Ulm Christmas Market

After last week's jaunt to Munich for two Christmas markets there, who knew I'd be back at the Christmas market run so fast! But I guess I only have a two weekends left to enjoy it so go while I can!

This morning Christine and I left for the Ulm Christmas Market. Matt, who lives in Ulm, has been singing the praises of the Ulm Christmas market for weeks. One can get quite skeptical of such high praise so Christine and I braced ourselves for a nice, but probably typical Christmas market.

We were pleasantly surprised...well, me more than her (she lived in Heidleburg, which apparently has the best Christmas market according to anyone who's lived there), but Ulm was absolutely lovely!

First of all, there is Ulm Muenster which has the distinction of being the tallest church in the entire world. It's absolutely gorgeous. Right in front of the church is where the Christmas market is set up. There is a nice variety of stalls, some kitchy for tourists, others really nice with unique items and of course the standard gluhwein and sausage stands.

Christine and I made a beeline for one such hut, her a pink gluhwein, me a hot chocolate with whipped cream. At German Christmas markets you pay between 4-5 euros for your drink, not because it's that expensive, but because it automatically comes in a commemorative mug with a scene from the city on the side. When you finish drinking, you can turn it back in and receive half your money back or just keep your mug for fun.

We took a stroll through the decorations house as well as a little forest area with a yurt-like structure for storytelling during the day and cocktail party at night.

Even the tourism office was nice. Their marketing department is markedly better than Augsburg and I would happily have bought just about everything in that store.

We stopped at the Cafe Stadthaus for lunch and both had some great pasta dishes, mine with spinach and a light Gorgonzola sauce and hers with cocktail shrimp and cream sauce. By the time we finished, the snow had picked up a bit and it was chillier than we had remembered. After putsing around we found ourselves in front of the church and decided to hop inside. Perfect timing!

A small brass ensemble was rehearsing for a later performance and at first all they did was tune (annoying), but after a few minutes, their conductor started running through a few of the rough bits of their performance. It was fun to watch the conductor and of course the acoustics were amazing! Christine and I made our way around the inside of the church and it is beautiful. The stalls with the carved wooden busts were my favorite as they were so elaborate.

As we were making our way to the exit, the program began in earnest and all that extra rehearsal paid off. I just closed my eyes and soaked it all in.

We went around a few more shops, then headed back to the train station (we had come in the Neu-Ulm station which was 15 minutes away because it's over the river and still in Bavaria meaning cheaper tickets). I was freezing by the time we got on the train and surprised we had been there for 6 hours!

Christine and I are already planning to go back in the summer to take in some of the gardens we saw in the tourism office as well as browse the shops more thoroughly. Ulm is much different from Augsburg in that Ulm has a great mix of chic, modern buildings with the old while Augsburg is more typical German village with very little modern architecture.

Now I'm much more in the mood for Christmas markets and I am seriously considering heading to Regensburg next weekend. We'll see what happens!