The Aachen Christmas Market and Cathedral

So, last week I shared our Friday stint at the Christmas market and St. Servatius Basilica in Maastricht, which is way down at the "bottom" of the Netherlands before you cross the border into Belgium (west) or Germany (east).  That was on Friday, 8 December.

See the 3 red dots?  

Our hotel was in Kerkrade, NL, a good home-base between Maastricht and Aachen over 4 days.

The thin gray, jiggly line is the borderline between three countries:

Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.

Saturday, 9 December, was our Aachen, Germany, day but first...
we decided to see the 3-country point, the highest elevation spot in the Netherlands (large blue dot).

It so happens that we when got to Vaals, 17 km from our hotel, we saw this Euregio tower, 

assuming it was the only spot for viewing the 3 countries.

It was worth paying the money to ride the elevator to the top (353.5 meters).

On a windy, blustery, snowy, icy day, we minded our step, trust me, and almost blew away.

But there you have it:  (l to r) Belgium (in the Ardennes), Germany, Netherlands.

Astrid had been here 50 years earlier and knew there was a monument,

so we drove a few meters further to the real tower and spot of importance.

No need to climb another tower but we did take in the monuments.

Vaalserberg is the name of this highest spot/hill which marks the 3-country point in the Netherlands.

It's 322.4 meters (1,058 ft) above NAP, which refers to Amsterdam, at sea level.

YAY.  We did it.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

From Vaalsberg it was only 7 km to Aachen for our second Christmas market of the weekend.

As we walked to city center, we immediately saw the Dom/cathedral.

You can't miss it.

It's one of the oldest cathedrals in Europe, consecrated in 805.

Because it was right in front of us, we decided to "do it" before anything else.

Little did we know we would be in a line of tourists walking the perimeter of the circular nave.

We could look into and across the nave but couldn't enter it.

So...around and around we went, with the crowd, to see what we could see.

How do you begin to describe this!

At the altar, with the choir behind it, we so wanted to go "inside."

The pulpit of Henry II, to the right of the altar inside the choir, blew me away.

What would my preacher dad think of that????

When we got to the side chapel of St. Nicholas, we were allowed to enter.

I think many tourists were glad for a place to sit and worship.

The rest of us saw what we could...and left.

[To be honest, it reminded me of being herded through St. Mark's Basilica in Venice.]

Once outside, we began our Christmas marketing in earnest,

always with the cathedral as a backdrop.

But first, it was time for lunch.

The mobs were congregated around the eatery stalls, so we opted to eat inside a nearby café.

GOULASH and GLÜHWEIN!  Perfect for a wintry day.
[But why, oh why, do the Germans serve white bread?????]

You know we find "impressions" everywhere we go.

Even though we were looking for the Christmassy things, we still got side-tracked, of course.

Then we paid attention.
How can you not become a Child when you see such delights.

The German Christmas villages always grab me.

Can you image "collecting" one new house each year to make your own village?

But nothing cheered me more than this display of whimsy,

even if for a select audience.

OMG!

By late afternoon, and when the evening crowd would soon descend, it was time to leave.

It was our second "fix" of the weekend and we were fully satisfied.

We had Sunday to go...the day we visited the Rolduc Abbey in Kerkrade, near our hotel,
all decked out for Christmas...next post.

The Maastricht Christmas Market and St. Servatius Basilica

Now that we're back from our Christmas Market venture last weekend, you know we are full of Christmas cheer.  We got our "fix."

Let's start with Maastricht, which was our Friday afternoon arrival point.  And since I took only 3 photos before we sat down to eat (it was time!), I'll start with this "fix," which was a must for the trip:  brats! 

Gotta always have a brat at the Christmas market.  It's what you do.

THEN we were ready to start the day.

HO HO HO!

No Bah Humbugs from us.

Because most European Christmas markets are situated at city center,

the biggest church of the city is usually right there in plain sight.

