Although we would highly recommend all of the others we have been to (except London’s winter wonderland – which is mainly targeted at kids, or adults who want to drink German beer while freezing their butts off!)

We plan on also visiting the Christmas markets in Prague, Dresden, Berlin, Nuremberg and Rothenberg, and will update this post once we have seen them all!

Has anyone been to any other Christmas markets that have knocked their socks off that aren’t covered here or on our upcoming itinerary??