A sweet Christmas on Lake Constance: Kempten, Langenargen and Lindau

KEMPTEN

We set off by car at 7:00 am. We cross Switzerland, travelling through the San Bernardino tunnel. It's a beautiful sunny day and the sun will accompany us throughout these three days of pre-Christmas holiday. The temperature is also rather mild for the season and we won't even use all the heavy winter clothes we've brought with us. A peaceful journey. At the wheel, the newly licensed driver (for 2 weeks) Clarissa. We arrive in Kempten, as planned, at 12 o'clock. We find our Hotel without difficulty; it's right on the main square, the Town Hall square (Rathaus Platz) where, at this time of year, the Christmas market is set up The Hotel, Der Fuerstenhof, is located in a beautiful period building. But the thing that excites us is the view from our room. We look out and see the market below us. Beautiful! The people in the square look at us with envy.

The triple room booked with Booking.com is quite large and comfortable. (€90.00 triple room, + breakfast €5.00 each). Later, in the afternoon, an appointment with culture. The visit to the Residenz awaits us, an ancient Imperial Abbey in Baroque style, with richly decorated halls. Unfortunately the visit is guided only and we are the sole visitors. The little old man accompanying us lingers a lot. The guide is only in German but when he realises that Clarissa knows the language, he singles her out and Clarissa is forced, much to our regret, to act as our translator. At the end, we go to visit the adjoining Basilica of San Lorenzo, a rather imposing Church. We then look for a restaurant to book for dinner. We immediately notice that there aren't many restaurants in the town and they're almost all Italian.

We would have preferred something typical but we book at the restaurant Lagune, a Sicilian restaurant which however has a rather varied menu that satisfies all of us.. The restaurant overlooks a large square, where, at that moment, a Christmas event is taking place (a small concert or something). But we're hungry and go for dinner. We are immediately struck by the charming little room with vaulted ceiling and statues of little angels. Of course the waitresses, Sicilian ladies, are scatterbrained. They keep getting orders, tables and so on wrong. The wait is also rather long but when our dishes arrive we're not at all disappointed. Very abundant dishes and average prices. We're full to bursting and even leave something. One last pass by the market, which stays open until 9 pm. We even have time to buy a nutella crepe, just to get a bit messy before going to sleep.

A few photos because the lighting of the Kempten market is truly atmospheric and then back to the hotel.

LANGENARGEN AND LINDAU

After an abundant breakfast in our hotel, we set off. There's a beautiful sun illuminating the green Bavarian landscape. We travel picturesque country roads immersed in greenery with many typical little houses and farms. We reach Langenargen. We discovered this lovely town on Lake Constance, watching a recent episode of Bake Off Italia. The judge, famous pastry chef Ernst Knam, thought of setting an episode of the programme in his hometown. Watching the programme we admired the beauty of the place and pleasantly discovered that it was a few minutes from Lindau, where we've booked the hotel for the night. The place seemed to us even more beautiful than on TV. We first saw the castle overlooking the lake, Schloss Montfort in Moorish style. The castle cannot be visited inside as it's a restaurant. We did however go in to have a look at the entrance.

From the castle a pleasant walk begins along the lakeside where there are some hotels facing the lake that I imagine are well frequented in the high season. We thus reach a beautiful dock and characteristic little harbour. On the way back we instead take the main street of the town where the Christmas market has been set up. Too bad it only opens in the afternoon. It's very small anyway and we don't think it's worth waiting for it to open. We prefer instead to go visit the beautiful white church of San Martino in Baroque style. I can already imagine Knam making his First Communion here.... Ha ha. We leave Langenargen and after a few minutes we arrive in Lindau. It's Sunday. We immediately see that there are lots of people around. Lots of coaches, lots of tourists for the market set up on the lakeside.

We're not worried because our Hotel, Helvetia, has its own private car park that we've booked in advance. The hotel is in an ideal position, right on the lakeside. We go out the hotel door and find ourselves in the centre of the market. What more could we want? Of course the hotel has a rather high price, €210.00 for a triple room with breakfast (Booking.com price). But it's very convenient and rather chic. When we arrive though, at 1 pm, the room isn't ready yet. So we decide to take a first tour of the market. There are loads of people. You can barely walk. We notice however that here the stalls are much more interesting than in Kempten. The items decidedly more original and curious. We buy something to give as gifts to friends and relatives. We take the first photos of the beautiful town of Lindau seen from the lake.

How many colours with this sun! What a beautiful setting for the market on the lakeshore! Then we have lunch with the classic Wurstel and the fantastic Churros, the famous Spanish fritters that we like so much. We return to the hotel to take possession of the room: an ultra-modern room with truly particular furnishings. The hotel in fact, despite having a very traditional look outside, is super modern inside. Perhaps too much. The hotel also has a wellness area on its terrace: there's a sauna and a hot tub, at 34° outdoors on the roof. We don't need to be told twice and, in bathrobes, we reach the roof by lift. Once there we immediately admire the panorama of Lindau from above with the lake and the market that's beginning to light up. How lovely. We head however towards the tub and....darn it, we notice that here everyone is naked. No no no, this silly Northern European exhibitionism.

It's not right. Dejected, we then turn back and decide to go to the indoor pool in the semi-basement. We arrive with our good old OLYMPIC one-piece swimsuits and even with SWIM CAPS and what do we discover? My God.....they're all naked here too! They swim in the pool naked: young, old, boobs out and family jewels on full display. How squalid! What harm can a little swimsuit do? We console ourselves thinking that anyway the pool was small and not very appealing. All that's left for us to do is: go to the Relax room, right next to our room. We go in and fortunately notice that here people have the sense to keep their bathrobes on. We settle into the strange little armchairs with this zen atmosphere with the little lights and the view from the windows of the Christmas lights. We drink the fruit juices available and eat the fruit. In short, we relax and we like it.

For dinner we've booked at a particular restaurant right behind the Hotel: Restaurant Mediterraneo. It's a tiny restaurant with only 5 tables where a single person, One Man Restaurant, does everything himself. Cooks, waits tables, etc. Despite this the service is fast because there are few tables and not even all occupied. The menu isn't very extensive but we find things to our liking. In particular here in Germany we appreciate the meat which is truly tasty and very tender. After dinner we make another pass by the market. Now there are fewer people and we appreciate everything better. We see the stalls we didn't visit in the afternoon. We drink the traditional Gluhwein in the typical mugs and eat Waffel and a skewer of strawberries covered in chocolate with a musical group playing Christmas music on the stage set up in the centre of the market in the background.

What a fantastic atmosphere! What a Christmas mood. In Italy it would be unthinkable to recreate such an atmosphere!

LINDAU AND BACK

Breakfast at the Hotel Helvetia is very varied and careful as regards the savoury part: besides the traditional bacon and eggs there's a vast selection of Swiss cheeses, salmon, cold cuts and more. As for the sweet part, however, there's almost nothing. Anyway we eat a great deal and very calmly at a lovely table with windows overlooking the lakeside. Right after, we go out to visit the old main street, the Maximilian Strasse. This is the street of shops, of period buildings with dormers and little turrets and of the splendid Rathaus, richly painted on its facades. Very fascinating. We do a bit of shopping buying the traditional Brezel, to take home, in a bakery on the street and then we go into a lovely shop of souvenirs and gift items. After the shopping, unfortunately, all that's left for us to do is return to the hotel, vacate the room and set off for our return to Italy.

Return journey without problems, always with a beautiful sun and within the expected times. Another year the traditional Christmas market holiday has come to an end. See you next year. We already have a few ideas. DANI, MAX AND CLARISSA