You want more Christmas Markets? We'll give you more Christmas Markets!

So we had our first "real" visitor this past week; long term readers (from our tour in Italy) will remember the wife's friend Nancy, who came to visit us in Rome. She made the trek to come see us in Frankfurt as well. She flew in last Thursday.

The wife had to work Thursday and Friday, so I went to the airport to pick Nancy up by myself. I'd given her the layout of the airport and what steps she'd have to go through... and then she landed at the other terminal, so all of my instructions were completely worthless. I was able to figure out where she would be coming out of the secure area and met her as she came out of customs.

We came home and lounged around the house for a few hours (until the wife got off), then we went down and met the boss at her office to head down to the local Christmas markets. Frankfurt's got several Christmas markets; we explored most of them. Glühwein, dinner, munchies... there's a specific booth that we found last year that makes a pasta that the wife likes. They take the pasta and load it up with whatever you want, then mix it all up in a giant wheel of (I think) pecorino, so every time we make it down to the Frankfurt market, she likes to get some.

Friday morning, Nancy and I hung out around the house, made a quick trip to Selgros (our local version of Costco) and Globus (kinda like our version of Walmart). The wife got off and we spent the evening hanging around the house, having a meal of cheese and crackers.

Saturday we left for Munich. My folks had flown into Zurich (or another city in Switzerland - not sure which one) and were taking a train to Munich for a river cruise, so we planned on meeting them there. They're taking the cruise with some long term friends of the family, Mike & Susan Shaw (think 40ish years). We checked into our hotel and took the metro down to meet up with them. They had some issues with the train, and ended up getting into Munich a couple of hours late. We met up with the Shaws at the train station and met my folks' train. We all schlepped their luggage over to their hotel a couple of blocks away - say what you'd like about my mother, but for a 22 day European safari, that woman doesn't pack light.

Mike's been to Munich a few times over the years, so he knows the city pretty well. He knew the best restaurants, so we ate and explored the markets.

Here's my mom & Susan Shaw, posing in a sleigh:

Sunday morning, I headed over and met my folks and the Shaws for breakfast. We wandered around the markets for a little while, but the markets weren't immediately open, so it was a little nice not having to deal with the crowds (even though we couldn't buy anything yet). Nancy and the wife took the metro a little later and met up with us shortly after the markets opened. We hung out and wandered around all day long, and split off from the rest of the group early afternoon to head back to our hotel.

We took a break and warmed up, then found directions to another Christmas market closer to us; most of the markets are in the downtown area but the boss found one that's in a place called the "English Garden." There's a 1400 acre park in Munich, and they set up a Christmas market there. A few of the nice things about it: it's more traditional, it's not nearly as crowded as the ones downtown, and there weren't nearly as many tourists. Matter of fact, let's forget I talked about it at all. You'll see a couple of other Christmas market pics later, but here's one of the crowd from this market for comparison:

Here's a pic of the horse-drawn wagon that was circling the market (a little blurry - sorry!):

The English Garden is also famous as one of the most well known river surfing places in the world, including during the winter months. Unfortunately, it was too dark by the time we found our way to the park, so we didn't bother going to the two spots where they surf. I'm pretty sure that they were out surfing during the day, but wasn't willing to wander around in the pitch black looking for these two specific spots on the river without knowing exactly where I was going.

My folks are coming to visit us after their river cruise, and we'd offered to bring any stuff they were through with to our place, so I went to their hotel straight from the park to pick up an extra suitcase that they wouldn't need until they got to us. The girls took a bus back to our hotel instead, and I took the metro from downtown afterward.

Next morning we got up and did breakfast then hit the road to Salzburg, which has become one of our favorite cities. On the way into town we were planning on stopping for lunch at the Stiegl Brewery, but it was still a little early. We passed the Red Bull Hangar 7 museum on our way into town, so we decided to burn some time there first. You might have read about it in the entry covering Palmer's visit:

Nancy asked that I pass this along (but I have no personal information about it - you'll have to ask her): The bathrooms at Hanger 7 are the best bathrooms in Europe. There. I passed it along. Don't know what it means, but she specifically asked that I post about them.