And because the European churches are more important to us than even Christmas markets,

we pretty quickly veered off from the Christmassy "fix" to make sure we didn't miss this Basilica.

Actually, there are two churches next to each other, separated by a street.

The red spire is the Dutch Reformed St. John's Church from the 14th c. and wasn't open.

The humongous church next door is the Basilica of St. Servatius from the 11th-12th centuries.

It's easy to tell this is a Roman Catholic church.
And yes, I lit a candle and prayed for special people that day!

Opposite the altar view in the former collage is the organ/back of the church.
What a treat to hear it while we were there.

It was the crypt, however, that grabbed me the most.
Soulful.  Cozy.  Meditative.
St. Servatius, the Bishop of Tongeren, died in 384 and is buried there.

That's the reliquary bust of St. Servatius, 15/16c., bottom-left.

From inside the church, we looked out to the Christmas market Ferris wheel....

which, of course, totally got our attention.

We've never seen a Christmas market with a Ferris wheel, so we had to ride it.

The contraption itself always fascinates me...and this time more so because of the colors.

How can you NOT love  it!

And yes, that's how big the basilica is (bottom-right).

I had fun making this collage on my iPad for Facebook.

It so happens the toilets were next to the skating rink,

so we watched for awhile.

I loved this wee family, with mommy showing how and then older sister doing it.

As the afternoon wound down, we sat long enough for stir-fried mushrooms with garlic sauce

and the prerequisite glühwein.  

We were totally satisfied.  We didn't need more.  It was time to leave.  

As we left the market and wandered to our car, past the city hall (top-left and center),

we were reminded that Masstricht is André Rieu's city, for those of you who know him.

In case you don't know him, here's my favorite of all the videos I've seen.
He's Maastricht's favorite son!
To be honest, he's all of Holland's favorite son!

On that note, we crossed the St. Servatius Bridge across the Meuse/Maas River to our car.

Enough "fixes" to last the weekend...but it was only our first day of three....

The Gorinchem 2010 Santa Run

HO HO HO! All one thousand of us!

When Astrid told me a few weeks back about our city's Santa Run scheduled for Saturday, 18 December, and that for €10 each we could participate, with money going to charity, it didn't take me long to say YES. And am I ever glad I did. I thought Sinterklaas coming to town made me a Kid again...but this was that multiplied by 1,000.

This was Gorinchem's third Santa Run. It started in 2008 with 400 participants, last year with 800, and this year 1,000. My guess its it'll just get bigger and bigger with each new year. We totally missed it last year but will do our best to be there every year from now on.


So anyway, Astrid went to a nearby participating store to pick up our Santa suits and race numbers. Since my age ends in a 5 and hers in a 6, it was easy to decide who got which number.
One size fits all! HA! One size, that is for the adults and one size for the kids.


Once Saturday arrived, we were off to the races! I took pictures of Astrid and she took pictures of me.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself, I see. Warm-up started at 10:30 a.m. near the Grote Kerk just 2 blocks away, with the race beginning at 11 a.m. Before we even got inside the Start entrance, a lady from the newspaper stopped us and took our picture (similar to the one above at the top of the post) and info, with Astrid's motto for 2011, "Stay Positive!" We'll see later this week if we're published. HA.

But then, almost at the same time, we bumped into Dries, our neighbor friend who, too, is a city paper photographer (he took the picture of us above). So as we now do, by habit, we take and send each other pictures of each other. Dries says that since he's met us, he'll now have to get a photo album for himself! You know how it is...who takes pictures of the photographer?? Astrid and I do:

Isn't life just grand! What would we do without our friends.

Speaking of which....
Last winter I bumped into Ernie while on a walk around our citadel wall. Ernie also is a photographer, so already there's a big-bridge connection. Since that first bump-into, we have bumped into each other several times while he walks his gorgeous dog, Laika. I fell in love with her at first sight.
How fun, then, to bump into them again at the Santa Run. Ernie had no clue what was going on. All he was doing was his normal walk-about with Laika, minding his own business. Maybe he and Laika will be Santas next year?
And all this happened before the race started!

