Night at the Salzburg Christmas Market

December 21, 2012-

We've booked into our hotel in Salzburg, we've changed our clothes and we're ready to explore the Christmas Market in the Altstadt….even though it's raining like crazy!

Check out this extra fancy but VERY old elevator!

Yikes! That's one scary hand holding up the hand rails (in the hotel stair case). I love it!!!

Thank goodness the hotel has complementary umbrellas for their guests to use.  Whew!  Like I've said…we came prepared for cold and SNOW – not rain.

Walking on Getreidegasse. One of our favorite streets in Salzburg. Sadly, more and more of the little shops seem to have been run out by big name stores.

Ah!! We made it! Check out the stalls at the Christmas Market!

 The girls each got money from their Uropa and Oma to spend- and we let them go through each of the stalls to carefully select what they wanted.  To keep impulse purchases to a minimum we told the girls that they could look tonight and have time to think about it overnight….and then in the morning return to the market and actually make the purchases.  Oh!  So many goodies to buy!  How do we even begin to decide what to buy????  We can't fit it all in our suitcases (which, you'll remember, are fully loaded already!!!!).

The stalls behind the girls are loaded with all sorts of hand-made ornaments. Many of them are made with spices (like cloves) which make these stalls smell WONDERFUL!

Naturally, where there's a Christmas Market there is also gluehwein and Kinderpunsch…and of course we have to get steaming hot mugs of them to drink! Great idea too- considering that's it cold and wet out.

We weren't dressed for extended outdoor time…so we came to one of the cafes along the Getreidegasse that we've frequented in past visits to Salzburg.  In honor of Ava's first trip to Salzburg we ordered Gulasch (it's a hearty, meaty soup).  On Ava's first trip she chowed it down like nothing else and her face was covered with soup.  Not quite the case this time. LOL!  This is in the Mozart Cafe – which, for those of you thinking of visiting here- has mediocre service at best.  I think they train the waitresses and waiters to be rude in this part of Salzburg.  It DOES help if you speak German but not necessarily. (so why do we keep coming here???  not sure- sure isn't for the phenomenal service!).

A round of soup for us to share!

 And then I had to order this MONSTER:

It's called a Salzburger Nockerl. It's actually a dessert and it's HUUUUUUGE. No, with all four of eating it we could NOT finish it. (it's meringue like but not like the meringue on top of lemon meringue pie).

 We're back at the hotel!  We decided we'd had enough of the cold, damp air.  We did see lots of things that we'll check out tomorrow.  For now, we need to warm up!  How about we order some gluehwein and kinderpunsch from room service??

Aaaaaaaaah….a mug of steaming hot cheer!!!!

Hey! They changed out our bedding!

The girls' bed all ready for sleepy time.

Tomorrow will be a long day- breakfast, back to the Christmas market to buy our gifts and then finally *sigh* driving back to the Munich airport.