We had lunch at Stiegl, then headed downtown to visit the town and the Christmas markets. Afterward, we checked into the hotel to get off of our feet and warm up a bit. We came back down and drove over to the Augustiner Beerhall for dinner, then the boss wanted to take a picture of the town (all lit up) from one of the bridges. 

Next morning, we had breakfast then planned to hit the road. Driving between Salzburg and Frankfurt only takes about 5 hours, so we'd planned to hit the Christmas markets in Nuremburg on our way, but if we hit the road immediately we'd get there before the markets opened, so we decided to find something to do to waste some time first.

On the hill above Salzburg, there's a massive fortress that looks down on the town. We decided to visit it while we were "wasting time." Construction on the fortress started in the year 1077. There's a funicular that takes you from the level of the town up to the fortress (and back), but in researching this post, turns out there's another funicular that accesses the fortress as well, and sources suggest that this second funicular might very well be the oldest railway in the world, as it dates back to around 1495.

The tour suggested that Emperor Franz Joseph (one of the members of the Habsburg dynasty, from our previous entries for Vienna and Prague) might have had something to do with the fortress, but I haven't been able to figure it out with my basic googling; I did find out that he was the one who opened the fortress to visitors back in 1860. Franz Joseph was uncle to Franz Ferdinand, whose assassination kicked off World War I. A couple of other "interesting" things my googling found...

1. The castle has only been attacked one time, in 1525... by the townspeople of Salzburg, who were unhappy with the archbishop. Somehow, the fortress survived.
2. The fortress has its own coat of arms: a lion holding a turnip. I can't tell if the lion has opposable thumbs or not, but it's not like thumbs could make the crest any more odd.

(the funicular, from the bottom looking up)

After we were done we drove to Nuremburg for the Christmas markets there. Nuremburg is known for having one of the most extensive Christmas markets in Germany; we ended up parking in a different place than normal, so we didn't walk in the usual way (through the entire market). We did manage to find it though, and wandered around until one of us got tired of dealing with the crowds. At that point, I went back to the car and volunteered to drive back and pick the girls up when they were done. The boss eventually texted me an address, and I drove into town to get them.

The drive home was only a couple of hours, but seemed to take forever, for some reason.

We got a late start on Wednesday, but eventually headed for Rüdesheim. It's one of our favorite little tourist towns. Nancy wanted to ride the gondola up to see the statue of Germania and the views of the Rhine river, so we headed up there. Spent a little while up there and headed back down. Shopped in the little stores and had a snack in the food stalls.

Next up were the Christmas markets at Wiesbaden. We were going to need to get gas by the end of the day, so I dropped the girls off a few blocks from there and headed over to the military base to fill up the tank, then headed back over and met back up with them. We walked around for a few minutes, then went down into the Ratskeller to have dinner. When you come visit, we'll go there - it's the boss's favorite place to eat.

Afterward, we headed back out for more Christmas markets.

I have a confession, dear readers (all 2 of you!) - I wimped out the next day. The girls headed up to Cologne for (yet more) Christmas markets, and I sat around the house doing laundry instead. Just too much time with too many people around. Cologne is about a two hour drive, so they drove up mid morning (left around 9), and got home around 9 that night. You'll have to ask them about Cologne. Evidently, they went to the Cathedral, the Chocolate Museum, and the cologne store, in addition to 3 different Christmas markets, including a gnome themed one - I think you'll see a pic of that one toward the bottom of the post.

Nancy left the next afternoon. Since parking is so tight at Terminal 1, I dropped the girls off and drove over to a nearby gas station to wait, then went back and picked the wife up.

A few random pics, not sure where some of them are from, but wanted to make sure that y'all saw them all:

That's all for this trip, but I'll post another entry once my folks leave!