Germany does Christmas so well and Austria has pretty much all Germany’s good points. Four years ago Family Polar Bear went to the markets at Frankfurt and Mummy Bear decided quite early this year that she wanted to go to Innsbruck Christmas market.
Innsbruck is a lot smaller than Frankfurt – I mean the market is smaller but yes, Innsbruck the city is also a lot smaller. We’ve been there in summer many times but I’m the only one who’s ever seen it in winter – and March, at the end of Altitude Festival, is very late winter.
There are several markets, or several parts to the market. There’s the tight-packed cluster down the narrow pedestrianised street that leads to the famous Golden Roof. There’s a trailing bit leading left towards the river and another big bit on the riverside, on top of what we call the fish market. There’s a big bit on Maria-Theresien-Straße, a bit that we didn’t visit on the opposite riverbank and a tiny little bit at Hungerburg, at the top of the new funicular.
The food is the highlight of a Germanic Christmas market. Lots of sausages, lots of fried things. My dad often comments that if he had to leave the UK and live somewhere else, he’d like to go to Germany. He likes sauerkraut, which is a very acquired taste for those not born in Germanic lands. And then there’s the glühwein and glühmost, plus the assorted punches and hot chocolates. And of course, the mug to drink it from.
If you haven’t encountered the Christmas Market Mug, this is how it works. Instead of giving customers their glühwein (or hot chocolate) in a disposable cup, stalls give out mugs. You pay a deposit for the mug and when you return it, you get your deposit back. Or you know, keep the mug and lose the deposit, which basically functions as buying the mug. There’s always a stall somewhere where you can simply buy the mug too, sometimes with sweets inside it. Every town has its own mug, a different one every year. Innsbruck is celebrating the 500th anniversary of Emperor Maximilian I this year (I think) so their 2018 mug is covered with gold accents and has a colour-contrast interior and it comes in a variety of colours. Between us, we collected four of the five variants. I have the matte black one with red inside.
The stalls aren’t actually all that exciting. Most of them are Christmas decorations and some of them are traditional and Germanic but a lot aren’t. There’s always a stall dedicated to wax and another to honey, there’s snow globes and elaborate Nutcrackers. I took a liking to a stall that seemed to be selling stamps – of the ink-and-stamp variety rather than the kind you put on a letter. A nice lady takes the stamp of your choice and puts it on paper for you and you make the same approving but clueless noises you make when a waiter pours you a taster of wine rather than a full glass. Do you buy the stamp? Do you buy the assorted cloths hung up around the wall that have been printed with these stamps? Do you custom-order your own printed tea towels? In the end, I succeeded in buying a sheep stamp. It’s very cute but I’m not going to admit what it cost. Handmade. Hand carved. Always more expensive than you want it to be.
Of course, it’s after dark that these markets come to life. Wine and sausages by the lights of the Christmas trees and the fairy lights hung up around the stalls. Sometimes a brass band appeared on the venerable balcony beneath the Golden Roof. It all feels very Germanic. It all feels very Christmassy. It all feels just a little bit freezing.
And then your dad goes to check the bus timetable and gets a kiachl on the way back and gets in trouble and… well, we’re going home in the morning.