Christmas Markets of the Alsace France

Christmas Markets are finally underway in Europe. Well, some parts of Europe at least.

The Netherlands cancelled theirs again this year because of covid and many in Germany have also been cancelled.

Stuttgart, Dresden and the entire province of Bavaria are among the casualties so far that I've read.

It's quite disappointing because we missed the opportunity to see the markets last year and we had really high hopes to see them in 2021, since it may be our last opportunity before we have to move back to Canada.

Stuttgart was among the ones we planned to visit too. Luckily, for now we still have Frankfurt, Cologne, and Dusseldorf in Germany. Hopefully they remain open until we get a chance to see them.

On a more exciting note we were actually able to see the markets in the Alsace region of France this past weekend for their opening.

We stayed two nights in the town of Colmar and we managed to see five different markets in that time so I will take you through some of them in this post as part of the #MarketFriday initiative by @dswigle.

See some christmas market food...

and snacks...

and some drinks!

These are all things that I missed the past year.

I found a spot that actually served pints instead of half pints too. I had four of these one night and actually got a little tipsy. My alter ego "Spilly Dane" didn't come out, but if I would have kept going he probably would have.

Anyway, I'm going to try and fit all of the markets we saw into this one post if possible so "Bear with me," there's going to be a lot of photos. All of the ones so far have been of Colmar by the way.

Colmar

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We left the house early on Saturday to drive to Colmar. We actually arrived there around 1pm because we had stopped off at the Kayserberg market on the way, around 10:30am when it was just starting to open.

I'm starting this post with Colmar's market because it was the best of the lot and definitely our favorite.

I figure I'll organize this post from best markets to worst, even though I don't actually think that there are any bad markets out of the group, only varying degrees of awesome.

Colmar was the best in my opinion because it was the largest and most decorated for Christmas. The city by far had the most Christmassy vibe about it.

That is especially the case at night when all the light get turned on.

That's when the real magic happens it seems. So many lights! So much color!

Dress warm though, it gets quite cold when the sun goes down. Hats, scarves, and mittens are highly recommended.

Fun fact, in Canada a winter hat is called a toque. The term originates in Quebec I believe, and it means "knitted hat," or "White hat."

The markets weren't open very late, only until 8:00pm so its kind of nice that it gets dark so early so you can see the huts all lit up and all the twinkling lights.

The markets are scattered around the old town in different pockets of the city.

They are all within walking distance to each other and its worth wandering around to see them all because each has its own unique flare to it.

Some places were lit up so bright it almost reminded me of Las Vegas. Maybe not quite that bright but still quite impressive I think.

This spot in town (below) is called "Petit Venice" because it has a large canal running through it. Its a very nice spot to take photos both day and night.

In the huts they mostly sell local food delicacies, Christmas ornaments and decorations, winter clothing and artisinal crafts. Many of the shops in the area are decorated and sell the same sort of stuff.

Well, that's the end of Colmars Market. The next stop will be Riquewihr, which was our second favorite.

Riquewihr

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We did the Riquewihr market on day two of the trip after seeing Eguisheim and Obernai in the morning.

It was actually the fifth market that we saw but was our second favorite of the lot.

The town itself is just so charming and colorful that it's impossible not to love it.

Even though it wasn't nearly as decorated as Colmar, it still felt extremely Christmassy.

When I say "not as decorated" I'm talking about degrees here. It had tons of decorations overall, just a little bit less than Colmar.

The town is very small and the market gets extremely busy so parking could be a bit of an issue depending when you go. On the Sunday when we went, cars were literally parked in the surrounding vineyards for more than a kilometer in every direction.

It took us about 15 minutes to walk to town from where we parked. We wear our fitbits though so we like the steps.

We generally get about 20 - 30 thousand steps a day when we travel and usually walk 15 kilometers or more.

It was in Riquewihr that I was drinking the "Biere de Noel." Later in the night I got a bit creative with my photos. I was no longer lurking in the shadows and taking pictures from afar. I go up close and started taking shots at different angles.

Most looked ridiculous but the two above turned out nice. All the other were on strange 45° angles.

Storks or Cranes (I think they are the same thing) are an official mascot of the Alsace. You see them litterally everywhere in the city - fake ones I mean.

The real ones can be seen in large groups in the surrounding fields at the right time of year. There are also a lot of large nests for them on tops of buildings in some of the towns - Eguisheim especially.

It could have been because we were there on a Sunday but the town actually cleared out quite a bit once the sun went down.

It wasn't very busy at all at night.

The dog was getting a bit cold despite being wrapped snuggly in a blanket inside his backpack. So it was time for us to go as well. It was a big day for him.

And he sleeps.

Well, that's it for now. I hope you enjoyed this trip to the Christmas Markets in France for #Marketfriday by @dswigle. In my next Market post I'll take you to the markets of Kayserberg and Obernai. Until then, thanks for stopping by.