Nana and Grampy were supposed to come visit us the week before Christmas, so we had plans to visit a whole bunch of Christmas markets. Sadly, their flight was canceled and they could not get on another one until later in the week, so they did not get here until Christmas Eve day, after most markets were closed. On the last day of the markets we decided to go to the Maria Theresienplatz market, which has been one of our favorites in the past couple years. The weather was actually pretty warm (for Vienna in the winter…) so it was a great day for markets!
Little Ollie posing for us just as we arrived.
Oliver found a lucky horseshoe at one of the stands, and excitedly held it up, saying”U-Bahn!” For those who are not aware, Oliver always says “U-Bahn” when he sees the letter U because the U-Bahn trains in Vienna have signs with a big letter U on them.
Some nice hand made soaps. The kids liked this one, they were smelling all the different soaps.
Elora holding up some yummy smelling soap.
Here is Elora’s excited face – Chris had just told her we would buy her a treat!
This treat is an ice cream cone filled with sweet sticky marshmallow fluff-like stuff, and covered in chocolate. The kids got to share one, and they were surprisingly good about taking turns with their sugar goo.
Oliver is licking his lips in anticipation as he reaches out for the cone.
Yummy! This took the kids awhile to eat, and kept them nicely occupied while we checked out all the stands. I guess we should always stuff them with sweets while shopping.
A nice view of the market. This one is situated between the art museum and the natural history museum, two of the most beautiful buildings in Vienna, so it is a wonderful location for a market.
Our last Christmas market Kasekrainer! It is a bratwurst filled with cheese. Sort of like those hot dogs we all ate as a kid with the cheese in them, only So Much Better.
We bought some Elf Punsch, which was supposed to be fruit punch and vanilla. It was pretty tasty, but we accidentally got the kind with alcohol… so the kids licked some whipped cream off the top… we took a few sips…
Chris said, Does this have alcohol in it? And we didn’t drink the rest. We should give up on our attempts to purchase alcohol free punsch, it never works out right… The whipped cream was tasty though. And the mug was also nice.
Marion slept through the whole event, which was nice!
We bought this neat pastry that is fried dough filled with either sauerkraut or jam and sugar. We opted for the jam and sugar. It was preiselbeeren jam which is sort of like cranberry jam, and it was super tasty.
Yummy!
Elora liked these little hedgehogs that are made from wood. They are pretty cute, and there is always a stand selling these at the markets. I am not sure what the significance of hedgehogs is, but I did see one crossing a rural road in the middle of the night once… And I know that they eat snails… and in German it is called an Igel.
Oliver liked dancing with Daddy to warm up his hands. He is extremely odd, and refuses to put on his gloves if his hands are warm. So when we get ready to go outside he doesn’t want gloves, because his hands are not cold. Once his hands are freezing he wants the gloves, but by then we always want to warm his hands up a little before putting them inside his cold gloves! Sigh. One day he will figure out that the gloves are what keep his hands from ever getting cold.
Kidlets playing in the rest of the snow that is quickly melting in the warmer weather.
They actually stopped and posed for a picture all by themselves! They were having a great time holding hands and running around.
Finally we told them they needed to stay close to us as we left the market, but as you can see Oliver tried to keep running and he wanted to drag his sister along with him!
