It’s the most wonderful time of the year!
Time for Christmas markets, folks!
The 6th edition of “The Shwits Drink Too Much Glühwein” was hosted by Bremen, Germany with a special guest – our friend, Kaitlin, joining us all the way from North Carolina!
Bremen, Germany’s 11th largest city, is located about 3 hours west of Groningen by Flixbus, closer even by car, making it a pretty popular destination for Groningners during the Christmas season. Since we’d only been to Bremen for the airport (another hot-spot for the budget airline, Ryanair), we decided it was time to pay it a proper visit.
The Bremen Christmas markets were exactly what you would expect out of a Weihnachtsmarkt. Lots of food, drinks, shopping, and general merriment!
As I mentioned before, this was our 6th year of Christmas markets, and you could say we’ve established a ‘system’, so to speak, of how to best approach the weekend.
Step 1. Big lunch – traditional German food, obviously.
Step 2. Glühwein.
Step 3. Shopping.
Step 4. Curry worst.
…and the cycle continues.
Now here’s where our years of experience come in (lol). BYOA: bring your own amaretto!
You can (and will most certainly want to) add amaretto to your glühwein at the cost of an extra €1.50 per glass.
€1.50 per glass! Crazy. Do yourself a favor and bring a flask. 😉
Market stand under the Bremen Cathedral. 
We stayed mostly towards the markets in the direct city center (near the cathedral), but if you wander about 5 minutes out you’ll hit the Schnoor district – the medieval center.
This section of town was adorably cute and I am nowhere near a good enough photographer to capture the amazingness of this area. Cobblestone streets, houses that date back to the 14th century, small alleyways that cut you into secret courtyards – it was fabulous!
A boy saving his cat – gotta love it!
We also had to go see these guys…
The Town Musicians of Bremen!
I’ll be honest, I didn’t (and still really don’t) know the story which was written by the Brothers Grimm. Long story short (pun intended) it’s about 4 farm animals who think they can make a better living as musicians.
Naturally, you have to give ’em a little rub for good luck!
And with that – we came, we saw, we conquered!
And nice touch with the stoplights, Bremen.
Can you spot the Santa?
Tot ziens,
The Shwits 
So many Christmas market posts this year! I think we are heading to Europe next Christmas! Looks like too much fun!
Yes, they are fantastic! Depending on how long you have, you can easily do a “tour” of markets, and see multiple… ya know, for research purposes! 😉
of course! it’s all about the research. haha