Marché de Noël

We had a fabulous day on Saturday visiting the Christmas Market in Montreux, Switzerland. It was so cute! There were all these little wooden Chalets lined up around the lake selling food, crafts, wine, etc. Although it began to rain lightly shortly after we got there it didn't deter or dampen our spirits. We wandered around for nearly 3 hours and finished up the majority of our Christmas shopping. I took tons of pictures, so be prepared!
Here's me next to a very cool tower made up entirely of firewood! It was right in the "food court" area. You enter this little gate and you are suddenly ensconced in the delicious smells of mouth-watering treats. Each "chalet" has something different: chocolate, wine, sausages, fois gras, churros, fondue, raclette, hot wine, you name it it was there. All these food chalets were in a large circle and in the center was a big wooden pavilion with tables and benches where you could eat. Some of the food vendors had their own stalls with tables as well. Here's Josh with some food chalets behind him- aren't they so adorable? Oh yeah, he's cute too, but look at those little Christmas chalets!
Somehow we managed to make it through this area without succumbing to the intoxicating smells emanating from every single stand. We even managed to hold off buying tea, even though it was cool, it was brewed over an open fire! And check out all those hanging sausages!
Lucky for our wallets we happened upon a sculptor who used a chainsaw to create his wooden sculptures. It was our good fortune to happen upon him just as he was starting a new sculpture. It was pretty cool to watch.




We watched for a while then figured we might as well continue on and come back later in the hopes of seeing the finished project. Our guess was that he was making an owl. What do you think? I think it's a pretty darn good guess. Unfortunately, by the time we made it back he had packed up all his statues and equipment and left. Probably due to the rain more than anything else. Then again, we did take our sweet time getting back - buying gifts for people can do that to you. We then ran into a sight to behold - a HUGE candy buffet. Oh the one at my wedding was nothing in comparison to this glutton festival for the eyes and tummy. Yum.....


Yet, even this did not tempt me to open my wallet. Well, it did tempt me, but I soldiered on. Until I saw this:

Roasted Chestnuts! The sign says something like: Chestnuts grilled the ancient way.
These chestnuts smelled wonderful and I had heard how wonderfully tasty roasted chestnuts were so this was where I insisted we stop and have a snack. We shelled out the 6 chf for a paper cone full of freshly roasted chestnuts and were prepared to be overwhelmed by the scrumptious taste of Chestnuts roasted the old way. We were rather disappointed I'm afraid. They tasted alright, but they were a bit dry and not exactly something I'd shell-out 6 francs for again. Oh well, we tried them. I mean who could pass up chestnuts roasted in clay pots over cylindrical metal tubes?
Moving right along we wandered from one little chalet full of beautiful gift ideas to another until we came to the famous statue of Montreux (pronounce montrow, by the way).

Yeah baby, Freddy Mercury. Lead singer of Queen. The people of Montreux love their Freddy Mercury- you can see the fresh flowers and gifts they leave at the statues feet. Someone had even tied a pair of ballet shoes onto Freddy's cane, I have no idea what that's all about.
Yeah, yeah, I know that you've already seen a ton of pictures - probably more than you wanted to look at- but I still have more so I guess you'll just have to deal. Coming up pictures of the little ice rink that put up every year. Josh and I contemplated skating, but it was getting late, it was rainy and we still hadn't seen everything yet. So after a quick break to drink some lip-smacking, yummy hot chocolate and kiss the fake deer we moved on.

We happened upon a smokehouse that was smoking Salmon. This was the Finland section apparently with a "Finland" restaurant across the path from the Salmon smokehouse.

OK, I will leave you with these parting images. There was one section that was underneath a GIGANTIC wooden pavilion. There was a train kids could ride, more stalls selling gifts, and two sides filled with food. There was a whole row of food in these humongous pans. It looked awesome. We didn't stick around that area too long because despite the fact that we weren't hungry the sight and smell of such massive quantities of food started working overtime on our saliva glands.

Look at that big barrel o' wine. Doesn't it make you want to just drink right from the spigot? Josh, of course, had to dragged away from the sauerkraut and ham mixture. With those parting thoughts I am going to turn my own thoughts towards dinner. I have been working on this damn post ALL day long. Geeze, it's ridiculous how adding so many pictures can take such a long time! and to think I had ideas for 2 more posts that I wanted to do today I'll be lucky if I EVER get around to posting them. sigh, the trials of being a self-centered blogger. hee, hee!
Hope this put you in the Christmas mood just as much as the actual trip put me in holiday spirits. Now that I think of it, maybe I'll go check out the Christmas decorations we borrowed form our neighbors before dinner.

À bientôt!