in a hot July night like this, when the air is thick and clanky, it is possible to evoke the magic. It just requires a moment of silence in order to pretend to taste the pared down, fresh bite of winter air, of a coolness so stark it tastes, well, like a pledge. It smells almost like it: the sweet, spicy smells of cinnamon and cloves in a ceramic mug, as a steam, mixed with the fragrance of pine needles and roasting chestnuts. It is the fantasy of being in a single trip tour to the Christmas markets in Europe, where the journey is that of going into a snow globe. It is not one pilgrimage to a godhead place but, rather, to a mood, a mood of unblasted, unsullied yuletide magic and it is not taken with loved ones around, but as something all special and secreted all to oneself. It is the good thing about this dream, organized in the hot part of the summer, that it allows an anticipation, a smoldering bliss that gradually grows through the months until one day, suddenly, one finds oneself seeing a cobbled square and a frigid, holiday atmosphere.
The thought may appear contrary to some people. Christmas, after all is a time of togetherness, a time of cozy comfort of a home and people you know. A way of speaking freely appears to be a repudiation of that. Solo visit to the markets is not an act of diversion to that culture, but it is a new one. It is a means of escape, relief, even, of seasonal duty and responsibility, a plunge in the anonymous good humor of the season. It is the realization that Christmas cheer is not restricted to a living room; it is emanated by every timber shanty in the Cologne market square, it blazes in the common smile shared with strangers in Vienna and it rings in the carols sung in the shadow of the Gothic spires of Prague. You are isolated, but are in sync with a mass communal spirit of celebration, and are free to participate in it, completely according to your own wishes. It is not a lonely act, it is an act of extreme self-care, a voluntary action to enjoy the season as concentrated as possible and in its most magically concentrated form, without distraction.
It is an orchestra that tantalizes the senses that is almost overwhelming at that point. You come to a place in a city square and at the break of dusk that whole world is like being plugged in. it is a stream of twinkling lights that pours forth out of a lofty Christmas tree, and spills down the rooftops of diminutive wooden huts each of which is a treasure chest of handicraft articles. It is filled with a pleasant clatter and buzzing of many voices in many languages, the jingling of mugs, The sound of a brass band playing a familiar carol far away in another room. You hold your first glass of Glfhwein or Punsch and the ceramic mug treats the cold hands as the heat of the spiced wine is the shock that you need. The liberty is unconditional. You can stand and watch an hour as a wood carver works and by the turning of his deft fingers you may see a simple block of linden-wood moulded into a fantastical ornament. Nobody is pressing you to eat faster, nobody is paying attention to his stomach when you have to choose between a hot Bratwurst stuffed in a crusty roll or a sweet and light waffLE covered with powdered sugar. That freedom to do whatever it pleases is the superpower of the solo traveler within a market context.
Edible journey is one of the main chapters of this history, a progressive dinner that crosses days and cities. It starts with the classics and quickly evolves to the regional preparations with their story of place and custom. And in Germany, in addition to your omnipresent sausage, you will find stalls offering some thick cheesy egg noodles known as Kaesspatzle with fried onions on top as well. The next evening you may be absorbed in watching the spectacle of Feuerzangenbowle, when a huge, rum-soddened sugarloaf is ignited and distributed melodramatically among the visitors underneath. At Prague, goulash is a strong aroma against the winter air, and is more than hot enough to be served in a hollowed out bread bowl, a lovely, filling treat to eat standing in the cold. You just cannot leave Budapest without having a bite of a Kurtovskalacs or chimney cake, a sugary spiral-shaped pastry which is baked over charcoal and dipped in cinnamon sugar or chopped nuts, leaving its warm and steamy inside to warm you inside out. As a single diner, you are agile, you can line up in the shortest queue, taste a baby portion of everything, make a gastronomic tapestry unique to you, driven only by curiosity and hunger.
