Year: 2015
Phatt Holiday Treats From Europe ~
For all good little adults, (Wurzburg, Germany)
like you, and me! Kids of course get all that they can eat. (Budapest, Hungary)
Oh heck, even if you’ve been bad, (Bamburg, Germany)
you can have some too. (Nurenburg, Germany
We will all behave better next year! (Vienna, Austria)
And if we don’t, (Vienna, Austria)
there are always holiday treats, (Brussels, Belgium)
for the good in all of us! (Budapest, Hungary)
And be happy because these phatt photos,
cannot make you fat! (Passau, Germany)
Vienna’s Christmas Market~
Vienna has the most dazzlingly beautiful Christmas Market.
The market is up and running before Advent, a month before Christmas.
The visual beauty is almost as remarkable as the people.
Everyday and every night for a month, people are at the market, eating, visiting, browsing, communing.
Children and families, young and old, everyone goes. Rain or shine.
Everyone absorbing the glorious spirit of the season.
Of course it is Vienna, so there is a violin tree!
I came home with a surge of Christmas spirit and decorated the biggest tree ever!
Cheers to you and may the Spirit of the Season fly into your heart, as it did to mine~
Beam Me Back to Bratislava Slovakia~
I want to go back to the Christmas Market to shop and eat. I would buy some of these aromatic dried fruit and spice hangars for myself and my friends. They smell and look divine. I couldn’t buy any because there was no room in my suitcase.
They also have soap and bath salt hangars that would make your bath smell heavenly.
Eating is the principal reason I want to go back to the Christmas Market! The hot off the grill lokse or potato pancakes were ridiculously good.
The piping hot langos, which are garlic fried potato flatbread, were out of this world.
Top it off with a cup of hot, spiced, mulled wine, in a variety of flavors, and you can see why I want to beam back there right now! That was my cup of spiced red wine you are looking at.
They had all sorts of fabulous foods and I would like to have time to try them all!
The ice rink in the old town center was getting readied for holiday skating.
Bratislava is a browsers paradise,
with quaint streets, wonderful shops,
and delicious restaurants.
There is beautiful architecture,
and fascinating history to keep your mind occupied.
Cheers to you from surprising Bratislava~
Germanic Street Signs: A Mix of Old & New~
I promised you more of the intricate and immensely charming Germanic Street signs one finds while strolling in medieval towns. This one is in Nuremburg Germany.
New Merchants have continued the medieval sign tradition in these remarkable old towns. Bamburg Germany.
Some are clearly newer. Melk Austria.
In Medieval times, many people were illiterate, hence the necessity for the visual imagery of these signs. Krems Austria.
Maintaining the tradition of advertising with these signs gives one the incredible feeling of walking back in time. Regensburg Germany.
This sign is on Albrecht Durer Street in Nuremburg, Durer’s home town.
Some signs are clearly older. Passau Germany.
I am impressed with the care taken by people in these old towns, over generations, to preserve these amazing art forms for us to wander by and admire. Passau Germany.
It is also heartening to see newer signs keeping the art form alive. Passau Germany.
Cheers to you from Germany & Austria’s wonderful artisan signs~
Old Germanic Guild Signs~
Wandering around cobblestone streets in medieval Germanic towns,
one finds an incredible collection of very old guild signs.
Many are preserved from Medieval times, but the tradition of making these distinctive signs continues to this day. In my next post I will show you more contemporary signs that are seriously charming.
These old guild signs are made of wrought iron, and advertised the trade or services available inside.
German-speaking countries have saved the largest collection of medieval and old guild signs in Europe. They are a treat to look for and find.
We are now home so it’s cheers to you from the Holler~
Stairway to Heaven~
I found the stairway to heaven!
It is in Melk Abbey in lower Austria.
The Benedictine Abbey was founded in the 12th century and is the oldest continuously operating school in Austria.
900 lucky co-educational pupils attend school here.
The Abbey over looks the The Danube River,
and the medieval town of Melk which was the center of intellectual life in Austria in the middle ages.
It is off the beaten tourist path in November and is a wonderful place to explore.
Melk is in the Wachau Valley section of The Danube River which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Cheers to you from the stunning Wachau Valley~
Schöne Deutschland ~
I have purchased a German Laptop.
At least the keyboard has the umlaut.
I had to download my Sony photo editing software in German which is not easy.
But hey, my German vocabulary is rapidly improving!
Check out the gorgeous Rhine and some scenes from beautiful Germany in mid-November.
Wurtzberg and the river Main.