Christmas Markets Round 1 - Brussels v Nuremberg

The first of our immense Christmas market battles.

The Food

Brussels provides more variety and has a greater international influence whereas Nuremberg is still strictly traditional.

In Brussels we had pelmeni (the Russian equivalent of tortellini), seafood soup, escargot, a witlof bacon-ey stew thing and tartiflette.  All of which you couldn't fault.

A bit more time in Nuremberg meant a bit more food.

Savoury foods we had were raw pork mince with onion and paprika on rye, pork steak in a bun, some chestnuts, Nürnberger sausages in a bun (unlike the well known big fat bratwurst found elsewhere in Germany these are little finger sized ones) and kartoffelpuffer which are potato pancakes that come with a massive dollop of apple sauce.  Nice.

And sweets we had were traditional German lebkuchen (which sort of resembles gingerbread), a piece of stollen and the fruitiest fruit bread you've ever seen.  Would you like some bread with that fruit?

The Drinks

Brussels only really offered up mulled wine and no mulled beer interpretation, much to our disappointment.

However Nuremberg has Brussels covered here.  We had your standard mulled wine, heidelbeer (blueberry mulled wine) and feuerzangenbowle, where rum soaked sugar is set on fire and then drips into mulled wine.  It is fekking delicious.

The Germans also do an egg punch, which is similar to eggnog, and it turns out that after a few feuerzangenbowle, some beers and some of the egg punch Nicola goes off the deep and and quite mental.  This is her mid craze.

The Other Stuff 

Brussels' Grand Place is beautiful at the worst of times.  Lit up with Christmas lights and the most tasteful, gigantic Christmas tree you've ever seen and it's truly a sight to behold.

Nix also fell in love with this merry go round, if only she was 15 years younger...

Other stuff in Nuremberg?  Not too much.  We couldn't actually determine which was their Christmas tree and the markets were fairly textbook.

The Verdict

It's always hard to diss an original and you can see that the Brussels markets have spawned from German influences but Brussels wins this one fairly comfortably I believe.  It's more interesting and it's more unique.  Nuremberg certainly has its place and we're very happy that we checked it out but we'd return to the Brussels markets again and again before we'd go back to the Nuremberg markets.

The Barrie-ometer of "Feel" - "it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas"

A Last Hurrah in Belgium and Germany

So, back into Europe then...

We arrived in Brussels at about 830am after leaving northern England at 11am on the previous morning.  A bus trip that was made a couple of hours longer after we missed our ferry crossing between Dover and Calais as some bloke was travelling with two massive suitcases filled with phone batteries.  He was interrogated by border security and then the police for well over an hour which then caused us to miss our connection by literally a couple of minutes.  Cheers buddy.

Anyway, we made it to Brussels, dropped our bags and headed straight out for coffee to try and get us through the day after two hours cumulative sleep.

We chewed through a couple of hours at the coffee shop, then headed to the Christmas Markets for a bit of an initial peek before making our way back to Moeder Lambic Fontainas for a few beers.  And much to our extremely grateful surprise they had Jacobins on tap!  And Abbaye St Bon Chien, that's brewed by a Swiss brewer, actually stood up to the Jacobins and almost crosses that line from beer into something else entirely.

We also partook in two of our other favourite Brussels pastimes while we were there.

Spotting more invasions.

And consuming more fritey goodness.

Aside from the Christmas Markets, that was it for Brussels.

Nuremberg

A German city we didn't check out the first time around was Nuremberg so we thought we'd drop in on our way to Prague to get a taste of a traditional Germanic Christmas market.

So naturally, we made sure to get our German pork fix whilst there.

Firstly at Hutt'n, a traditional German pub/restaurant that's just far enough out of the tourist zone.

By the way, that is actually one meal that we split onto two plates.  We love you German portions.

And then at Schaufelewartschaft, which is way out of tourist zone and served us up possibly the most tender pork we've ever eaten.  The meat literally fell off the bone.

We joined a few tables of businessmen ordering that to themselves and downing a few beers on your average Monday lunch meeting.  How anyone can go back to work after finishing that is beyond me given that we shared it and both ended up in food comas.


Finally, dotted all around the city are little Brezen Kolb stands selling extremely tasty pretzels filled with an array of meats and cheeses.  It was hard to go past the impossibly creamy camembert!

Stay tuned for Christmas Markets Part 1 - Brussels v Nuremberg

Pug Sightings (!) - 15

The Beer

Cuvee des Jacobins Rouge
Zinnebir X-mas
BFM Abbaye St Bon Chien
La Rullés Estivale
Cazeau Tournay Triple
Dupont Avec les Bons Voeux
De Dolle Oerbier

Huppendorfer Winter Weizen
Unknown Brewery Winterfestbier, Dunkles Bock