The sweet offerings are worth their exploration of their own right. It is a sweet tooth heaven at the markets, and shaping up more like a scenery of temptations, than the ordinary gingerbread alone. There are glistening candied apples, sticks of nicely in-season-looking fruit dipped in freely-flowing Belgian chocolate, shelters where almonds are roasted in copper kettles with sugar and cinnamon, and handed over hot, in a paper cone that will warm your hands, at least, as you munch. In Germany the range of Lebkuchen is overwhelming either the massive, painted love hearts with party messages or hop-less in size and spice of Elisenlebkuchen of Nuremberg jam-packed with nuts and candied fruit. In France, you could get some airy macarons in seasonal tastes or cr sandwiches with a warm Nutella that would melt the minute it enters your mouth. To walk by the self through this candy land of sweets, selecting a new sweet every night out is to play to the giddy, broad-eyed kid that dwells in every one.
The actual beauty about such a solitary pilgrimage can be found in the fact that there are never two markets alike, every city has a different dialect of Christmas magic. A train trip to Germany will be a way of going to the core of the tradition itself. Christkindlesmarkt rests in Nuremberg, very authentic, with stalls selling traditional prune-and-fig men and decorated gingerbread sculptures. You can lost yourself among seven separate markets in Cologne that have their own themes and in the presence of giant cathedral of the city. However, the independent tourist who has time to spare can go a step further, as he/she explores niche experiences. Not far away on a short excursion to Stuttgart is a medieval market in Esslingen where you can get the taste of time. Stallholders dressed in period clothing sell their goods, blacksmiths heat metal to melting point and fire-eaters set the night ablaze. It is theatrical, historical experience that is light years away than something more commercial.
When you get across the border into Austria the change comes. The markets of Vienna are imperial and refined and they are framed by the splendour of the palaces and the city halls. Sipping wine to the strains of a classical quartet, is somehow beyond belief, romantic. Only a minor travel distance away is Salzburg where Mozart was born, where the carols somehow sound more solemn, and the spirit of the first performance of the famous song, Silent Night, seems so close, as it first was performed in an adjacent village. Or you can go to the north, to Scandinavia where the idea of hygge which means cozy contentment prevails. At the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen and Gamla Stan (Old Town), in Stockholm, the market is more design conscious as an enchanted land of elegant lighting and Nordic crafts and in snowy Gamla Stan the red stalls are microscopic and age-old. When travelling on your own, there is the delight of hopping between the cities by train. You observe outside frosted, fairytale nature passing by your window, warm and cosy, expecting what miracles await at the next stop. You are in a festive movie with yourself as a character, a traveller gathering light and fire of continents.
The markets are not only places to get food and beverage but to find living museums of woodwork and metalwork. It is the opportunity to discover Christmas ornaments with a meaning, the things that are filled with spirit of the place where they are produced. It is in the region of Ore Mountains of Germany where you will get the famous wooden nutcrackers and smokers who each have a personality of their own. In Czech Republic, glass ornaments are hand-blown and light up in the lights so fragile and feel like a trapped snowflake. In Poland you may be able to find gorgeous hand carved nativity scenes, or crces, each a miniature piece of folk art. Being the solo traveler, you can have the time which will allow you to cherish these items not only as the souvenirs but as the heirlooms. The vendors can be spoken with and many happen to also be artisans and are part of a multi-generational family business. This process of selection, one perfect ornament leads to the feeling of a treasure hunt, the hunt to find that one piece that will hang in your tree back home and for years will always take you back to that cold and sultry night.
In addition to the festive swarm of the markets themselves, there are also the tranquil moments to travel solo can actually organize. It is the choice to go out in the morning at dawn, to walk through the medieval streets of a medieval city such as Bruges, when a light snow is falling, before first stall is open, before the crowds have ever come. The market-square is quiet, quiet, and yours only, and the lights twinkle like sparklers just to you. It is the joy of being able to get out of the cold for one hour in a classic coffee house, sitting on the plush arm chair with a book and a piece of apple strudel and watching the snowflakes falling out there beyond the window. It is at these quiet moments that the feeling is finally absorbed. You are free to write to a journal, to fix not only what you have been observing, but how you felt; the peace that you felt and the euphoric relief of being at a festival, the calm ease of moving around in an unfamiliar place on your own. These moments of silence are the needed contrast of the sensory saturation of the markets, giving the presence in reflection and soul-filling satisfaction.
