The Trier Christmas Market

Mary and Joseph,with their baby in the stable. Santa and the reindeer on the roof. With a snowman. At the Trier Christmas Market.

And so the trip ends with a couple of visits to the Trier Christmas Market.

The Christmas Market was just a block from my hotel.  Downtown Trier is not really that large, so that's not surprising,

On a cold wet Sunday, the place was quite crowded.

The stalls were all decorated with evergreen branches thick on the roofs, which made for a nice Christmas look.

Christmas churros!  And a long line to get them.  Santa loves him some churros.  De claro.

 Reindeer on the roofs, too.

And evergreen boughs on the Christmas merry-go-round.

It was the usual mix of food selling (and hot booze selling) stalls and those selling Christmas tchotchkes of various kinds, mostly ornaments, candle holders, or Christmas houses.

And, of course, Jesus, Mary, Joseph, Santa and the reindeer.  All together.

I guess that's a Christmas windmill.

Why not?

This place was selling chocolate covered fruits, mostly bananas.

Even the trash cans were decked out in holiday cheer.

Yes,  Seriously.  That is a trash can.

The Zamboni was out at the Christmas ice skating rink.

And right on the main square of the Christmas Market was one of the most beautiful McDonald's I have ever seen.

Yes.  That is a McDonald's.  You can see the golden arches.

There was an organ grinder.

No monkey.  But "What Child Is This," which is generally not one of my favorite Christmas songs, really sounded good on the hand-cranked organ.

I tipped a euro coin.

One of the purpose of this trip was to explore the Christmas markets of Germany.  (That, and like the McDonald's we just saw, I deserved a break today and needed the de-stressing trip.)

I would not want to do this every year, but this was a great treat.

And of course I returned after dark to get some supper.

And this was dinner:

Chiliwurst!  This was the hottest, spiciest bratwurst I've ever had.  Quite good.

The Christmas carousel was well-lit, as were some of the attendees, I presume.

The crowds were starting to thin out.

I'm not sure if the Christmas windmill was generating sufficient power to keep the lights on.

Last chance for Christmas tchotchkes.

Or Christmas crepes and waffles.

Apparently they go through a lot of nutella at these booths, since that seems to be what people nowadays want on the Christmas crepes and waffles.

O Tannenbaum!  Let's get in the mood with the song sung in German:  click.

Or do you prefer your "O Tannenbaum" by Andrea Bocelli?

And with that my first winter trip to Europe comes to an end.

Arrived in Eger! How I Don't Know

I managed to make it to Eger. I'm staying at the Hotel Senator-Ház somewhere in the city, near the castle. The room is great. Huge and wooden. I got here and they offered me a choice of two rooms. A tiny room up two very winding flights (fun climb with my 800-pound suitcase), overlooking a bar that might be the only noisy spot in Eger, or a giant two-room suite in another building down an alley from the main hotel.

I choose to go big.

I just don't know how I ended up here.

After an afternoon in Győr on the factory tour, I headed across the breadth of Hungary for Eger, the next destination on this tour of Central Europe. I wasn't too far out of Eger when it hit me. I really hadn't gotten much of any sleep last night. Once again I questioned my appalling lack of judgment.

I was already dog-tired and I had a three-hour (or so) drive across a foreign country. I stopped at a McDonald's -- they have those upscle McCafe's here in Hungary, too -- and loaded myself up with diet Coke, or as the natives say, "Coca Cola Light." It helped some. When I hit the beltway around Budapest, the M-Zero, it was under construction. Two narrow lanes. No shoulder. Lots of trucks singularly uninterested in lane integrity. Once again, I questioned my appalling lack of judgment.

I finally got to the actually-constructed M-3, chugged down that road and saw the exit sign for Eger. Eger is not just off the freeway. It's another 20 to 30 minutes north of the exit. Luckily it was well-marked. Until I hit Eger city limits. I stopped at a gas station to ask for directions. Yes, real men do that, but only in foreign countries. Of course, the fact that there is not a ready supply of English-language speakers in rural Hungary was a bit of setback. I questioned my appalling lack of judgment.

I showed the women at the station at a small map of Eger from my Rough Guide, pointed out the location of the Senator-Ház, and made a gesture denoting confusion. They somehw figured out I needed a larger map, which they had one hanging in the station. I was able to see that I was still a little south of the downtown, I had to turn right at a street named Deák Ferenc, which was actually easy to remember because that's the same name as the square in Budapest where all three subway lines meet. And I had turn right off Deák Ferenc when it ended onto Kossuth utca. This too would be easy to remember because precisely 50 percent of all streets in Hungary are named Kossuth. This would be easy because I would only need to follow Kossuth until it crossed a river, and then I would turn left at the very first street after the river, which I would then follow to its end and there would be the Senator-Ház. So simple. What possibly could go wrong!

