Tales of an Amorphic Destiny

Christmas Markets – Belgium & Holland

December 18th, 2006 at 07:00pm James

Last year we were lucky enough to be in Vienna, Austria the weekend before Christmas. Our main reason for being there was to see the mighty Opeth but we were also lucky enough to visit the amazing Vienna Christmas Markets. Walking around the little wooden "chalets" and drinking mulled wine while a light snow fell was about about as Christmassy as it gets, so we thought we’d get over for some more European Christmas festivities this year.

We opened the invitation to the rest of our housemates and Bryce and Kris ended up joining us as we piled into our little Nissan Sunny at about 4am, heading south east toward the port of Dover and an early-morning ferry to Dunkirk, France.

With the Sunny safely secured on the cargo decks, we headed up to the passengers floors and joined the huge queue for breakfast. There’s nothing the English like more than their full cooked breakfast and as we joined the long queue it seemed that everyone else on board had the same idea as us. Of course when you get up to start traveling at 4am everyone but the driver gets to sleep in the car. So after a full English breakfast the hour and a half crossing the English Channel is the perfect time to catch up on a view Zzz’s.

After arriving in Dunkirk and heading north to Belgium, we drove East across the breadth of the country until we reached our destination -  the city of Liege. The European "booze cruise" is a time-honoured tradition, but a lot of British travelers foolishly stock up in the overpriced warehouses in Calais. We know from experience that the real bargains are to be had in the suburban supermarkets and that said supermarkets are usually closed on Sundays. So after checking in to our hotel we  ventured out to get the business part of the trip over with.

It didn’t take too long to find a branch of ubiquitous European supermarket chain LIDL. We got a few funny looks as we went through the checkout and there were some tense moments as the boot of the Sunny began to fill up but in the end the mission could only be described as a complete success.

After getting a bit lost we finally made it back to the hotel. A quick shower and a couple of samples from our new bounty and we were ready to head in to town. On the edge of festivities and in front of a Cathedral was an ice skating rink skirted with little drink huts. The coolest of these were selling shots by the log and we just had to get a piece of the action:

We headed on further past stalls selling all manner of tasty food, stopping to pick up some mulled wine along the way. The Europeans are so lucky to be able to buy their cheese from places like this:

Before long we reached the central market area itself, the "Village de Noel".

Once we got inside it became apparent that the Liege Christmas markets were a lot less about decorations and gifts and a lot more about eating and drinking. There were outside bars all over the place selling all manner of hot and cold (but mostly alcoholic) beverages and tasty food. Just past the entrance, a delicious aroma drew us toward a stall selling a cheesy potato concoction. It was in huge pans with mountains of potato, onions, cheese and herbs and drenched in bottles of white wine. Needles to say it tasted as good as it smelled…

We made our way around the stalls sampling many of the delights on offer. On a trip to the urinals Bryce and James met a bloke who ran one of the challet bars, with proceeds going to a local handball club of which he was the treasurer. He insisted on giving us a free round of drinks and obviously it would’ve been impolite to refuse. We bought a second round from him afterwards, being for a good cause and all. Sarah got chatting with the woman helping him out at the bar who told us about the big street markets the next day. She was also quite excited at the prospect of having her photo taken and we were happy to oblige.

Towards then end of the night we came across a stall selling mulled cider and liquer hot chocolate. The mulled cider was delicious, but it was Sarah’s suggestion of Jaffa hot chocolate with Baileys and Contreau that turned out to be the star of the show. Just the thing to get us warmed up for the walk back to our hotel. 

After a few attempts we managed to get this shot of us on our walk back. Bryce’s head is strategically in front of a background light to stop it from ruining the shot. This had the interesting side-effect of making him look like he has a halo…

The next morning we followed the advice of the woman from the bar and walked along the river to the street markets. They turned out being absolutely huge, with stalls selling everything from clothes to live animals! We spent a while wandering through the stalls and even managed to track down a tobacconist selling cigars at a good price. Once we were done, there was on stall from the previous evening that we knew we had to revisit.

This place sold baked Camembert cheese and roast ham – you can see the hams on the rotisserie on the right. It smelled even better than it looked and we’d already decided this is where we’d be having breakfast. For your money you got a pile of chopped roast ham, some crusty bread and half a baked Camembert. Absolute bliss.

With that we headed back to the car and bid farewell to Liege. We drove north to the base of the Netherlands and the "Christmas Town" of Valkenburg. Valkenburg is a tiny place but is famous for its Christmas Markets which are held every year in the caverns underneath its castle ruins.

As we descended into the town we went past a grotto that had been set up as an outdoor church – apparently based on the famous grotto of Lourdes in the south of France.

The town was crowded with tourists – apparently this is one of the chief European Christmas tourist destinations. We had a wander around before joining the long queue to enter the markets themselves. Inside was an expanse of labyrinthine caverns – it was easy to see why Jews and other enemies of the Nazis used to hide down there during the second world war. The caverns are a much happier place now however, with stalls selling Christmas gifts and decorations.

We bought a fresh wreath to hang on the front door back at home as well as a few presents for ourselves. Of course there was tasty food as well, so we got some biscuits, cheese and salami for our Christmas Eve wine and cheese evening.

After leaving the markets we went for a hearty European meal of Chicken Schnitzel and chips. Then we finished our visit at a cafe with coffee and "Pofferjes", small Dutch pancakes dusted with icing sugar.

We finally bid Valkenburg farewell and began the long journey back to Dunkirk. Hours later we were back on board the channel ferry, glowing with festive sprit as we sailed back to bonny England.

There’s a few more photos to check out here.

Entry Filed under: Europe