The Karlsruhe Christmas Market or Christkindlmarkt.

I've been so busy since I came back from Germany in early December and then after Christmas I came down with this virus everyone seemed to be getting and so all my chronological plans of writing about the food in Germany, the butchers shop in Ettlingen and a variety of other cooking or food related blog posts up to this day seemed to have got all mixed up. I still have to tell you all about the open market in Leiden in Holland too!

Well, at least I am no longer coughing like a bad tempered walrus and on this rainy Tuesday in early January 2015 (Happy New Year readers!) I have been going through a few photographs of my relatively recent visit to Karlsruhe with my friend Emma Brown. We went to perform my play called Greetings From The Trenches. A lot of our time was spent doing last minute technical checks and rehearsing with our German sound and lighting guy - Lennart Strenztsch but we were also able to get out and about to the Christmas Market and enjoy some mulled wine and sweet and savoury pfannkuchen.

Whilst eating and drinking our way round the festive Christkindlmarkt  we spotted some smoked salmon in the whole side being smoked in front of a fire as well as plenty of  pretty stalls selling a variety of confectionary items and enough nougat to rot your teeth in seconds. The Germans certainly seemed to be a nation with a sweet tooth. As you might expect from such a market there were many stalls selling Lebkuchen and Magenbrot (both forms of soft gingerbread) and Gebrannte Mandeln (candied toasted almonds) as well as candles in all shapes and sizes and wooden toys. Although I kept saying that I was going to try a German sausage I never did get round to it.

During my time in Karlsruhe I came back to the Christkindlmarkt two more times. Those were on the Saturday to meet up with my friend Lena and her partner Sascha and on the Sunday to see my friend Thorsten (of whose Christmas dinner you can read about in the blog post before this.) On both occasions we had to try out the gluhwein just to make sure it was still ok. Thorsten took me to a tiny little kiosk where he claimed it was the best mulled wine made with good wine from his homeland - the Rheinland Pfalz.

A lot of the time in Germany seemed to be involving drinking German lager beer (weird that) and sitting in steamy cafes with a cup of strong coffee and an appetizing portion of delicious fruit based tart. A couple of times the too strong coffee upset  my stomach and caused me to make a swift visit to the loo! But that is another story. Happy days! Even as I am writing this I am recalling lots of stories and incidents/observations from my time in Karlsruhe regarding food and certain favourite cafes. I certainly won't be short of things to write about this year!

On the tram to Heide.