Christmas Markets

The cathedral - and yes its busy...
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Strasbourg is in the Alsace region near the Rhine river which marks the boundary between France and Germany. We went to Strasbourg for the Christmas markets - and it seems so did most of the rest of Europe... Our first day in the markets was a Saturday afternoon/evening and it was absolutely heaving. You could barely see the stalls, even stopping was hard in the crowd, although our twin pushchair served as a handy battering ram.

Strasbourgians (?) take their Christmas markets seriously and basically most of the old town is a giant market. Its definitely more touristy than some weve seen - but the lights, decoration and general effort the whole city has gone to make up for the kitch. When reading the above remember we live in a camping car and have a 15cm high christmas tree that runs off our cigarette lighter... Buts its the first place Ive seen a lit Christmas tree on top of a building site.

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Saturday was definitely too busy, but the next couple of days were much better and much less crowded. After sampling a few, as you do, We found the best Gluhwein stall was near the cathedral on the stall that sells salami coated in chocolate (which we passed on). You could buy Christmas everything but we decided against tying a Santa to the back of the camping car. Watching Santa fall apart at 130 down the autoroute might put some poor litle mite in therapy for a long time.

Strasbourg seems like a pretty big place, and although Im drinking Biere de Noel while typing this I seem to recall my Rough Planet Guide saying it wasnt. Nevertheless, the old city is pretty big and has a good feeling with lots of students its more German than French IMO and is a very pretty place.

Dodgy Santa and helper
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We stayed to the West of the city in the Montagne Verte area for 2 nights in a campsite (Camping De La Montagne Verte) and in 2 nights in the car park accross the road. The campsite was pants (expensive and muddy) and the car park was free and concreted... however we found out around 11 o'clock one night that 'smart' gas-powered fridges and heating systems need battery power to work, and when the battery goes flat it gets cold :-(  And cold it now is with nights approaching zero and days of 5-10 degrees.

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From the campsite (or the car-park) its a 10-15 min walk to the tram line and then straight into town. The trams are modern, clean, spacious and fast. They come so regularly that we often missed 2 of them trying to buy a ticket at the single ticket machine...

After we had had our fill of Christmas Markets we headed off for the Route du Vin and, well, more Christmas markets...

Dave.