Author: Ann Laemmlen Lewis

This meal is about as German as you can get and we love it!  Spaetzle are homemade egg noodles that are served as a side dish in many meals here.  Come take a look:

You can find a recipe for making your own Spaetzle here.

Less than an hour from Frankfurt is the Ronneburg Medieval Castle, today’s Christmas Market destination.  This castle dates back to the mid 1200s and we’d heard a lot about the Christmas Market there–if you come dressed in medieval clothes, your ticket is discounted.

We parked on a muddy hillside of grass, then hiked up the hill to the top where the castle sits on a basalt cone, or rock outcropping. The market had a medieval theme and was in an area at the base of the castle. The ground was covered with straw so it wasn’t muddy.

Each little stall or shop had something to do with the theme–clothing, weapons, dress up clothing for children, soaps and candles, lots of jewelry, skins and clothing made from them, belts and caps, scarves, etc. The food was also old world food–Brats and rolls, really delicious freshly made Kase Spaetzle, loaves of artisan bread of every kind,  meat grilled on skewers, baked apples, deep fried apple rings (yum), the spiral cut potatoes, crepes, sausages and more.

We walked through the market area below the castle first, then went up through the gates and into the castle grounds. There were more shops there and a courtyard with benches around some really good musicians playing medieval instruments. I LOVED the music and especially hearing Christmas carols performed with the stringed instruments, recorders, bagpipe-type thing and more.

 

Here we are going inside the actual castle, where there were more shops and interesting things to see.

This is the very deep caste well.

Here’s a blacksmith shop with working bellows.

We climbed up this tower on a very narrow circular staircase.  The views were spectacular.

Above is the parking in the field, below is the market area below the castle.

Then we sat and listened to these amazing Medieval musicians.  They performed for about an hour, mostly beautiful old Christmas carols.  I loved the music.

We bumped into the Romney family with their visiting daughter and granddaughter!

Then we toured through more of the castle’s rooms and enjoyed the fun shops there.

These walnuts have a little message of hope or cheer inside that you can open if you are feeling down.

Horns and lavender sachets:

There were rooms with weaponry and torture items.

This is the cooking or kitchen area:

This lady was shelling the roasted chestnuts.

Enjoying some roasted chestnuts:

More shops and more castle:

A castle toilet:

We had some Delicious Käse Spätzle.  See the next post to learn how it’s made.

What an incredible day!  It was like stepping back in time.  I loved it, every bit.  I just finished reading a book called Pope Joan, a fine piece of historical fiction set in the 800s in Germany.  Today was a nice visual for some of the things I read about.

If you didn’t know it was winter here, you’d think it was spring.  All the fields and rolling hills are green–they’ve been green since we arrived a few months ago.  This is beautiful country.

After visiting Miltenberg we went over to Michelstadt.  We were traveling with the Garbers and later this evening we met two other missionary couples here.  That made the trip really fun.

The Christmas Market in Michelstadt is held in the old town.  We entered through an old passageway.  Once inside, the maret area looped around this part of the old town, mingled with the shops there, which makes it great for the local merchants.  All the shops were open and welcome business.

Here’s the entrance to the old city:

Oh my gosh, this is one of the first things greeting us–potato spirals.  Elder Garber ordered one and it was killer good!!

Take a look at these 2-foot long sausages!

Michelstadt has a woodworking school and has a long history of woodworkers.  Some of their work was highlighted in the Christmas market.

Hot cinnamon rolls!  Their stall was in front of the bakery where they were made.

This is what we had for our dinner–John’s favorite, Swiss Raclette, which is Raclette cheese melted under a flame, then scraped into a dish filled with boiled potatoes, pearl onions and little pickles.  It was SO SO SO good! (except for the onions, I’ll pass on those)!

We topped off the Raclette with a crepe.

We ran into a family from the Michelstadt Branch!

 

The candied nuts smell So Good!

