Christmas Market Crawl Day 4: Celle

If I’d thought that Hannover, Goslar and Wolfenbuttel were pretty, Celle was the icing on the cake. The last stop on our whirlwind trip of four of the nine cities of Lower Saxony, we were starting to get a little tired and bloated from all of the Christmas cheer (read: mulled wine). But seeing how ridiculously pretty Celle was (there’s really no other word to describe this town), it gave us a renewed sense of energy to enjoy our last Christmas market of the season.

To walk around parts of Celle, you would be forgiven for thinking that it looks exactly like a Hollywood movie set. Some of the facades of the old buildings (both original and restored) looked so picture-perfect and adorable it was almost as if a producer had conjured the place up in his mind and created a cardboard set of what a German winter wonderland should look like.

Almost all of the buildings within the town centre were timber-fronted and had that wonky, half-drunk look to them, which is a quality I love in historic towns. And before we headed to the Celle Christmas market itself, we took a short tour to Celle castle with local guide Jytte.

Unlike many city castles, this one is within walking distance of the city centre and, as we wondered around the stately rooms, we got to learn a lot about the history of the German monarchy and their ties with our British one. Plus, Scott got to dress up as a king, which was worth the trip alone.

What The Markets Are Like / What We Did

The Christmas markets weren’t that big, but were spread out across a few streets of the city. There was the traditional pyramid, which housed a bar at its base and which was probably the liveliest bar of the whole market and there were Christmas trees dotted around the streets in addition to the large one in the town centre.

The backdrop that the town’s buildings provided made the market seem extra atmospheric, although there weren’t many places to stand and enjoy a drink or some food, especially when it was raining.

Part of the market was dedicated to selling local handicrafts and produce, which I really liked because sometimes at markets like these, the stalls can become a little cookie-cutter, with several stallholders selling similar things or produce from another part of the country.

What We Ate and Drank

Much of the food was similar to dishes we had already tried at previous markets, however we had yet to eat our first flammkuchen of the season (if you don’t know what a flammkuchen is, check out my description here), so we enjoyed a traditional one topped with bacon, spring onions and cheese. What I liked was that this stall sold flammkuchen topped with some unusual toppings, such as smoked salmon and, if I hadn’t been pigging out on smoked salmon at every breakfast, I would have definitely gone for that option.

We also tried a germknodel for dessert, a bigger version of something I’d eaten at a pub near Munich a couple of years before. It is a yeast dough dumpling usually filled with a fruity jam (in our case cherry flavoured) and served with melted butter, but we got one topped with vanilla custard and whole cherries. It was quite dense and doughy, but was actually the perfect thing to warm us up on a cold, wet night!

When it came to hot drinks, we enjoyed gluhwein and some Swedish glogg (a different variation of mulled wine), and Scott also bought some local Celler beer from the supermarket to sample.

Where We Stayed

We stayed in the Hotel Caroline Mathilde, a lovely, modern hotel which was also the first place to give us bathrobes and slippers (extra points for that). It was a short walk from the centre of town and the hotel even had a pool, but unfortunately we hadn’t taken our swimming stuff with us, so we couldn’t check it out (insert sad face here).

The breakfast in the morning was a great one to end the trip on and definitely helped me fuel up for our six hour train journey home. There was everything from fish, eggs, meats and cheeses to sparkling wine, cereals, specialty teas and breads. I’d also like to give the hotel brownie points for bringing a dog blanket up to the room for Holly because they saw on our booking that we were travelling with a dog. Definitely a nice touch because she likes to get pampered too, you guys.

I’d like to say a huge thank you to Hannover Tourism who helped us organise our itinerary for this trip and who put us in touch with Jytte, our guide in Celle.