There were three bonus markets today. Count them all.
Hostess took me to Essen’s car market in the morning — not without reason — where the first thing we saw was someone lose control of a BMW 1 series during a handbrakey test drive and slamming it into a that-looked-expensive Volkswagen something which was minding its own business. As if admiring the first-born himself, people congregated around the driver offering gifts of scorn, reckoning, and mirth. It was not a Christmassy place.
The Christmas market in Steele was an unexpected superlative market for today as it is the first Christmas market to open in Germany every year. This year it opened on the 2nd November, by far the earliest in my calendar, and runs until the 5th January. The centre of the town is transformed into a sea of glittering lights, altough we went in the morning so it wasn’t. I had a cheese and chive crêpe, eschewing the Reibekuchen for now, and then we popped into Rewe to buy a bottle so we could get tanked up on Glühwein before going out in the evening. It was difficult not to open it straight away as the smell of mulled wine and other seasonal yummies wafted around us.
On the main square was the Railway Village, but it seemed to have more steam engines of the road-going variety than anything train-related, save for a wonderful model railway where a pig was driving a steam train pulling a dining car full of snowmen. This was too much excitement for one morning, and an afternoon nap ensued.
In the evening after a snooze and some more Glühwein, we took a regional train from Essen to Hattingen Mitte. There were plenty of wonderful smells on arrival and we started our visit with a very tasty Glühbier in a posh glass to get us into the mood — as if we weren’t already — and then worked our way through the increasingly narrow streets.
The Bügeleisenhaus, or Ironing House, is a half-timbered house from the 17th century which is stunning and worth admiring with a glass of something glüh. The Old Town Hall is decorated with 24 painted panels one of which Mrs Holle opens every day at 5pm in her fairytale costume. After Christmas songs, stories and poems, shakes out her feather pillow over the Untermarkt and lets gold coins, sweets and other sweet delicacies snow down.
By the time we’d arrived, Mrs Holle had long gone to bed, so we just had to imagine it.
Even if there is no official superlative for the Hattingen market, I’m lauding it as the cosiest Christmas market so far. It can probably claim prettiest and tastiest too, as the market proper is in the astonishingly picturesque old town surrounded by Fachwerk (timber-framed houses) built between the 14th and 16th centuries and I had my first Reibekuchen. Every hour, if it’s not already Christmassy enough, the carillon in the Glockenturm tingalings a festive melody on its jingly bells.
The church is surrounded by twee houses with façades adorned with multiple seasonal sparkles and other decorations, so it was difficult to choose a door of the day but I thought the one we finally settled on more than makes up for the fact that I forgot to find one yesterday.
Meanwhile, next to the sparkly Christmas tree, a man with bagpipes was belting out a few Christmas bangers on a stage conveniently placed for the procurement of more Glühweins. Sufficiently Christmassy in spirits, it was decided I would try my first Reibekuchen, German potato pancakes predominantly eaten at outdoor markets. I lost my Kartoffelpuffer virginity with apple sauce. I think I’d have liked a savoury sauce, really, as there’s only so much sugar one can consume in a fortnight, but the combination of deep-fried potato goodness, apple sauce, and Glühwein is a truly heavenly one.
We had a Glühkakao with Mutzen for pudding – I dunked mine but am not sure it is the done thing — before another waddle round the pretty bits before deciding it was time to go home. We would probably have gone home immediately but Mr Host had cunningly planned time for another craft Glühbier before the 21:23 whisked us back to Essen.
It would have been rude not to finish the Glühwein, so I valiantly helped with that. Once again I lost at the funny donkey game.
