City Living in Basel - catching Christmas cheer
4:49 AM
One of the things that I like the most about my new Swiss life is living in the middle of everything. It makes me feel like I won't miss any thing, and since I am trying to see as much of Swiss culture as possible, this is very important.... as I may not be aware of what to expect.
For example, the other day water-skiing Santas were cruising the Mittlerebrucke. They were only doing this for about 15-20 minutes... evenso by the time I found out, they were gone.... maybe that was a contradictory example. In all fairness, water skiing Santas don't make a lot of noise.
However last night I did manage to catch fife pipers and a Christmas horse and carriage. The pic isn't great, but I think that it helps illustrate that this was happening RIGHT outside of my flat...even though it is an extremely small one way street. Since this was at about 19:00hr it was a nice addition to all of the festiveness of Basel. I'm not sure how I'll feel once Fasnacht rolls around and I'm awoken at 2 or 3 am on a Monday. :)
Labels: Christmas, cultural differences, switzerland
Sweet Dreams and Goodnite
4:49 AM
Subscribe to
Posts [Atom]
Colmar's Marchés de Noel
2:11 AM
Sunday is always a pretty quiet day around here. In Basel, as with most of Europe, all work places are closed. This includes any cultural interests such as museums and entertainment as well as shopping.
As one with a sparsely furnished apartment, I never really know what to do on a Sunday. If I try to lounge around and read I invariably get bored or too stiff (the "couch" is really a single bed with pillows) and the TV that a friend gave us is very small with about 30 channels (40% in High German, 20% Swiss German, 30% French and 10% English) so that doesn't occupy me too long either. Although as a side note I am now watching programs that I would never-ever would have watched in the US simply because are in English with German subtitles... to try to spruce up my German.
So, this past Sunday we decided to try another Weinachts Markt. This one in the nearby French town of Colmar. I've heard a lot of positive things about Colmar. My mum recommended that we make a visit and several of our new Basel acquaintances suggest it also. After looking at the Colmar tourism web page display of "des Marchés de Noël de Colmar en Alsace" I was definitely excited. Even better is that the drive is only about half an hour outside of Basel-Stadt. woohoo!!!
Colmar must have a great reputation as a Christmas destination. There were a lot of tour groups in town, most of which were Italians. Other than those small groups, everyone spoke French. Well, you say, it is in France, what did you expect?!! This is true, but being so close to the border to Germany and Switzerland I was surprised that no one was speaking German. I'm sure that they probably could if they needed to, but everyone spoke French. This creates a really nice ambiance.
One of the main advertisements about Colmar's Weinachts Markt is that there are actually 5 separate markets nestled into different corners of the city center. I'm not entirely sure if we made it to all of the various markets. Some were for knick-nacks and one for clothes, one for childrens things and of course wonderful food available everywhere. There was even an outdoor ice rink somewhere....I never did find that as I have an aversion to maps. The greatest selling point of the market is by far the quaint old fashion feel of the village, which happens to have a lot of cute little canals. Just about every building was decked out in its most festive ornaments.
This cute little gingerbread housewas one of the first to greet us.
View of one of the markets which was separated in half by a canal.
a decorated rooftop market stall.
And of course it wouldn't be a Christmas fair without all of the food and drink. In this case, since the fair is actually called Marchés de Noel, there were all sorts of French goodies. Rather then Glühwein, the drinks were a Vin Chaud in Rouge or Blanc. This is a hot spiced wine, just like Glühwein, but a little less spice, sweeter, since this is sweetened with brown sugar then it also has slices of orange and lemon. Very yummy and very light. The desserts range from standard (although not standard for the US, by any means) cakes and cookies to beignets! Oh, but not just any beignets, Alsace is after all very close to the German/Swiss border, Beignet Bretzels! Yummmm
Labels: Christmas, Colmar, France, trips
Sweet Dreams and Goodnite
2:11 AM
Subscribe to
Posts [Atom]
The holiday season is upon us
12:20 AM
For some reason, even without Thanksgiving as a marker, everywhere in Europe uses the last week (specifically the last Friday of November) as the time to really go gung-ho with Christmas decorations.
Each city that I traveled through this past weekend had Christmas lights, lanterns and trees up. In Basel you will see huge, cut trees on every street corner. Initially that was all, but now the trees have been decorated, each one with a different take. The Rathaus has bright red ornaments, some only have lights and one around the corner from me looks like children decorated it will ornaments of all shapes and sizes. Just today, they also added strange spiky bulbs to the street lights. I'll have to try to take a picture later.
The main shopping areas have lighted arches that have either stars or snowflakes decorating them. The Mittlere Brucke is lighted with long drippy icicles.
Labels: Christmas, cultural differences, switzerland
Sweet Dreams and Goodnite
12:20 AM
Subscribe to
Posts [Atom]
This cute little gingerbread house
View of one of the markets which was separated in half by a canal.
a decorated rooftop market stall.