Speaking of dogs, aren't these the cat's meow!

NOW the race can start....

The funny thing is, several minutes before the race, the Start line was full of all those girls on the top row (above). But at the very beginning of the Run, these 7 boys on the bottom row were on the line and they were the ones that started the race. I couldn't help but think of grandson Nicholas. He would have been in his element since HE's the King of all runners.


What I neglected to say is this was only a 3K run, just halfway around our citadel loop...using 'run' and 'race' loosely, since most of us did not run. Astrid started out running and then came back to walk with me the rest of the way, to take pictures.


We were so very lucky weather-wise!
As you can see, the sun actually came out for part of the time. The temps hovered around 28F the entire time but because we were all so excited, and had the Santa suits on, we were actually almost too warm. I got hit at least once by a snowball from behind. HAHA! If we can't take a joke, right?!


In fact, there was enough tom-foolery to last the entire day.

The Finish line came way too soon, especially once I discovered we would NOT be passing either of our two citadel windmills. I had been fantasizing for days about getting pictures of 1,000 Santas passing by one of the windmills. WRONG. But once I realized it just wasn't gonna happen, no matter how much I protested, I got over it and did in fact cross the Finish line, right in front of one of our favorite Greek restaurants.

I took a picture of Astrid getting her medal and she took a picture of me. How's that for being glad we're both photographers!


At the end of the race, servers were set up to give us hot glühwein, erwtensoep (pea soup...a big-time Dutch specialty) and rookworst...all part of our entrance fee. Tell me this isn't fun!
[You may remember a close-up picture of Astrid and another lady way up at the top of this post. That's Annamiek, who is an old friend of Astrid's, one of the servers in the line-up above.]


You know me. Give me a camera and suddenly I see all kinds of photo-ops. You photographers know this, of course. I am always attracted to the children, especially, wondering what they're thinking during these events.


The ones who stole my heart were these two sisters (I assume). I couldn't get enough of them.


The race was done, the food was eaten, and it was time to go home...but not before the real way-too-skinny Santa made his appearance. Talk about the frosting on the cake.


And thanks to Dries, here's a YouTube of the day.
€25,000 was raised from this event, with €10K going to a hospital for children and €10K going to war orphans. Totally worth the experience!

**********

We were back home by 1 p.m., riding a 'high' that wasn't from the glühwein. I really am a kid at heart. I've decided I'm making up for all the lost time in my own childhood, much of which I don't remember. Someone clearly knew I'd need my chance all over again, which thrills me to no end.

But...we had to segue from the Santa Run to our Christmas dinner celebration with Jeroen and Eva that evening. They arrived at 4 p.m. and everything was not only ready, I even had time to upload and look at all the pictures I took (287). Did I mention I made the main meal the day before, making all the difference in the world?

For the last many years in Atlanta, the Christmas meal had always been one of my kids' favorites from when we ate at G'ma Tiffan's eons ago: chicken paprikash. It's a Hungarian poor-man's meal but has become a celebration meal for my family. Jeroen and Eva (Astrid, too) had their first taste and all agreed we could continue the tradition. I don't want to forget it. It brings me so many happy memories.

Dinner and a movie: "The Family Stone," another favorite...and one that is also connected to my own family. My niece is married to a man who happens to be the cousin of the director (or some such big-whig). So much fun to know this kind of trivia, right?!

With that, Christmas will now come, the day. First, we'll celebrate our Christmas meal here at our senior-living complex tomorrow evening. Then Astrid and I plan to attend a Christmas Eve service at the Grote Kerk on Friday, followed by a quiet day here at home on Saturday, with dinner reservations at 4p nearby. It'll be just what the doctor ordered.

For you, may you, too, celebrate in a way that is just what you need. It comes around only once a year!