The Sights and Smells of an Advent to Remember
December 2007 Visit to Karlstadt & Nuremberg

See the Photo Album page for the pictures of this event

A party of 12 set off from Cuckfield in a minibus bound for Heathrow on Friday 7 December for the flight to Frankfurt. Penny Thornton joined us to make us 13 at Terminal 2, after her sleepless night flying in from the States. We were a suitably mixed bunch of 3 couples, 4 singles and a family group of 3. Met at Frankfurt Airport, we were driven as fast as the Friday evening traffic would allow in comfortable people carriers to our hosts in Karlstadt, so making up some of the time lost in the delayed flight.

Friday night saw our first experience of the St Nicholas market in Karlstadt. Following the warm reunion in the market square with Mayor Karl-Heinz Keller and members of the Twinning Committee, we joined the crowds of Karlstadters, gluhwein and frankfurters in hand, jostling good-naturedly while mingling around the many stalls of traditional Christmas fare in the main square outside the Town Hall and in the adjoining lanes. We then visited the Town Hall to see the many local craft stalls inside before setting off to the cellar of the Brauerei restaurant for a delicious meal with our hosts and other Karlstadters.

Karl Heinz Keller, Mayor for three six-year terms and a strong supporter of our twinning arrangements, and who is about to stand down, shared the informal speeches of greeting with Ulrike Jaeger and Andrew Symonds.

On Saturday we boarded a coach in company with our Karlstadt friends to visit the most famous of all German Christmas markets at Nuremberg (over 400 years old). The old streets and squares were heaving with literally thousands of people (John Butterworth, who has a rare skill honed watching football crowds in his past, estimated 100,000 at least). The air was thick with the scent of cinnamon and gluhwein, the smells of the small but spicy Nuremberg sausages, and potato waffles with apple sauce. Excited young children marvelled at all the sounds and colours while church bells tolled and trumpet fanfares sounded out from their spires.

In St Lorenz church it was standing room only around a sea of candles for an organ recital, while the crowds at mass at the Catholic Church spilt outside. In the evening we settled down to a feast of Nuremberg sausages in the very old Bratwurstglöcklein Restaurant nestling at the foot of the Konigs Tor in the walls of the city.

Sunday was a quiet day spent with our individual hosts and we all did different things though occasionally bumped into each other. Some went to Würzburg, some to Somerhausen. Others went to mass at the beautifully restored Church of St Andreas, a successful blend of the old and new, and home of the famous statue of St Nicholas, a replica of which stands in our Old School. Deputy Mayor, Organist and Choirmaster, Manfred Goldkuhle, kindly opened up the “treasury” of church plate and guided us round afterwards.

In the afternoon, some went to St Johannis Church for an impressive carol concert by candlelight with the brass quartet playing the Advent fanfares.

In the evening we met to hear the children’s choir singing in the market square and were then invited to join the reception for distinguished visitors high under the roof of the Town Hall, right under the mechanism of the town clock. We left the square with the now familiar sounds of the brass fanfares ringing out from the belfry of St Andreas’ tower.

Monday finished off the trip with a farewell brunch at the offices of one of our hosts in the centre of Karlstadt then off to Frankfurt and the flight home.

To call this a “Christmas shopping visit” is to underplay the total experience of Advent, of St Nicholas, and the excited atmosphere of waiting and watching, spoilt only for the little ones by the inability of St Nicholas himself to arrive by boat at Karlstadt on account of the River Main being in full, fast flow.

Our thanks go to Ulrike and her team for the superb organisation and for the warm hospitality of our hosts. We shall all remember the pleasure and enjoyment of friendships commenced and renewed that this trip provided. And if this visit is repeated another year, to those of you who were unable to come this time, please consider it a must next time.

Finally a big thank you to our two drivers, David Mortimer and Andrew Ponsford, who, respectively, took us to Heathrow and delivered us safely back to Cuckfield.