There are many many Christmas fairs and markets that take place all over Europe to get you in the festive mood. I’ve listed just some of the main ones. If you can recommend (or otherwise) a particular market please leave a comment.
France
The French markets are famed for their cakes, pastries, chocolates, pates and meats, in addition to arts and crafts and gifts. Most of them start late November, but check dates of individual markets before you go.
Amiens – said to be the biggest Christmas market in northern France and specialised in produce from the Picardy region
Grenoble – starts in December and has more than 50 chalets with chocolates, candles, gingerbread, wooden toys and more. They also have fireworks, clowns, games and jazz bands
Lille Market
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If you can’t afford a first class or business class ticket on your flights this is one way to get yourself a horizontal experience on board an aircraft – although it won’t enable you to join the mile high club as it is permanently located on terra firma!
In December 2008 a converted Boeing 747 opens as the Jumbo Hotel on the tarmac next to Stockholm’s airport as a solution for cheap airport accomodation. It will contain 85 bunks in 25 rooms – plane seats have been removed – all 450 of them. Rooms range from basic / dorm-style with 3 bunks per room at £22 up to the luxury suite in the cockpit priced at £171. The controls are left in (but disengaged). All rooms have wireless internet and flat screen tv’s. Generally toilet and washing facilities are shared, apart from the more luxurious suits upstairs and of course the cockpit suite.
The Cockpit Suite
There is a small café / eating area were you can get snacks or heat up food – not that different to being up in the skies then. The plane has been named called Liv after the owner’s daughter.
The perfect gift for a plane spotter perhaps?
Photo’s courtesy of JumboMotel.com
This has to be one of the best boutique hotels around, partly because the design director was none other than the renowned milliner Philip Treacy (my all time favorite milliner). His aim was to make it feel like a film set – looking at the photo’s I’d say he’s achieved it. In 2006 the spa received an award for ‘The Best Spa, Health and Leisure Interiors’.
The hotel’s web site claims that their pink salon is destined to become their signature room. It is certainly distinctive with its black and white vortex carpet, but a little busy for me. For me I prefer the Grand Salon – a calm oasis in oyster and silver with stunning mirrors and a light installation by Tom Dixon. The blue lounge is a more masculine public room adorned with gilded mirrors and sumptuous furniture. Shells, glass tables and ammonites seem to be a pervading theme and all add to the tranquil atmosphere.
The Grand Salon
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This is a festival for serious ‘foodies’. This year it starts on 4th October and runs until 9th November (when the white truffle season begins). White truffles are considered to be the ‘Rolls Royce’ of truffles and far superior to their black cousins.
Usually a number of the world’s top chefs (or their representatives) fly in for an invitation-only truffle auction that starts at 8am and is where some of the finest truffles change hands (for up to £1,600 per kilo). The vendors are usually local farmers supplementing their annual income, assuming their have managed to find some during the 4-5 week season.
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Posted by Jackie Hewett on Thu 18th September 2008 at 02:46 AM, Filed in Europe, November
This event has been going for around 800 years - since 1215 (including Dick Whittington in 1397). Since 1959 it has taken place on the second Saturday every November. In 2008 it will be on the 8th November. It’s a great procession - about 3 miles long which is longer than the route the procession takes! The procession starts at around 11.00am after an RAF flypast and a 2 minute silence to commemorate Armistice Day. Dick Whittington did in 1397
Twenty horse-drawn carriages, Welsh Guards, Household Cavalry, Royal Navy and Royal Gurkha Rifles all participate in addition to floats by a large number of businesses and charities. The route starts at Mansion house and winds its way to the Royal Courts of Justice where the Lord Mayor swears allegiance to the Queen. At 1.00pm the procession then makes a return journey from Victoria Embankment to Mansion House.
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