This was a shopping weekend! I went with my friends Gina and Christine on a three day shopping trip to the German Christmas Markets. We left London early Friday morning on the coach (bus) bound for Germany. We travelled to Dover where we crossed the English Channel on ferry to Calais, France. We went through France and Belgium and arrived in the German border town of Aachen late Friday afternoon. Yes – we covered 4 countries in one day. This is about the drive time from Houston to Dallas!! We dropped our bags at the hotel and took off for our first market run. It was an outside affair with many booths and vendors. We took a survey of things the first day knowing that we’d have a number of opportunities to shop. We bought just a few things and turned in early as we were off to Cologne on Saturday morning.
Cologne had 6 Christmas markets and we walked to the far end of town to catch the New Market as it opened. After 3 more markets, we realized that we were seeing many of the same things in each market – so we pulled out the Euros and started taking advantage of the storage space provided on the coach. Later in the evening we drove back into Aachen and revisited the market from Friday night. We bought Christmas gifts (for ourselves and others!) and had a great time fighting the crowds.
On Sunday we departed for Brugge to purchase the famous Belgian chocolates and handmade lace. Unfortunately, it was a rainy and cold day in Brugge. We did manage to purchase a few items, but decided to have a nice meal and visit. We had a wonderful meal in a nice (dry and warm) restaurant and just enjoyed the company. We reminisced about our last weekend away (this past summer to Langkawi while on a two week business trip in Kuala Lumpur).
It was a really wonderful weekend, full of adventures and laughs that we will definitely remember fondly on our next weekend away.
1 comment:
This sounds like the trip I took with Gemmaway 10 years ago. It was one my all time favorite trips. Did you come back with some mugs? :)
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