We liked the Christmas markets in Budapest. In comparison, however, we LOVED the markets in Vienna.
We cabbed from the train station to our rental apartment that I found on Booking.com. You never really know how one of these places is going work out. Barcelona was great -- in fact, most of these rentals we've stayed in from VRBO.com or other sights turn out to be either really great, or at least pretty good.
The apartment was perfect. Modern, newly renovated, a nice kitchen, two bedrooms. It just one bathroom, but it worked for the three of us, even if one of us is 22 years old and not really wanting to share a bathroom with her parents (I will let you guess as to which of the three of us I'm referring to). Even with that concern, it all worked out well.
The kitchen had an ice maker, a soda stream so I could make sparkling water, a complimentary bottle of wine, some Austrian cookies, a washer/dryer (Carol was so happy!), and a dishwasher (we didn't use it).
After a short time settling in, we headed out to our first Christmas market in Vienna. With two nights in town, I had targeted the two biggest. We walked the 32 minutes to the Christmas village at Maria Theresien Platz (Square), and were overjoyed to be there.
To be fair to Budapest, it was a Saturday night and thus much more crowded than our Sunday night in Vienna. But it was more than that. In Vienna there were a lot more stalls selling Christmas decorations. And, a lot more Christmas lights. In Budapest they are selling more gifts than decoration.
The gluwein is better in Vienna (although, honestly, I won't need to drink it again once this trip is over), and they let you steal the mug. You pay a four Euro deposit for the mug, and if you return it to any stand that sells gluwein, you get your deposit back. The tradition is, however, that you keep the mug as a souvenir. So Torie kept hers, and Carol/I kept one of ours. We sure didn't need two, but they are fun to have.
We wandered around for a while, enjoying the scene. The photos below don't do it justice, but it is a very cool festival. After we had covered most of the "village," we back-tracked to the stalls where we had seen things we wanted to purchase and bought probably four items -- we'll be plenty-Christmas'd up this December.
Hiked back to the apartment to drop off our goodies, and then headed to nearby Sixta Restaurant, which was a fabulous local place. It was small, quaint, and packed, but in the fun way, not in the "there's too darn many people here." Carol had lamb, and Torie and I went with the Weinerschnitzel, which we enjoyed.
Between the Christmas Village and then dinner, we were certainly feeling the spirit of the Christmas trip to Central Europe!
Street scene
Note the stalls lining either side of park walkway.
It seems packed, but that was just a
temporary issue.
A chocolate camera.
That's Carol and I in front of some
decorations. The flash balked.
A typical stand.
An atypical stand.
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