Prague's lovely Fiona vey atmospheric 👍

Vienna's supposed to be one of the best along with Strasbourg in France.

Quite close to home for me but Edinburgh is a great place to visit in the run-up to Christmas. The German style Christmas market in Princess Gardens seems to get bigger every year and the view you get of the city from the big Ferris wheel is fantastic. Even though it's easy to do it as a daytrip by train for us, Premier Inn are doing some good deals for December and so once I've been back to the fracture clinuc on Tuesday and hopefully can be shot of the cast on the fractured wrist I came back from Cuba with, I'm seriously thinking about booking us in for a night so that Mum can experience the evening atmosphere without the train trip home immediately afterwards.

The St Nicholas Market in York is another good one and like Edinburgh, it's a great place to visit for a city break anyway.

I can picture the square in Prague at Christmas- what an ideal setting.
Sma- that sounds like a good idea.
What happened to you in Cuba?

Every town and city will hold a Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas market) or Christkindlesmarkt ( Christchild market) here in Germany, many will open tomorrow and last until Christmas. The nearest large town to where I live, Ulm, will open its market on the 27th. In the 47 years that I have lived in Germany the Ulm market has grown from a small market in the city square to a large affair that increases in size every year. This year I believe there will be over 130 stalls, and it's becoming a tourist attraction with coachloads of people visiting from as far away as northern Italy.

I usually visit the market once or twice each season, meeting friends for a walk round, to have a look at what is new, and of course to drink a glühwein and eat a bratwurst. It can be a very cold experience though as we often have temperatures of way below freezing, so it's big boots, thick jackets and hats and gloves time. It can feel quite magical in the evenings though with all of the sparkling lights, especially when there is snow on the ground.

In the past I've visited Christmas markets in Berlin, Munich, Stuttgart and Nürnberg, Nürnberg was always the one to visit in past years, but on weekends a nightmare with crowds. I may have a shopping day in Stuttgart at the beginning of December and will have a walk round the large market in the city centre.

A few years ago we were driving to the UK for Christmas and had an overnight stop in Reims in France and enjoyed visiting the Christmas market in the centre of the City.

Even my village will hold a small Weihnachtsmarkt over a couple of weekends in December and it's nice to have a walk round the stalls and try out the food and drink on offer.

Within an hour of arriving at the casa, Fiona, I slipped on the ceramic tiles whilst reaching up to the switch for the shower and broke my wrist! So instead of going down to the Casa Granda with my nieces to raise a glass to Che Guevara on the 50th anniversary of his assassination I was in the regional teaching hospital having a cast put on. Both the family I stay with and the company reps I travel with were brilliant but there were no dance classes for me on this trip! But all power to their elbow, by the following lunch time they'd arranged for me to have daily Spanish lessons with a retired university lecturer instead. And I was still able to go out with my nieces and the group if an evening and do some fairly sedate dancing but no fancy 'armography' on this trip for me!

Oh dear Sma! But it's good to hear that you were well looked after.
Judith- Christmas must be great fun in Germany. Aberdeen tries to have a winter festival but it's not great really.

Ouch SMa I hope you don't have any lasting problems with your wrist.

Judith, the German markets always get high praise as well 👍

Fiona, we've been to Prague in winter & the castle in the square looks magical, almost spooky 😁. My friend fell in love with some huge baubles & insisted on buying 4. Needless to say 1 was smashed to smithereens when we arrived home. I also had one of the nicest beef stroganoff in Prague that I've ever tasted.

Glynis, I'll know more after tomorrow's appointment back at the fracture clinic - judging by the way it feels I think it will still be a while before I can pick up the knitting needles again :-( Just my luck that the thing I love doing when I have time to sit around is one of the things I can't do now that I've no option but to sit around doing not very much at all!

Your story about the bauble reminds me of being in Salzburg when I was a 6th former on a school Easter skiing trip in nearby Zell am See. It was the first time I'd encountered a year round Christmas shop and decided that it would be nice to take home a bauble to add to the family collection. I had no German beyond the basic please and thank you pleasantries and was having difficulty in understanding why the assistant whose English was as basic as my German was wanting to sell me what looked liked an identical bauble to the one I'd chosen but at twice the price. In the end she demonstrated very graphically why it was much more suitable for someone who was going to have to nurse it on the journey back to Britain - she dropped it! Where it then bounced across the shopfloor without so much as a scratch! I got the message that this one was made from stronger, tempered glass so I bought it and it has now survived nearly 50 years and been dropped many times since!

That's a great bauble story. Love it 👍

I did wonder if you'd probably need physio with it being your wrist. My MIL fell & fractured the heel of her hand & needed a plate fitted. They recommended it as said it would heal better. They've given her some exercises to do now the pots off.👍

Feel for you not being able to knit though 😣

A bit off topic, Glynis, but the cast came off today and the consultant said that it looks as if it is healing well. So much so that he didn't think I even needed a wrist splint. Apparently, if it had happened here they probably would have done surgery to pin before putting a cast on it as a matter of course but by tne time I got to the hospital back here, the bone had already started to knit so they decided to leave well alone. However, had they done such surgery in Cuba it could have presented problems re being able to fly home on the date planned. Assuming I don't have problems in the meantime, then I've to go back in 4 months time and they will then take the decision about whether I do need corrective surgery or not. Here's hoping that I don't and in the meantime I just have to persevere with the exercises and wait for the physio referral to come through.

👍 Great to hear it's healing well, that's a relief! Hopefully with your exercises you'll soon have full movement back 👍

Please keep us updated 👍.