Marketing Christmas

Yesterday we finally got out of the house now that I'm back, and hit one of the Christmas markets that are held all over Germany. We wanted a close one- since travelling a long ways with a toddler is just not fun- so we chose Trier. Trier is less than an hour away on the border of Luxembourg, it's really old, and it had a market in the town square (the Hauptstrasse). So we hit the road.


Mindy wanted to take a picture of our speedometer while we were on the autobahn. We're doing about 90 mph here (140 kph), which is fast, but I was getting passed by eurocars doing much more than us. The old Contour just isn't made for German roads.


This is a town across the Moselle River on our way into Trier (we're heading south and looking west). It was very picturesque, especially with the river in the foreground. Western Germany is nothing if not scenic.


Here we have arrived after much searching and getting lost (in my defense, I knew where we were the whole time!), and in the parking garage. OK, note to everyone: in Germany, you don't pay an attendant on your way out of a parking garage. You get a ticket coming in, pay at a machine on your way up to your car, and then you stick the ticket in a machine that opens the gate. Let's just say I'm glad no one was behind me when I went to leave, since I did not know this was the prescribed method.




This is the Christmas market, with some gorgeous people and a beautiful child who never cries standing in front of it. Oh wait, that's us...forget the no crying thing. In fact, after about an hour there, that's all Luke did. He was good for awhile, and then I think a combination of hungry and tired hit him. Plus we made the mistake of buying him a little toy too early, and when he kept dropping it in the crowd, we took it away. We actually wanted to stay a little longer, but I think the Germans were considering expelling us.



More of the shopping center. We didn't get to the "real" stores in the marketplace; we just hit the Christmas ones. I don't know what you call them- kiosks? But that makes it sound like the mall.




In the Hauptstrasse there's a big cathedral that dates back to Roman times. It was really cool. There's a few other sites around Trier, but this is the one right in the middle of town. It was really amazing inside. We don't get to many cathedrals- I think I've been in one, and that was in NYC. This one was very impressive though. There was even a one-legged beggar outside!

Here's a video of us in the square:

The saints!



The pipes!


Overall it was a good time, excluding Luke's tantrum. We got all the trinkets we could handle. It was very crowded, but everyone was in a good mood (for Germans, who are just not really polite in our sense of the word). I think the Gluhwein had something to do with that, too.

Two more days until Christmas!