Christmas Village in Baltimore 2014

Baltimore has a Christmas market patterned after the ones in Germany, so we wanted to visit. The village is right on the Inner Harbor, near a lot of the touristy stuff. We had to stop at the Ripley's Believe It or Not! venue to check out the 10,000 pound ball that anyone can turn.

Baltimore Inner Harbor

Dragon-encircled Ripley's

Spinning the ball

Further down the sidewalk we came to the Christmas village with its typical small wooden buildings selling food, drinks, clothes, and trinkets.

Market tree

Wooden buildings

Food venues

On weekends, visitors have to pay to enter the indoor market. Just before the entrance is an Advent Calendar which was about half-way done when we visited. Instead of opening doors, they add papers with German words and explanations of those terms.

Premium area entrance

Advent calendar

Inside were two aisles of vendors selling gifts, jewelry, and decorations.

Inside the tent

Game/puzzle seller

Wooden nativities

The biggest retailer was Kathe Wohlfahrt, selling traditional German holiday items like nativities, ornaments, and novelties. I took one picture inside their shop and was told no photography was allowed! Whoops.

Kathe Wohlfahrt

Contraband photo

Our favorite vendors were three. First was the face-paint lady, the favorite of L by far, even if she only got half her face done.

Face painting in progress

Final result

Number two on our favorite vendor list was the bratwurst and beer stand where we got lunch. L had a sausage and J a pretzel. Parents ate bratwursts and I had a nice hefeweisen.

Sausage and suds

Lunch

Pretzel man

The last of our favorite stands was the waffle-maker, where we got dessert. I ordered a chocolate and whipped cream waffle for us to share. Then J came and asked for his own. I probably should have objected but it made more sense to me to split two waffles four ways rather than one waffle four ways. We like to eat.

Waffle-icious (poor Nicholas was left out)

We walked around some more but didn't buy anything more. On our way back to the car we stopped and watched a street performer doing his routine, including a rope walking routine: