"(Christmas) They're singing 'deck the halls'
(Christmas) But it's not like Christmas at all..."
That may have been the song that was going around Patrick's (and after a while, everybody's) brain in Frankfurt, but the sentiments could not have been further from the truth. (By the way, in case you're wondering, it is a real Christmas song- we
You Tube'd it and everything after a few doubts! Even the creepy 'Christmaaas' background bit that Patrick kept singing was right!). Anyway, back to Frankfurt. Last weekend definitely felt a LOT like Christmas; I'm not sure it can get more festive than strolling around rustic German Christmas markets.
I've always wanted to go straight from work to the airport- there's something thrilling about leading a normal day, then going on an adventure! Somehow we all managed to meet at Liverpool Street, grab a cheeky pre-holiday beer, and head to the airport on time. My first experience with the infamous Ryanair, with their beautifully subtle (?!) bright blue and yellow colour scheme, was surprisingly comfortable. I'm sure it helped that the journey only lasted an hour, but still! Loved the fan-fare that, as we landed, proudly told us in a lilting Irish accent that we had arrived on time at Frankfurt Hahn Airport, as do 90% of Ryanair flights. Shame our return flight was part of that 10%, but more on that later...
So, we may have only spent a day and a half in Frankfurt, but we managed to pack a lot in. As soon as we arrived at our hotel in Frankfurt city centre (that just so happened to also be in the red light district...whoops! Not deliberate, honest!), we dropped our things and headed straight to the bustling markets. Within ten minutes, we had all had a bratwurst- a flavourful beef or pork sausage wrapped in crunchy white roll, and a hot cup of glühwein- mulled wine. OK, maybe a few glasses of glühwein. Hmm, maybe writing this blog post just before breakfast was probably not the greatest idea...am now really lusting after one of those bratwursts!!
When I visited my good friend Gemma in Würzburg back in 2006, I has fallen in love with red glühwein. Frankfurt offered me their own kind of mulled wine to fall in love with- apfelwein, which, as you have probably guessed, is 'apple wine'. With the flatter, more potent taste of a cloudy cider, and the translucent appearance of a sweeter cider, apfelwein became my chosen tipple for the weekend. Cold pints were tasty, but when ladled from a hot barrel, it was even more glorious. Later that evening, I started to venture out, and tried a drink called 'mon cherie'- apfelwein, cream and amaretto, which blended together unexpectedly well. The Winterjack- apfelwein with a dash of good ol' Jack Daniels- went down very well with the boys.
So, the bulk of the day was spent strolling around the markets in a happy Christmas daze, occasionally trying to find an ATM (elusive in the Christmas market area!), stopping off at pubs to warm up (and get told off by waitresses for messing with their tray system), and buying more food (like giant salty pretzels- unbelievably good!). The Christmas markets at day and night are charming during the day, but particularly striking at night, with the towering tannenbaum (Christmas tree), each market stall, and the carousel all sparkling into life with countless fairy lights. After a cheeky ride on the carousel- the 10 seconds spent on there were definitely worth 2 Euros- we headed across the bridge towards the Apfelwein district of Sachsenhausen. Of course, we had to stop off at a bar on the other side and try another favourite German tipple- schnapps. Hazelnut was our flavour of choice, though the drinks we received were more potent than sweet. We'd definitely chosen a locals bar run by a resident German family; while the son served us straight away, the parents kept asking for our order by urgently putting coasters in front of us and barking 'Drinks!'. Eventually, the son explained that we were not freeloaders keeping out of the cold, but genuine patrons, after which we felt more welcome. By then though, we'd downed our schnapps and were ready to apfelwein it up.
How did we know we had reached the Apfelwein pub area? By the apples cunningly carved into the cobbled streets. Like Hansel and Gretel, we faithfully followed the apples to our first pub, where we were greeted with not many other patrons, and a cloud of cigarette smoke. Apparently the ban on smoking is not taken hugely seriously, even five years after the law came into place.
The rest of the night is as hazy as those smoke-filled pubs...the main highlights involved:
- Entering a typical German eatery with no tables available, and Patrick offering 'baksheesh' to the waiter
- Eating a HUGE meat plate at another German eatery, jam-packed with sauerkraut, sausages and a huge chunk of pork. We're still dreaming about this one...
All in all, a sehr gut night.
The next morning, we were all feeling a little lazy- even after a hair-of-the-dog litre-glass of beer- but we had to figure out how to get to the airport. Now, Frankfurt Hahn Airport is in fact not in Frankfurt at all, but actually between Frankfurt and Luxembourg. Taking the two hour journey from Frankfurt city centre is extremely expensive by taxi- one taxi driver quoted us 200 Euros, and I think he was being generous. We could only afford the bus- but this left at 1.30pm, and out flight was at 7.50pm. After pondering the dilemma, we decided that there was only one solution- take this earlier bus, then take a taxi from the airport to one of the local rural villages. Simple!
The amazing thing was, it actually was that simple. For those in between hours, we ended up in the tiny nearby village of Sohren. We wandered around their own quaint Christmas markets- not as polished as the Frankfurt ones, but all the more charming for it- and spent the rest of the time in a lovely German restaurant. Here, we enjoyed a delicious duck and dumpling dish, and met a friendly lady who offered little
English, but lots of smiles- our unofficial German Grandma.
So, it was a really fantastically festive weekend- all made possible by the fabulous company of my roomies, Rosh, Patrick and Dan. Even waiting for ages for a 'every-20-minutes' (yeah right) EasyBus service, or being locked out by our carpet fitters and having to call out a 24 hour locksmith to get into our flat, could not taint the weekend. Bring on the next house trip- we're thinking Dublin, France, maybe even Greece in the summer! I'm looking up flights already...
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| Bartholomew Cathedral. |
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| The main market street. |
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| We went wild over wildbratwurst. |
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| Mmmm....gluhwein. |
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| Ooh! Who's that behind me? |
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| Good, it's Rosh, not some random! Need a huge bite out of my pretzel to get over the shock... |
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| Am getting hungry just looking at this... |
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| 'O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum...'...yep, that's all I know. |
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| The waitress was moody over tray politics, but we were still smiling |
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| The carousel was too tempting to resist... |
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| Dan and Rosh smiling, and Patricm looking suspicious, by a sausage stall. |
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| 'Mon cherie'- apfelwein, amaretto and cream. |
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| Ladle me some of that apfelwein (bitte)! |
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| Sccccccchhhhnapps! |
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| Following the apples in the Apfelwein district... |
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| Where we ended up getting a huge plate of meat. |
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| We look the same in this picture! |
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| Litre-glasses of beer- perfect hair-of-the-dog drink? |
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| This needed two hands to lift when full... |
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| Forgot to mention in my post about the pork schnitzel- buttery and tasty, especially with the crinkle-cut chips of my childhood! |
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| Well and truly photobombed! |
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| Mulled wine brewing in Sohren. |
