Christmas Market at City Hall

While here in Vienna some of my friends from church told me about the Christmas markets (side-note: I found a local international Adventist church with services in English that I attended while in Austria). I learnt about the markets when I first arrived in Austria, and that the ones in Vienna where some of the best in the world. Naturally I was very excited for the markets to open in mid November.

There are several Christmas markets throughout Vienna but probably the best one was at Rathausplatz, the square just outside city hall. The first time I went here was with some friends from church. We came on a Saturday night and it was insanely crowded, but I did get to try some Langosh, which is basically deep fried flatbread served with garlic. The atmosphere and the lights were amazing so I visited again about a week and a half later, this time on a week night when the crowds weren't as bad, and armed with my camera.

I do want to apologise that the quality of these pictures will be a little lower. Photographing in low light conditions is difficult and I didn't have a tripod. However, even considering these limitations I think the pictures still turned out alright.

The center area of the markets was the main, well, market area. In this section were many stalls, all made of wood looking like cute little houses. There was all sorts of stuff on sale, from food to Christmas decorations. I personally liked this one chocolate stall. All of their chocolates were shaped to look like every day items, and they were done so well that they looked real. I bought a nut cracker and a recorder.

The cover photo for the post shows the main entrance into the markets but there were others as well. This one is further on the right from where the main gate is and it leads to the section of the market filled with lights.

Almost every tree had some form of lights on them. They really went all out, just look at the first picture how the tree is utterly covered in fairy lights. They also had other light displays, like the balls/baubles of fairy light. There were also some animal sculptures made from fairy lights but I couldn't get a good angle on them to take a nice picture.

Another angle of the Ferris wheel. In this photo I wanted to capture the intermingling of the fairy lights on the tree with the bright wheel in the background.

There was also this section of the markets with these display houses. Each display had a framed diorama. I only took a picture of one but each one had a unique style to them. I never figured out exactly what they meant.

On the opposite side to the lights there was an ice skating rink. Unfortunately I didn't have a chance to go ice skating while in Vienna.

At the very centre of the Christmas Markets there was a large nativity scene. I didn't spend much time here due to the crowd that often clustered around the scene. I didn't really try to frame the picture, I mostly just took this picture to record that I had scene this sight.

Vienna At Night

I wanted to share a couple of pictures I took on the way to the Christmas Markets.

Many of the streets in the central city area were decorated with lights. Each street seemed to have a theme. The street in the first photo had these cylindrical columns of lights periodically along the entire street length, the second had stars. The last photo shows a street with these banners of lights hung across it. I particularly liked this street as it gave the sense of walking beneath a sea of light. The other reason I liked this street was for the cafe that sold Kaiserschmarrn.

Kaiserschmarrn

This is Kaiserschmarrn (and a hot chocolate). Sorry it's not the best picture, this food was particularly difficult to get a good photo of it, I tried multiple attempts. This is my favourite Austrian dish that I tasted. I went back to this cafe (which sells the best Kaiserschmarrn) four times in total, including this day, stopping by the cafe on the way to the markets.

Now you might be wondering what Kaiserschmarrn is. As I understand it, it was named in honour of Franz Joseph I who was a fan of this particular dish. It's kind of like scrambled pancakes and it is usually served with a cranberry sauce. On this day I had it with a plum sauce instead.

This cafe is also really nice as it has a takeaway booth for quickly ordering Kaiserschmarrn. I was ably to, very simply, make the order in German by saying "Hallo, Kaiserschmarrn und heiße Schokolade, bitte." and I figured out the rest through context. Outside the cafe were some standing tables and there I ate and enjoyed my hot chocolate.

The cafe had all sorts of chocolates, cakes, and deserts inside. In the window they had a gingerbread house made to replicate Saint Stephan's Cathedral.

I'm not sure if the scale translates well in the picture but it was actually quite large. There was often a crowd of people at the window looking to admire the cake.

The next time I am in Vienna I hope to return to Cafe Demel and buy more Kaiserschmarrn. I would definitely recommend it if you ever find yourself in Austria.

Thanks for reading – Edward

Written 23rd of December 2023

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