Joyeux Noel: Strasbourg Xmas Market

Joyeux Noel--that's Merry Christmas in French!  Strasbourg might just be my favorite city in Europe so far.  This past visit was the third time of been there and each time I fall more in love with the place.  While visiting us in Stuttgart two weekends ago, we took the Finch Family to Strasbourg since they'd never been and because it's an easy 2-hour trip from here (Yup, we've spent the last two weekends with these guys).    Before the Christmas Market season kicked off, my boss' wife posted a link on Facebook to an article on CNN.com about the 5 Great European Cities for Christmas Markets, of which Strasbourg is ranked fourth!  So we are officially one of 5 great Christmas markets and will hopefully get to the other four before our tours in Germany are over.  Whew!  That's going to be a lot of traveling because one is in Cologne (about a five-hour trip from here), and the others are in Austria, the Czech Republic, and Belgium.

Let me tell you...this place did not disappoint!

We got there in the late afternoon; pretty much just in time for all the lights to come on.  Many buildings were adorned with Christmas decor.  Most had themes!  Like that building on the corner behind me...

It was covered in teddy bears!  See?

Other buildings had just angels, or Santas or snowmen or whatever else.  It was amazing!  Even every street had a theme in lights...like these stars...

Or these huge lanterns...

Not sure what these lights were, but they were gorgeous.

Incredible.  Sina was enthralled by the lights too.  She kept saying "tee-tis-tee" over and over again (that's "Christmas Tree).  Cuteness.

We took the kids to the carousel with a perfect view of the cathedral.  Sina and I rode on the carousel four times.  This mommy was quite woozy afterwards, but it was all worth it just to see the smiles on Sina's face.

We shopped around at the many booths (bought some cool ornaments too!), snacked on some nutella-topped waffles and freshly roasted chestnuts (OMG, I love them!), and drank quite a few different gluhwein or vin chaud in French (because no two gluhwein are the same!).  We got our Strasbourg gluhwein mug and even had some warm, orange juice (which is mostly for the kids) that was pretty tasty!  Here are Malu and I in front of one of the food vendors.

Here are some other photos taken that day:

Left to Right:

Mattie standing in front of a booth selling ceramic dutch ovens and pans.  They were way too pricey for us!

Vats of the hot orange juice and vin chaud.

Sina and I on the carousel.

The Finch Family in a funny cut-out billboard.

Madisen and our little family having dinner at an Italian restaurant.  I had to crop out a very inappropriate picture of a naked lady behind us!  Only in France would they have naked lady pictures in a family restaurant.

And...

Madisen and I with her beautiful baby sister, Mackinley.

Everyone agreed that this Christmas market was well worth the trip.  I will personally never get tired of going to Strasbourg.  I'm already itching to go back!

Again...that's one down and four more major Christmas markets to go to!

One more to tell you guys about and I'll save that for tomorrow!

Happy Wednesday!