Well, the fact that Kossuth turned into a one-way street heading in the opposite direction from the river. That's what could go wrong. Again, my thoughts turned to my appalling lack of judgment, thinking that I could find a small hotel, down a small alley, after dark, in a foreign country where I barely know how to say "thank you" in the native tongue. (By the way, it's "köszönöm, pronounced for some reason as if there are r's after the vowel in the first two syllables.

Except, bizarrely, I actually found the hotel with no problem. I turned left onto a street that I could see on the map would dead-end into Kossuth utca, made an immediate right down the narrow one-lane alley (presuming there were no cars coming the other direction) and, sure enough, at the end of the alley, I saw "hotel" and then I saw "Senator-Ház." What I did not see was parking. So I did the European thing of just parking the car where I stopped, got out and went into the hotel. I asked where I should park and someone who worked there (I think) volunteered to park my car for me. So I let him.

So I have no clue where the Mercedes is as I type this. Thank God it's an A-class.

Prague After Dark

With a title like that, you think I'm going to lead you on a tour of the after-hours underbelly of Prague. No such luck. The jet lag was still affecting me, so no "Prague after dark" for me.

Walking back from the show, crossing the Charles Bridge, I saw this one bridge statute, a little off the side of the bridge, I had not seen before. I tried to take an artsy shot with the flood-lit National Theater in New Town Prague in the background:

After I crossed the bridge, I decided to hang out in a special after-hours hot spot that was jumping:

Yes. McDonald's. A couple of revelations about the Czech McDonald's. First, the McCafe:

That's a real bakery counter there! They had a selection of pastries and pies that looked awesome. I couldn't try them because of the wheat thing, but we're not talking your fried apple pie pockets here. No. A real slice of cheesecake. A real croissant. At Mickey D's! Oh, and the Big Mac or the Quarter Pounder, can't remember which, is a "Royal"! Just like in "Pulp Fiction." The ham-and-mozzarella bites also sounded particuarly awesome. And, yes, like in Germany, McDonald's does sell beer.

After that excitement, there was nothing left to do but walk the empty streets of the Little Quarter back to my hotel for some shut-eye,

Museum of Communism

Located above a McDonald's, and sharing space with a casino, is the Czech Museum of Communism. How the mighty have fallen!

The museum is small. The descriptions are very informative, but there's not that impressive of a collection here. This pales in comparison to the House of Terror, or Memento Park, in Budapest. There were plenty of propaganda posters.

But overall I think the Museum is a little soft on communism. If you knew nothing else about communism other than what you learned in this museum, you would think the commies were bad because they beat on people. I prefer the message in Budapest: communism was pure evil.

Budapest, Hungary: Friday lunch at McDonald's

I deserved a break today. I was hungry from walking around the Leopold Town sector of Pest. And my tourbook indicated that I was about to reach an historic McDonald's. The location seemed to be a block or two north of where I was expecting it to be, but I nevertheless I went inside and ordered my meal.

Turns out I was in the wrong McDonald's. A couple of blocks away, this was the one I actually wanted:

Oh well. In 1988, this was the first McDonald's to be opened behind the Iron Curtain, right in the heart of Budapest. A veritable symbol of western decadence! Apparently, the lines were quite long (although, still be communist, the population was probably used to standing in long lines).

I had ordered a large French Fries and a diet Coke. As a symbol of western infiltration into the heart of socialism, this is one place where using the unfortunate term "Freedom Fries" would have been not-so cloying.

After wolfing down the fries and diet Coke, I continued my walk through Pest. I reached the Danube and saw this whimsical little piece of public art:

Here's a view of the Royal Palace, up a hill on the Buda side, as seen from the waterfront area of the Pest side:

BTW: Regarding the name "Pest." The name is somewhat apropos as this is the city of gnats! I haven't seen many, if any, bigger bugs, but there are thick knots of gnats everywhere. I guess they feed the birds.

I continued on past the very photogenic Chain Bridge -- Széchenyi lánchíd in the language that no one outside this country understands -- which is probably the third most photographed feature in Budapest after Parliament and Zsa Zsa Gabor:

The bridge is guarded by lions, two on each side. They're there to symbolize the strength of Hungary:

Crossing the bridge to the Buda side:

Castle Hill is in the background. Note the famous Turul Bird statue about one-third the way in, from the left side. Here's a full-on view of the bridge from the Buda side:

Although my hotel room does not look directly onto the Chain Bridge, I can see it from my balcony. Again, they gave me the signature views of Budapest! All for a $10 upgrade!

Which, BTW, here's my hotel from across the water:

It's the longest building along the river between the two spires.