Germany’s most famous Christmas Market is again going to be held from November 26 to December 24, 2010 in Nuremberg, Bavaria.

Nuremberg Christkindlesmakt © charley1965/flickr.com

The opening ceremony on the Friday preceding the first Sunday in Advent is always a great event for locals and tourists from all over the world. Trumpets are blown at 5:30 pm on Friday before the ‘Junge Chor Nürnberg’ starts singing Christmas songs. After the switch on of the lights the Nuremberg Christ Child standing on the gallery will recite her famous prologue. Having been a symbol for the Christmas Market for many decades the Christ Child is one of the city’s most important representatives. The Christ Child is a young woman (16 to 19 years old) from Nuremberg being elected for tow years.

The Christmas Market will be held on Nuremberg’s Main Market Square (Hauptmarkt) and at the about 180 wooden stalls decorated with red and white cloth you can get the typical spicy gingerbread, fruit loaves, bakery goods, sweets, Christmas tree decorations, candles, arts and crafts, nativity sets, candles and of course toys. But of course food and drink are available as well such as the typical Nuremberg sausages and mulled wine.

This year the Munich Oktoberfest is going to celebrate its 200th anniversary. It will be held from September 18th to October 4th, 2010.

The Oktoberfest is the world’s largest fair and an important part of Bavarian culture. It traditionally takes place during the sixteen days in up to the first Sunday in October and is held on the so called Theresienwiese (or Wiesn for short) in Munich, Bavaria. More than 6 million visitors come from all over Europe, the US, Canada, India, Japan, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand.

Oktoberfest Munich © flickr/digital cat 

The Oktoberfest was first held in October 1810 to celebrate the marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig (later King Ludwig I) and Princess Therese of Saxe-Hilburghausen. The citizens of Munich were invited to join the festivities held at the Theresienwiese (Theresa’s field) outside the city gates and a horse race marked the end of the festival. The decision to hold a horse race again the following year gave rise to the tradition of the Oktoberfest.

And still today you can see horses drawing the carriages on the opening day of the Oktoberfest. On that day the ancient brewery carriages and the horses will be magnificently decorated.

If you want to catch the officially opening ceremonies you should be in the Schottenhamel tent at noon on September 18th.  The lord mayor of Munich then will have the honour of tapping the first keg of Oktoberfest beer. And once the barrel has been tapped, all visitors will be allowed to drink beer too.

Oktoberfest © flickr/sanfamedia.com

At the Oktoberfest not only about 70,000 hectolitres of beer will be drunk,  visitors will also eat huge amounts of typical Oktoberfest food such as Hendl (chicken), Schweinsbraten (roast pork), Haxn (pork knuckle), Würstl (sausages), Weisswurst (white sausages), Brezn (pretzel) and many more.

Since 1850 the statue of the Bavaria, the worldly Bavarian patron, has been watching the Oktoberfest. It was first sketched by Leo von Klenze, roanticised and ‘Germanised’ by Ludwig Michael Schwanthaler and constructed by Johann Baptist Stiglmaier and Ferdinand von Miller.

This year special events will be held to celebrate the anniversary of the Octoberfest. There will be a historical Oktoberfest with ancient fun rides and beer tents and a horse race will also take place. Even a special anniversary beer will be brewed. Normally every brewery has its own beer for the Oktoberfest but this year there will be a special beer brewed by all of them using old recipes that are slightly modified to match today’s taste .  Visitors interested in the history of the Oktoberfest can learn more about it in the Museum Tent.

The Cheese Route ( KäseStraße) in Schleswig-Holstein this year is 10 years old. It has a length of more than 500 kilometres and on it you can travel around Schleswig-Holstein from one cheese dairy to the next.

In many cheese dairies you can buy cheese and many of them are also open to the public and you can learn about how to make cheese.

Especially this year there are many events to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Cheese Route.

