Christmas Markets in the Stuttgart Area

Stuttgart is called the city of Christmas Market.
There are more than 280 booths an 4000 square meters offering an extensive offer.
The spruce with 23 meters of height from the Swabian Alb  dominates the town hall square.
Opening hours: 28 November until 23 December 2012 from 10 am until 9 pm, on sundays from 11 am.
Have a look at the Stuttgart Christmas Market Site for more information - unfortunately only in German or try this site in English. Also an interesting blog post in English.
The region around Stuttgart is offering christmas markets as well. Every one of them is special in its own way and worth a visit.

Stuttgart is called the city of Christmas Market.
There are more than 280 booths an 4000 square meters offering an extensive offer.
The spruce with 23 meters of height from the Swabian Alb  dominates the town hall square.
Opening hours: 28 November until 23 December 2012 from 10 am until 9 pm, on sundays from 11 am.
Have a look at the Stuttgart Christmas Market Site for more information - unfortunately only in German or try this site in English. Also an interesting blog post in English.
The region around Stuttgart is offering christmas markets as well. Every one of them is special in its own way and worth a visit.
The baroque Ludwigsburg Christmas Market greets visitors with 4 angel figures, blazoned with thousands of small lights. If you pass there on a Saturday you might have the possibility to marvel at King Fred the 1rst having a stroll with his court between the booths. Laurel wrote also about this one.
Every day aon 3 and 7 pm there will be special performance with fairy tales and musi.
Opening hours: 27 November until 23 December from 11 am until 9 pm.
Esslingen presents a Medieval - and Christmas Market. Merchants in historic clothing offer their products, old craftsmanship like basket-weaving, broom-bonding or glassblowing are shown and their artifacts are sold. It is open from 27 November until 21 December from 11 am until 8 pm. You might also have a look at this article
The Bietigheim Christmas Market - Sternlesmarkt (little star in English) offers a cozy atmosphere with 50 decorated huts fom 13 until 23 December 2012
More than 50 Christmas kiosks are in Böblingen near "Unterer See" The visitors will be entertained from 28 November until 2 December from noon until 9 pm by christmas angels, stilts and live music.
Christmas Market in Waiblingen from 30 November until 22 December from noon until 8.30 pm:
handicraft, mexican and persian specialities and christmas stories in the theater beyond the rainbow.  
Göppingen has a unique theme - Forest - 600 conifers, some fire places and  country-style wood shelters. Punch and chestnuts are offered and if you like you can also participate in a competition in curling - German Style. Furthermore there is a large event program all around the forest theme.
It is open from 6 until 29 December from 11 am until 8 pm, on Saturday from 10 am until 8 pm and on the 24th of December from 10 am until 2 pm. In contrast to most other Christmas Markets it is open even after Christmas. 

 

 

 

Forest Vernissage

Sometimes you just have to see a large crowd and be curious enought to inquire what this is all about. As it happened, some time ago we were on our way to our favorite fish pond to buy some trout or salmon trout. From the highway we saw a large crowd near the wood in front of the next exit. We decided to have a look at the event. When we wanted to enter in the parking, somebody told us to use another parking space on the other side because it was already occupied.
Yes, we will, but tell us what this is all about?
Apparently it was a forest vernissage - a word we had never heard before and we presumed maybe there would be some artist creating art pieces from a trunk of wood with a chainsaw.
As it happened, it was a little bit different - see pictures below. Nonetheless interesting, there were also speeches which nobody listened to and some guy trying to stop people for his performance. We had a little stroll around, also for the dogs, and then decided to go on in order to get our fish for dinner in time.

DIY games from the German Democratic Republic

I have been listening to an interesting podcast in German these days, called Staatsbürgerkunde. A guy from the East of Germany talks to "witnesses" of former times when there was still the wall and the German Democratic Republic. In one episode he interviews two collectors of diy games, usually copied from western table games like Monopoly or Memory.
Just have a look at their blog where they present the hand made games, the people who made them and their stories
They had an exhibition at the German Games Museum (Deutsches Spielemuseum) in Chemnitz and right now also there is an exhibition in Dresden in the Johannstadthalle  which is running until the 27th of January next year where you can have a look at these artful pieces.
Every post about a self made game also includes lots of pictures and an article about the idea and the development of the diy project.

Here are some pictures which I copied from their blog. Just have a look at it.