The perpetuation of a journey is also by the simple, practical rituals you take up in the process. A certain pleasure is attached to dressing up to the occasion, to the careful planning of thermals and of wool sweaters and a decent waterproof coat. You can hear the crispy feel of snow under well-worn boots, the sheer pleasure of slipping on a comfy hat and comfy ear muffs that do not make you feel the cold as you continue to hold the mulled wine. You are introduced to the idea of how tactile the market truly is and how cash is still king as the sound of coins in your pocket and the slightly less sterile motion of simply handing cash to a vendor might as well be a handshake. You get to know the rhythm of the markets: you go on a tranquil Tuesday morning to have a peek at the crafts in peace; then you go on a vivid, hectic Friday night to get the pulsating atmosphere of jubilation. You discover that you can warm yourself, you can be the best companion to yourself, which is possibly the greatest legacy that the whole journey will leave you with. You find out that the magic does not stop with your departure; it wraps up within you and is just an ember, only waiting to be lit on again by the smell of a known place or the feeling of a beloved moment, even on the balmiest day in July.
Although this bliss of the senses offered by the markets is the beating heart of the expedition, it does not take the lone rider long to realize that the charm is also largely in what happens between once in a while, on the unexpected delays and in the layers that it is possible to find under the surface of a more relaxed pace. There is something more soulful about the other, maybe unpaved road which leads to the east, and that path will lead you through Germany and Austria. In Warsaw, such a move may entail visiting Poland, and walking into the Rynek Glowny in Krakow to have Christmas in a setting of deep history. And New Cloth Hall towers in the middle, the arcades there shadowing stalls whose antique and pride is in the feeling. Here, you may taste such Tatra Mountain smoked cheese called oscypek, which can be grilled over a mini-brazier, and cranberry jam should be it with. You are strolling up and down aisles of elaborate hand painted glass figurines, amber beads which could seem that they are receptacles of sunlight, and coarse, nubbly shepherd socks. Carnacity itself is a persevering jubilancy, a positive and tilted celebration in a city which has seen so much. It is not about slick perfection, more like a profound, tough-minded soulfulness that speaks volumes to a single viewer.
The journey may then take you little closer to the north towards the Baltic states where the winter is still more profound and the history a still richer store. Time traveling is the nearest one can get to Tallinn which is in Estonia. The medieval Old Town, UNESCO-protected, turns out to be a scene of a forgotten fairytale, yet a place of a really authentic market. Town Hall Square is crowded with little snow studded huts around the tall Christmas tree, introduced by the Estonians, they say, as early as 1441. It is the kind of cold that bites: cool enough to make the basic sweetnesses all the sweeter: a hot cup of spiced honeyed wine, a fire pit, the sale of a hat hand-felted in a local mill and a trivet made of juniper wood and bearing the fragrance of a forest. When you are in Tallin by yourself, you can get lost in its maze of creaky cobbled streets, perch yourself on the ancient city ramparts, and then gaze out and admire the snow topped roof tops capturing the feeling of being completely taken back in time. It is a calm, reflective type of magic, and it is just right in the person who travels and wants more than anything else to get history and mood.
This journey of the many realizations of Christmas in the continent can also be interpreted as a journey in the ears. In addition to the background noise of people and Christmas songs, by the way, there are a lot of areas with their claim to soundtrack. At least, when you are in the Alpes of Germany or Austria you may have the pleasure of listening to the deep, sonorous notes of an alphorn band, the long wooden horns producing a melody apparently inspired by the mountains themselves. Elsewhere there may be the jaunty reediness of an accordion as background to the evening, the mood-making voluntary musical accompaniment of the evening. The chance of walking in on a local choir is one of the most magical things there are. It may not be a concert band, but half-a-dozen schoolchildren or congregants in impassioned, uncouth unprofessional fervor which is much more fascinating than a faultless execution. The same thing can be said as a solo traveler, because the option is always there to stop and listen as long as you would care to, allow their voices to be poured over you, in a brief moment of pure, unscripted beauty. Such sounds combined with the murmur of the crowd and the distant laughter form a very rich and multilayered audio memory of your journey.
