Bolzano Christmas Market

Christmas markets are a big deal in Europe.  Not as much in Italy, but huge in Austria and Germany.  However, Italy still has several of them and we wanted to make it to more than just our little market in Ferrara.  The market in Bolzano, Italy is supposed to be the biggest in the country.  Bolzano is far north--near the Austrian border.  We were so close to Austria that most of the signs were in Italian and German.  It took us about three hours to drive up there, and the views are stunning once you leave the flat farmlands and get closer to the snowy mountains.

We finally got to Bolzano and were even impressed with the parking garage! You know how in parking garages it can get frustrating to find a spot because it's dark, hard to see, and you think you find one only to start pulling in and realize it's a tiny car you didn't see?  This parking garage solved that problem with little green and red lights above every spot.  If the spot was full, the light was red and if it was empty, the light was green.  It was awesome, and we found a spot right away, and of course, took a picture.

Above ground and a short walk away from this parking wonder (ha ha) was the Bolzano Christmas market.  Our first stop was lunch where we got pretzels and hot dogs.  I did the food run and was very impressed that we managed to eat since I had to order the food and follow the directions for where to go to pick it up (in two different places) all in Italian.  We're getting better!

We didn't get to see a lot of the town itself, but what we did see was beautiful. I love seeing all the churches.  Bolzano was surrounded by mountains and you could see the ski lift going up to the top.

Then we spent a some time walking around the market.  While the market in Ferrara has a lot of food and gift type things, this market was mostly decorations (which is what I wanted to see anyway!)  It was also very crowded so we had to push through and file along slowly to see anything.  A common theme is about to emerge in my blog posts involving a cranky baby who isn't in the mood for whatever we happen to be doing, and that was definitely the case today.  We did what we could--speed walked through the market, picked out a couple ornaments for our tree, and tried to see what we could before the full-blown melt-down happened.

Michael loves balloons, and at one point two little girls walked by us and each handed him a balloon advertising a shoe store.  I'm pretty sure this was the highlight of his week, but not quite enough to let him actually enjoy the outing.

There were some neat decorations in the trees of a little courtyard we found:

We found a little playground in kind of a last-ditch effort to get him in a happy mood.  It worked for a little while.  Some other little girls bounced him around on a trampoline thing for awhile, but in the end, we had to call it a day.

We had one last bit of excitement on the way back to the car when the horses came back from pulling a hayride around the city.  Michael liked looking at the horses for a couple of minutes, and then we hopped in the car and made an almost 4 hour drive back home. I think we were in the car about four times longer than we were actually in Bolzano, but at least we got to see a little of our first European Christmas market!

Christmas in Ferrara

Italy is a beautiful place to be in the winter.  For one thing, it's actually fairly cold here so it feels like winter (unlike anywhere else I've lived!)  Just after American Thanksgiving in November, thousands of sparkling icicle lights were hung all around the downtown area of Ferrara.  It's beautiful to walk around and see everything glittering and shining.

There was a carousel set up in the Piazza Municipale that Michael LOVED.  It was so cute watching him ride around and around. We bought more tickets than we probably should have, and Robbie and I had to switch off so we didn't get dizzy holding him on his horse.

The lights all over town were really beautiful.

They also set up an ice skating rink in one of the little plazas near the castle.  We didn't get the chance to skate but it looked like a lot of fun.

Ferrara also has its own little Christmas market.  There are some stalls set up in the main piazza that sell a variety of gifts, decorations, candy, and food.  We went several times and walked around--we got a Ferrara bulb for our Christmas tree, some candy (a couple of times), and little cups of vin brule, the spiced wine they sell here for the holidays.

We also got our first Christmas tree in Italy. They do things a little differently here.  The trees are smaller and they sell them in a pot.  You buy a tree and decorate it for the holiday, then you can plant it in your garden for the next year, or even return it to the nursery.  I had never really put much thought into the millions of trees that are cut down and die in the US every year for Christmas until we got to Italy and saw you didn't necessarily have to kill your tree. We hadn't brought any of our Christmas decorations with us since we didn't know how much room we'd have and where we'd be living, so we made a quick trip to the store and got some cheap ones to make it look happy and festive.  And the best part of it being on the small-side was that we could easily put it on a table and out of reach of the one year-old who loves to grab anything he can get his hands on!

A couple days before Christmas we got our first visitors--my mom and bother Ryan came to visit! it was really fun to show them Italy.  Michael had a great time opening his presents (this was the first time he really understood what to do with them) and we had a great Christmas with lots of food and a walk around Ferrara.

Merry Christmas (a month or so late)!