On May 9, 2010 there will be a cheese market at the open-air museum Kiekeberg south of Hamburg.

On May 13, 2010 (Ascension Day) there will be a farmyard feast at the organic Dannwisch farmyard near Elmshorn.
From 22 through 24 May, 2010 (Whitsun) there will be a farmyard feast at Gut Behl near Plön. There will be lots of entertainment like a children’s zoo, bull-riding and guided tours of the farm. You can also see how chees is being made and learn about the local cattle breeding. About 20,000 visitors are expected.

From 16 through 18 July, 2010 there will be a cheese and wine feast in Kiel, the capital of Schleswig-Holstein. It is called “Käse trifft Wein” (cheese meets wine) and here you can not only buy but also taste cheese and wine. And of course Kiel is worth a visit too.

July 24, 2010 you can learn in the Ostenfelder Meierei, the Ostenfeld dairy farm how cheese is made. Ostenfeld is west of Husum.

And last but not least there will again be a farmyard feast at Dannwisch farmyard on September 11, 2010.

And the Cheese Route of course has more to offer than just cheese as the landscape of Schleswig-Holstein really is magnificent and you will not only see the Baltic Sea but also the Schlei Fjord and the North Sea. One of the cheese dairies is on the island of Föhr on the German coast of the North Sea.

Cheese©flickr/CoreForce

Carnival in Germany is can also be called Karneval, Fasching or Fastnacht, depending in what region you are.

The most famous probably is the carnival in Cologne, Düsseldorf or Mainz. The date for carnival by the way is related to Easter. As the Lenten season is a periode of 40 you will have to count back from Easter to get to Ash Wednesday, the first day of the Lenten season. The Sundays don’t count though, because you wouldn’t like to fast on a Sunday, would you.

Köln©flickr-Rich B-S

The real beginning of the carnival season though already is on November 11th at 11:11 am every year.
The outdoor carnival then really starts with the so called “Weiberfastnacht” on Shrove Thursday (Feb. 11, 2010). On this day you can see women in fancy dresses everywhere in the city, as it is the women’s day. In Düsseldorf the women enter the guildhall to cut off men’s ties.

In Cologne you can see one of Germany’s largest carnival parades on Carnival Monday (Feb. 15, 2010). The whole city will be dancing and celebrating. The well known call on that day is “Kölle Alaff”. It is said that the old battle call in Cologne was “Coellen all aff” which meant “Cologne over all”. But the parades in Düsseldorf and Mainz aren’t any smaller or less interesting. The special call here is Helau.
On Ash Wednesday, the first day of the Lenten season, you usually have a fish dinner in one of the pubs or restaurants.

In Braunschweig (Brunswick) you can see one of the largest parades of the North of Germany. It already takes place on Sunday (Feb. 14th, 2010) as Carnival Monday here is a normal work day.

In Baden-Württemberg carnival is called Fastnacht and here you see many witches, devils and carnival fools in traditional costumes.

In Munich the market-women traditionally dance on the Viktualienmarkt on Carnival Tuesday.
But in other parts of Germany you can celebrate carnival too of course.

Under the official name of “Ruhr.2010” for the first time a whole region has become European Capital of Culture.

It is a region in the west of Germany close to the border to the Netherlands. Here you find 53 towns and cities in a region in past times famous for its coal mines and steelworks. This part of Germany, home to more than 5 Million people from many different countries, is now being transferred into an area with lots of recreational and cultural attractions. And of course this year there will be even more events of all sorts. It is a region of Germany worth paying a visit, a region formed by hard work and football, formed by people of different religions and cultures and last but not least formed by the times of the “black gold” from the Industrial Revolution to the 1960s. You do not only find brand stores in the bigger cities but also Germany’s biggest supermarket with the size of a football/soccer field. In Duisburg Zoo you can even find a part of Australia, the only Koalas in Germany. Starlight Express is a musical understood by everybody and has been played in Bochum for almost 22 years.