Nürnburg Christkindlesmarkt: An ode to Heidelbeer

20 December 2009

Nürnburg Christkindlesmarkt: An ode to Heidelbeer

After fueling up in our Frankfurt hotel on Sunday morning, we rushed over to the train station to catch the 0820 train to Nuremberg (aka Nürnberg in Germany). The train ended up being 20 minutes late; we were finding that tardiness was the norm with the Deutsche Bahn. I found this quite surprising as the German’s have a worldwide reputation for efficiency. I think England has prompter trains!

Our morning train to Nürnberg was on the ICE train (Intercity Express) again so we settled into a seat with a table. The cute petite German woman across from us had a music book by Handel and she was quietly humming the notes to the songs, obviously some kind of musician or singer. The ride to Nürnberg from Frankfurt was two hours long and very beautiful. The rolling hills of the German countryside were covered in snow. We traveled through forests of pine and deciduous trees also painted white. There were lots of small villages along the way, tucked into mountain valleys. Each town with at least one pointy church steeple, and full of angular colorful snow capped houses. Smoke was snaking ever so gracefully out of the red chimneys. One could imagine the German families inside their cozy houses, enjoying a lazy Sunday morning on the last advent of the Christmas season. Drinking kaffe in front of the fire, waking up children dressed in one piece pajamas with the non-slip foot-bottoms, perhaps there were even some stocking caps involved in this fantasy but I doubt anyone actually wears those anymore!

The only annoyance for our journey came from the children at the table next to us. Their parents had set them in front of their portable DVD player and with the volume up high, they enjoyed a children’s movie while we traveled. I thought Americans were the only ones who used movies and TV to baby-sit their children. I guess I am OK with that if it keeps the kinds from screaming and carrying-on, but at least use headphones so the rest of us do not have to hear the cacophony of shrill voices from the children’s’ video. Well I guess there are inconsiderate people everywhere in the world, not just in America!

Arriving in Nürnberg that morning, we had no trouble finding our hotel. Right across from the main station, there it was: Le Méridien Grand Hotel Nürnberg. Yes, Anna and I were living the high live in Nürnberg! Actually the night before, when we went to secure a hotel in Nürnberg, we were shocked to see that Le Méridién was in our price range! Normally this hotel line costs a minimum of $250 per night. We got a room in Frankfurt for €90. Could we have found a cheaper place? Sure, that was certainly an option, but we decided it would be a little gift to ourselves, spoil ourselves a bit. The rest of the week we could stay in the sleazy Frankfurt red light district!

In the lobby of Le Méridien, there was a gigantic light-up gingerbread house. Our room was not available yet, so we dropped our baggage off and headed across the street to cross under the old city wall and enter the aldstadt of Nürnberg. The city of Nürnberg has the most famous weihnachtsmarkt which they call Christkindlesmarkt; it is the largerst one in Germany. As you can imagine, with this kind of notoriety, the town was bustling with tourists on the last weekend before Christmas. Christkindlesmarkt is located in the main square of the old town; it is lined with buildings which look like they are made out of gingerbread themselves, and some tall imposing churches. The market stalls spill out of this platz into the nearby streets and bridges. There is also a separate area called Kinder Weinachtsmarkt where they still serve alcoholic glühwein but also have some amusement park type rides.

We took our time strolling up and down the rows and rows of stalls. With temperatures again in the 20s, one of the first stops we made was for the glühwein stall! Besides the typical mulled red wine, there is a local specialty called Heidelbeer. Heidelbeer is a mulled hot blueberry wine that is a little less sweet than the glühwein but equally as intoxicating. Nürnberg is also known for its local variety of gingerbread cookies called lebkuchen. Then there is the Elisen lebkuchen in which the cookies are made from ground almonds. These cookies may be glazed in sugar, covered with chocolate, shaped into Santa Klaus and iced in frosting. These cookies can be found at dozens of stalls throughout the market and this was the first treat we sampled. It was very chewy and dense, and had a citrus undertone. I barely made it three feet before I saw another stall selling an array of sweets. For €0.40 I was able to buy a wafer stick with layers of vanilla and strawberry cream between each wafer. Now that dessert was out of the way, we could focus on lunch! I made a beeline for the first würst stand I saw and ordered a Nürnberger würst sandwich. Nürnberger würst are small finger sized sausages; they sort of look like breakfast sausages. They serve three of them on a roll and then you can cover it with mustard and ketchup. Anna and I wolfed a sandwich down together.

We decided then, with our Heidelbeer in hand, that we would make loop around the stalls of the market to scope out what we would later buy. I was beginning to see that all of the weihnachtsmarkts sold basically the same items: ornaments, wooden carvings, gingerbread, sugared nuts, marzipan, woolen winter accessories, beeswax items, würst, and glühwein were the staples. One of the unique items in Nürnberg were the prune men. There were little men and women figurines made out of prunes, figs and nuts—a decoration and high fiber snack in one!

