Lucerne – Freiburg – Colmar: Four Countries in Three Days — travel diary by danieladisa

The story

DAY 1 – LUCERNE

The best way to start the Christmas holidays well is to take a short trip to the countries of northern Europe, to breathe in a truly Christmassy atmosphere.

There Christmas is genuinely a tradition to be observed, dusting off old customs and ancient values.

We set off by car from Milan and reach the Swiss town of Lucerne by lunchtime. The road over the St Gotthard Pass poses no difficulty at all and we make good progress without problems.

Lucerne, nestled on the lake, is not particularly rich in monuments: it does, however, have a lovely old town and cheerful little squares, in one of which we find our hotel.

Lucerne's symbol is the famous covered bridge; but then we discover that there are 2 bridges and that the older and more out-of-the-way one is definitely the better. We look at the shop windows but buy nothing: the prices are, for us Italians, literally prohibitive. We have lunch on excellent cheese breizel (salted heart-shaped bread) and buy the inevitable bars of chocolate, which we devour on the spot. For buying chocolate we recommend avoiding the expensive shops in the old town and instead buying in the supermarkets near the centre, where you can find the same brands at decidedly more reasonable prices.

In the evening we decide to have dinner in a fast food place; Swiss cuisine doesn't deserve such a hefty outlay!

DAY 2 – FREIBURG

We did our homework and discovered that Freiburg hosts one of the most characteristic German Christmas markets.

Freiburg presents itself as essentially a modern city but with an older core of colourful buildings where the Christmas market is set up.

Lots of decorations, lights and the typical smells of Christmas. The markets essentially sell handicrafts and local Christmas-tradition products: decorations, candles, little houses and lots of treats all to be tasted. We have lunch with the good things we find at the market. To warm up you can drink vin brulé (hot spiced wine) served in the characteristic mugs made for the occasion. As at every Christmas market, if you don't want to keep the mug as a souvenir of the market, you can return it once you've drained the contents and part of the money paid will be refunded.

We visit the streets of the centre, criss-crossed by curious little water channels about 50 cm wide. It's not clear what function they have or once had, but the fact is that they are what makes the city distinctive.

For dinner I allow no discussion and drag my boyfriend into one of the many Italian restaurants in the city: a bit of patriotism never hurts, especially at mealtimes!

DAY 3 – COLMAR AND THE JOURNEY HOME

We leave our ultra-modern hotel next to Freiburg station and head for the nearby French border, to the Alsatian town of Colmar.

Here Christmas is truly an event to be celebrated with huge civic effort: the façades of the already beautiful houses are even decorated with pine frames, climbing Santas, little lights, bows and goodness knows what else. The result is astonishing! The city is already beautiful in itself, with its pretty half-timbered houses (with wooden frames) and the canals that form the "Petite Venise". It is, however, a more colourful and cheerful "Venice", thanks to the brightly coloured façades of the houses. But at Christmas all this is further enhanced by the many Christmas decorations everywhere and the numerous Christmas markets, with their characteristic little wooden sales huts, set up in every single square of the city.

We decide that Colmar at Christmas deserves more than a hasty stop on the way home, and so we decide to plan for next year, for a more thorough visit on the occasion of the Christmas markets which here appear as early as the end of November, with the start of Advent.