Sick of the Irish Christmas shopping experience? Rosita Boland finds just the ticket for next year's seasonal spree - in the German city of Heidelberg.
It's a Saturday in December. Put that day and month together and they usually add up to consumer hell. But not this particular Saturday. In Heidelberg, the Christmas market has been underway since late November and, as far as I can see, everyone is having a thoroughly enjoyable time while also ticking a few items off their shopping lists.
Heidelberg is a pretty university town, bisected by the Neckar River, and surrounded by forests and steep hills. Its best-known feature is its dramatic ruined castle, which clings like a very grand barnacle to the edge of the hillside overlooking the town. For five centuries, the castle was home to the prince electors of the Palatinate, and it is now a classic symbol of German Romanticism. Mind you, being German, it is a very orderly ruin; extensive but extremely tidy.
If you stand at the castle, you can look down onto Haupstrasse, and see the brightly lit carousel in the middle of Universitasplatz. The vintage carousel, with its beautiful painted horses, is there to provide entertainment for the small (and not so small) children accompanying their parents to the Christmas market. It's free, and is just one of the things that makes a shopping trip in a German town at Christmas the enjoyable communal experience that, ideally, it should be.
In Heidelberg, the market is spread through five of the town's main squares, all of which are close to Haupstrasse, the main street. There are some 150 stalls, although calling them stalls is an injustice, since they are more like very grand open-sided garden sheds. Extremely grand garden sheds - the wooden structures are each individually decorated. Lights, ivy, holly, trees, sleds, glass baubles, roof decorations - these are all left in situ each night when the stall-holders go home. And guess what? They're all still there in the morning, and they're not vandalised.
The stalls are set up at the beginning of Advent and are taken down a few days before Christmas, thus proving that at least one nationality is more organised than us when it comes to last-minute shopping. Virtually every city and town in Germany holds a Christmas market, no matter how modest. The tradition dates back hundreds of years. The original markets were held on the streets - no sheltered stalls in those days - for a few days. They ran just a few days, and were originally for workmen's tools. When standards of living rose, luxuries started appearing. At one point, only local tradesman were allowed to sell their goods at the markets, which gave distinction to each region, with their different crafts and food.
Most of the stalls in Heidelberg that I can see are selling different goods, and the majority of the items for sale are hand-made. It's like a huge outdoor craft market. What do you want? It's more what don't you want?
There are flower stalls selling poinsettias, hand-made Christmas wreaths for doors and greenery wreaths for tables, complete with candles. They're all lovely, and carefully made - and they're cheap. Big healthy poinsettias are €2.50 and so are door wreaths. For that price, you could put one on every door in the house, not just the front door. I find myself looking for an extra numeral, but I don't locate one. That is the right price.
Other stalls are selling a huge assortment of Christmas decorations of every possible kind. There are glass stars, wooden cribs, mischievous-looking mermaids with wings (work that out as a concept), and hand- painted baubles of every size. There are hand-made toys, jewellery, fabrics, ceramic houses (for use as candle-holders), ethnic clothes, engraved glass, mirrors, musical instruments, bird-feeders, bags and hats. There are at least four stalls selling wooden mops, brooms and scrubbing brushes, although you might not be very popular if you give one of these to someone as a Christmas present. Nothing is expensive.
For anyone needing some respite, there are lots of stalls selling mulled wine (€1.80 a mug) or huge bratwurst sausages (€2.50). There are also crêpes, waffles, steamed puddings, gingerbread, roasted chestnuts and special German Christmas cinnamon biscuits shaped like stars. Every second adult seems to be clutching a mug of mulled wine and standing chatting in the clear cold air at one of the many counter tables - the market is as much of an opportunity for people to get together as it is for them to shop.
It's all very laid-back; nobody is rushing around madly. The smell of mulled wine and fresh pine needles feels like part of an uncontrived scenario and people actually listen to the excellent carol singers who appear periodically. Why can't it be like this in Ireland, I find myself thinking wistfully.
* For more information on visiting Heidelberg, see www.cvb-heidelberg.de