We ran into the Ortons and Sandburgs.  Today is Debbie Orton’s birthday!

What a really fun day.

 

We took the afternoon off to go see two more Christmas markets–Miltenberg and Michelstadt, both about and hour or so from Frankfurt.  Miltenberg, our first stop was absolutely delightful.  We arrived at about 2:00 and wandered through the town along the main street.  There were Christmas market stalls set up along this main street and a few in the small central plaza.  It wasn’t what you’d call a large market, but the town was so festive and beautiful, we were really glad to be there during this Christmas season.

Miltenberg stretches along the Main River.  The town is narrow and sits at the foot of a mountainside.  The water level of the river was just inches below the town, and there has been flooding here when the river rises.

Come walk with me here.  This will make you happy.

We parked by the river, then walked the short distance to the main street.  Here’s what we saw along the way.

We were met by this young composer as we entered the town square.  His name was Joseph Martin Kraus and he was born here in 1756.  He died in Stockholm in 1792 and is sometimes referred to as “the Swedish Mozart.”

Here is the main street.

All of the trees decorating this street were cut fresh.

This very old Rathaus (city hall) had some very interesting markings on it showing the different floods through the centuries and how high the water level reached.  The earlies mark was from the 1600s.

Shops are below, homes are above.  Everywhere we looked, it was beautiful.

This hotel claims to be the oldest Gasthaus in Germany:

We saw this path of worn uneven steps leading up from a narrow alleyway and decided to go exploring.  It led to an upper level of the town with old churches, an old Jewish Cemetery and an enchanted wooded city park.  The sky was overcast and the day felt magical.  There’s something about all the green moss that calms me and takes me places.

St John’s Church:

I just love all the fresh greenery, pine boughs and berries.

This was a beautiful and elaborate Nativity set up in the church:

And a beautiful Maria:

The Advent wreath:

Another old church that looked empty or abandoned:

Here is the old Jewish cemetery.  We noticed a dozen or more “Stumbling Stones” in the street down below.  There were 44 memorial stones in Miltenberg in 2020.  These represent Jews who were killed in the Holocaust.

This was one of the entrances to the park:

After walking along this upper road, we came back down into town.

 

A double decker private garage:

 

We walked to the far end of the main street and found a path leading up the hill to a museum monastery with a few more Christmas market stalls overlooking the town.

The climb up was pretty steep, but oh, the views from up on top!!

Then back down again to the central plaza.

On the walls near the river you could see water damage.

Here’s a Wikipedia shot of the entire town from the river.  You can see how close it is to the water and how bad flooding could be.  In spite of all that, this town has survived for centuries and still has wonderful old-world charm!

Today was our “Workforce Christmas Devotional.”  At 11:00 everyone in the building gathered in the newly-finished multipurpose room downstairs for this special meeting with our Area Presidency and their wives–the De Faos, the Alliouds and the Gerards.

We had an employee choir sing to us, then we got to listen to our leaders share Christmas messages with us.  We really enjoyed it and enjoyed getting to know them better.

After the meeting we all went outside for our own Christmas market!  We were so surprised at what we found in the parking lot!  Lots of booths and food and activities!  We spent the afternoon there enjoying our friends and some good food.

There was more food and more activities inside.

We are all really enjoying the Christmas Spirit here.  We enjoy being here so much.  These folks are becoming such good friends.

Today all of the Area Office Sisters were invited by the Area Presidency wives to a special luncheon in the home of Sis De Fao.  We came with food and gifts to exchange and spent the afternoon visiting and getting to know our leaders’ wives a bit better.  It was so nice to be with good friends in a home at Christmas time!

Sister De Fao is from Italy and Sister Alliaud is from Argentina.

After feasting, we sang some carols, then had a really fun gift exchange.  Everyone brought a small gift they loved.  When that gift was chosen, the bringer explained why the gift was meaningful to them.

Here is our group.  We missed a few who were not feeling well.