After spending a good hour outside at the markt, we were both freezing again with throbbing toes! The Heidelbeer was helping, but we would need a much more continuous infusion to really stay warm. Anna and I decided we’d take a stroll back to our fancy hotel and see if our room had been cleaned and was ready. We had to wait in the lobby a bit longer, but soon enough we were up in our luxurious room. It was small, but such is standard in Europe, but nicely decorated with a marble bathroom complete with the towel heaters, feather bedding, and even an iPhone docking station to charge the phone and play music. The first order of business was to warm up the feet. Anna drew up a hot bath, and we soaked our feet in the steamy water until they were red and prune-like.

We had to pry ourselves away from the cozy comfortable posh room. When we re-emerged from the hotel, we headed for St Jakobs kirche to hear the Musical Company of Nürnberg perform some Christmas songs. I can’t say I was overly impressed with the vocal quality of the singers, but it was entertaining and it kept us warm for thirty minutes. Most of the songs were sung in English, and they did what I gathered to be a Bible reading of the Christmas story in German. I only know this because I heard things like “Bethlehem,” “kinder Christ” and “Kaiser Augustus.” We left after the performance of a song called “Here Comes Suzy Snowflake.” Does this song exist in the US? Because I had never heard it before. A girl came out all dressed in white with a platinum wig on and very nervously did her song and dance. Anna and I looked at each other with the same expression of displeasure, and decided we’d rather go back out to the cold than hear any more terribly off-key singing. It was festive while it lasted, at least.

Sitting down for that long made my a little sleepy, but overall I felt I had combated jetlag much more quickly than when I normally travel to Europe--must have to do with the constant sleep deprivation at home. We made a pit stop for milchkaffe and heiss schokolade (café au lait and hot chocolate). While in the café, we watched the Germany news where they were interviewing Americans in Washington DC about the big snowstorm that had just hit the east coast. They were also discussing the extremely cold and snowy conditions all over Europe. The Eurostar train (from London to Paris) was shut down, flights were grounded out of Frankfurt, people were freezing to death in Poland and the Ukraine. It seemed we were having a cold front all over the northern hemisphere.

Warmed up and energized from caffeine, we were back with the masses at Christkindlesmarkt. It seemed like the whole town of Nürnberg was out at the markt along with tons of tourists who mainly seemed to be American, French and Japanese. We arrived just in time to watch a brass band performance of Christmas songs which was lovely. We drank our Heidelbeer and glühwein as we strolled around the snowy market to the sound of live Christmas music. I followed my nose to the source of lovely odors of cinnamon and pastries. There was a stall that was actually baking cookies and pastries right at the market. I couldn’t decide which one I wanted, so I ordered one butter cookie (which was very similar to shortbread) and one apple and walnut strudel. They were both still warm from the oven, not too sweet, and equally delicious.

We kept the hot glühwein and Heidelbeer flowing as we wandering around the markt that evening. It was what the locals were doing so why not? Plus it truly did keep me warm, especially now with the sun down and the snow falling more vigorously. As soon as hot wine was out of my system, I felt my toes turn icy. All of the glühwein stalls were crowded, but we noticed some were even more popular with drunk people outside of them chanting football songs. These were the feuerzangenbowle stalls; translation is “fire-tongs-punch.” This is the extra strong version of glühwein which involves over-proof rum light on fire. Of course we enjoyed a mug of this type. Halfway through the glass, I felt like I shouldn’t be picking up fragile wooden figurines anymore with my tipsy and clumsy hands.

Anna and I continued to meander around the market all night, drinking glühwein and Heidelbeer, eating bratwurst and sauerkraut, pretzel sandwiches with camembert, wafflen mitte apfelmus. We browsed through rows upon rows of Christmas crafts for sale, purchasing some gifts along the way. I have to say that the German’s were quite well behaved, even with glühwein running through everyone’s veins, the crowds were calm, no one was pushing or puking or creating drama. We were all covered in a frosting of snow, and no one seemed to mind that either.

When we finally had had enough glühwein and bratwurst for a lifetime, we headed back to our hotel room. A little tipsy on the wine, we took advantage of the iPod docking station and speakers and had a little dance party. I showed Anna how we do the booty shake in the US. She still has some hip-loosening up to do, but she was getting the hang of it. We contemplated using the hotel sauna, but decided instead to head to bed early. Nürnberg is a city full of history with castles, old churches and WWII nazi history. Did we learn about any of that? No…we drank glühwein and I am ok with that!