Christkindlemarkt

Christkindlemarkt is the German for the "Mercatino di Natale" in Italian or Christmas markets in English! Not only did I hit the markets in Munich, Germany but I also made it the ones in Bolzano, Italy in the northern region of Trentino over the past two weeks. I didn't know until this trip that the "Kris Kringle" we hear in Miracle on 34th Street and in other Christmas moments comes from the Austrian and Bavarian Christkindle who is their "Christmas gift-bringer."

Munich Christmas Market!

A Christmas-y decorated drink booth

Maybe it's because of Christmas and coming home soon for break or the fact that my mind is on shopping instead of teaching, but this week is going by a bit slowly. Also, my students just got back from practically a week off of lessons. The Catholic holiday of the Immaculate Conception [on Dec 8th] is a national holiday in Italy, a day on which all schools are closed. This year, the Immaculate Conception fell on a Wednesday and my school decided to add a “ponte” or give us Monday and Tuesday off also to create a “bridge” from the weekend to the festival or holiday. Therefore, last week started with a short vacation and I'll tell you next blog how the students avoided their lessons after the holiday.

Abby, another assistant in Milan, and I decided that we wanted to do something special for the break. Since I studied abroad, I have always wanted to go to Munich, Germany to visit the "Fairytale Castle." There is a castle outside of Munich in Germany called Neuschwanstein and it is the model for the Disney's Sleeping Beauty Castle in the film and at Disneyland. Since Munich also has an annual Christmas market and winter festival we booked our flights and found a hostel!

Neuschwanstein Castle

We arrived in Munich or Monaco di Baviera as the Italians say in the morning. The moment we walked into the airport, we knew we weren't in Italy any longer. There was complete silence. Yet, the airport was full of people, they were just not talking. Silence. We walked outside of the airport and found an ice rink and a Christmas market waiting for us, yet there was an overall quiet tranquility in the air. Once we got in the metro we realized that mouths were indeed moving, but people were speaking so softly and quietly that they weren't disturbing anyone. This would never happen in Italy.

Drinking hot wine with real mugs

 The main Christmas market itself was spectacular. There were booths everywhere with all sorts of goods. Some of the highlights of Munich were decorated gingerbread cookies, nativity scenes, and incense holders that look like small nutcrackers. Lots of ornaments and Christmas goods. They also has booths with food or drink and then tables with heaters or a fire. Mainly, people drank hot wine to warm up because it was so cold out. Instead of disposable cups, you had to pay a deposit for a real mug and then when you return it you get your deposit back. If you like the mug and decide to keep it, well then you just pay for it with the deposit! At 5:30 every night, they sang Christmas carols from the balcony of the big church in the main square. 

Hofbrauhaus Beer Hall: "Birth of the Nazi Party"

On Monday, we took a walking tour of Munich and learned a lot about the Bavarian state. For one, Germany is still divided culturally in smaller states with their own biases. People from Munich do not describe themselves as German but instead as Bavarian and it is in fact the most separatist state in Germany with its own constitution [that says you can drink a liter and a half of beer at work every day and not get fired]. We toured various churches and squares and ended up at the Hofbrauhaus or the famous beer hall where Hitler had the first meeting with the Nazis making Munich the "birthplace of the Nazi Party."

The view of Hohenschwangau Castle from our hike

Finally to the castle! We decided to take a group tour to the castle in an 8-person van that left from our hostel on Tuesday. We drove on the "Romantic Road" to the castles. Neuschwanstein was built for King Ludwig II of Bavaria starting in 1869 and was never finished. Nearby and closer to the ground is Hohenschwangau Castle where Ludwig II lived as a child. You can see one from the other, but Neuschwanstein is a hike. Usually there is a bus that takes tourists to "Mary's Bridge" where you can take lovely pictures of the castle.and walk down to the castle itself in ten minutes. Otherwise, you can take a horse-drawn carriage or walk up the main path. Since it had rained and snowed the day before, the bus to Mary's Bridge was not running and you had to walk or wait in a long line to take the carriage to the castle. This wasn't too much of a problem, although you must visit the castle with a guided tour and you cannot be late for your time or you have to go back down to the bottom of the climb and get a new tour time.
 

Mary's Bridge

Danger Ahead! No trespassing

 Since we were young and old on the tour, our guide sent another girl, Abby and I up a different path so that we would hike directly to Mary's Bridge and then take the path down to the castle. He mentioned that we would have to climb over two small fences because in fact the bus wasn't running and the bridge was technically closed. Our path was dirt and rocks covered with ice and iced over snow. It was pretty steep and I felt like I was in Girl Scouts again hiking up a mountain watching where I was stepping so I wouldn't trip over anything. There were no turns on the path but without signs until we got to the bus drop off after 25 minutes and until then we weren't sure we were going the right way. I was walking so fast to make sure that we were on the right path in case we had to turn around and still get to the castle in time that I had to take off my jacket because I was so hot from walking. In the end, it was worth it. The view was spectacular. We literally got to the entrance of the castle three minutes before our tour started, but again it was worth it. 

Totally worth it!

Inside the castle itself, our tour was quick and to the point. Since Ludwig II died just 6 months after he moved into the castle, not all of the construction was finished yet. It was immediately opened to the public as a museum. From what we did see inside though, you could tell that Ludwig II was a romantic. His bedroom walls were painted with the story of Tristan and Isolde. Basically, I want this castle to be my home :)

Tristan and Isolde in Ludwig II's bedroom

The view of Mary's Bridge from the castle, yes - we were there!

Checking out the view from my new home

All throughout our trip to Munich, we saw and heard Italians everywhere! A couple of times we corrected a Bavarian's Italian pronunciation of a price, for example when the Italians heard 60 instead of 16 euro for a gift bag of cookies. While in Germany, we could not get away from Italian! Then when I got back to Italy, the next week I went to the Italian-German city of Bolzano in Trentino. One of the English teachers invited me on a school trip to see the Otzi Museum of the Iceman, a wet mummy discovered in 1991 by hikers and found to have lived 5,300 years ago. Even more, Bolzano is known for its German-style typical markets. In fact, Bolzano is a bilingual city that preserves the German minority and so all of the signs were written in German and then Italian. My shopping bags first say: Christkindlmarkt and then Mercatino di Natale. At the end of the day, the students complained that everyone spoke German and only after you spoke to them in Italian, would they reply in Italian. Go figure, I go to Germany and hear Italian and then stay in Italy and hear German!