Last weekend in Berlin we made our way to two different Christmas Markets — the Lucia Weihnachtsmarkt at the KulturBrauerei and the Nostalgischer Weihnachtsmarkt near the opera house on Unter den Linden.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera with me when we visited the Lucia Weihnachtsmarkt, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.  I’d never been to the KulturBrauerei before, but I love it when old buildings (in this case, a brewery) are transformed into creative spaces (like this old cotton factory in Leipzig).  Anyway, the market was surprisingly uncrowded for a Saturday night and we were able to browse the booths and test out some unconventional apple Glühwein — basically hot apple cider with a shot of somethin’ extra.  Yum.  But the mugs were only plastic, so I gave it back instead of keeping it as a collector’s item.  I really liked the feel of this Weihnachtsmarkt — just the right amount of kitsch and hipness.

We checked out the Nostalgischer Weihnachtsmarkt (also known as the Nostalgic Christmas Market) on early Sunday evening and unfortunately couldn’t stay too long before heading off to catch our trains.  However, we did have enough time to eat some almond Schmalzkuchen and Flammkuchen and snap a few photos.  This market was impeccably decorated and matched the grandness of the opera house next to it.  We scoped out the booths for cool souvenir mugs, but didn’t find any to suit our tastes before we ran out of time.

I’m kicking myself for not taking more photos of the food and such — but don’t worry, I’m just warming up on this whole Christmas Market documentation thing (see No. 7 of my 32 Things list) and there are many more to come!

Oh, and just to make sure we’re keeping things official here, I’ll be keeping a running tally of all the important Weihnachtsmarkt statistics for this season:

• Christmas Markets Visited: 2
• Cups of Glühwein Consumed: 1
• Souvenir Mugs Collected: 0
• Bags of Schmalzkuchen Consumed: 1

P.S. You can also click here for a post about Christmas Markets from last year.