The most asked question to the one who travels alone around Christmas might be the day one itself: what is one supposed to do on Christmas day, when the continent becomes paralyzed and the world locks itself within their homes? It is not the adversity that needs to be dreaded, but the opportunity that needs to be cultivated. In the preparation is the magic. Some solo task can be prepared in the Christmas Eve, by visiting a local bakery to choose the best high-quality pastries, a place with a fromagerie, a piece of delicious cheese, and a shop with chocolatiers, some wonderful truffles. You do not only purchase food, but you are collecting the ingredients to your personal silent party. Christmas morning is then a slow quiet business. No race, no time table. It is an opportunity of reading that book you long meant to read, writing in your journal, observing a cup of coffee before your window as the snow falls outside. It is like going away on a vacation, a day of rest and meditation. Time goes by, and you might get out on a stroll in the tranquil streets of the empty city and see it in its dreamlike sleep. Or you can find the collective soul which is still there, perhaps by listening to a Christmas service in an old cathedral and to the surging music and the collective reverence induces a great feeling of connection, irrespective of what anybody happens to believe.
Festive atmosphere is not restricted to market-squares only. When you are a traveller with time and without an agenda at hand, you can find out the Christmas magic that is ingrained in the larger tee of the city. The mega-stores of such cities as London, Paris are shrines unto themselves. Their windows, the artistic and narrative structures are the greatest pieces of art and stories you have ever seen, the pieces of public art that you can see as much as you want, and see them again several times to embrace all the details. The food halls are an optical and gastronomical Alsatian wonderland inside with seasonal delicacies. And you need only venture out there to find the pure pleasure of an open air ice rink which can be found in the most spectacular of settings such as at Somerset House in the centre of London, or in the sight of the City Hall in Vienna. You need not skate, you can just purchase a cup of hot chocolate and watch the skaters going up and down, a happy spectator sport of the kind a good one-sided spectator will best enjoy. Botanical gardens are also ordinarily found in most cities and they are places where eye-catching illuminated light walks take place and they turn the generally seen natural landscape into a surreal show of colour and sound which is fairly immersive yet meditative to watch.
It is also an opportunity to turn into a silent ethnographer of humankind, a portraitist. Your vision of the market people becomes one of the people who perform their roles in the market. You hear the descriptions of the stall holders: the master craftsman who has flour in his apron, and a proud expression on his face, as he sells his gingerbread; the grandmother-like lady whose fingers are always knitting the woolen socks she peddles; the young couple who have a stall together, and whose faces have secrets to each other and have tired-looking smiles. They have a way of giving continuity and tradition by the way they show up day after day. You even see your other visitors in a different light: the young family who are out on their first Christmas together with a baby wrapped up to keep warm; your group of old friends who obviously have been reuniting at the same stall selling Gluwein every year; the foreign tourists who are no less in awe of everything than you are yourself. You briefly smile upon sharing a condiment with another person when you both reach after the same condiment in a sausage, or you just have a knowing gesture with another human being photographing a very beautiful display. These are micro-connections, micro-threads of collusion which lace you into the human tapestry of the thing.
After all, attending the European Christmas markets alone is a political statement of taking the season to yourself. It is a discovery that the spirit of Christmas, of light in the darkness, of warmth in the cold, of peace and goodwill is not a personal thing and needs an invitation. Still, it is a civic celebration, a corporate gasp of happiness that enlivens squares and streets and is open to all those who just have an open heart. The adventurous travel who is alone is not a foreigner at the window, he is the most favored of participants and is a free agent sitting in the front row with the best seat in the house. You get the exclusive chance to customize your own experience of the ideal version of the holiday which combines the episodes of lively social interaction with the time of relaxing solitude and serenity. You come home not with a feeling that you have missed something, but with the feeling that you are extremely full, with a faintly glowing remnant of memory of a Christmas that was thoroughly, enchan-tingly, and unforgettingly your own.
