The first and smallest Christmas Markets opened on Thursday. I decided to trek down to the Place d’Paris and check it out. It’s pretty small, only about 6 or so booths, but an amazing assortment of foods. There’s a booth of cheese dishes, where you can get either fondue or raclette. There’s a fried desserts stand where they have Belgian waffles, churros, some interesting Dutch fried balls, etc. There’s a place for sausages, naturally. And a booth with gromperekichelcher and warm soups for the cold winter days. And a booth of pasta, which seemed popular but also… strange. And of course there is a booth with handmade Christmas decorations.
White wine and fondue for lunch 
I, naturally, made my way to the cheese booth and ordered a fondue. I was particularly curious how a walk-up takeaway fondue would work. So there’s a lady who is tending a large fondue pot. Keeping it at just the right temperature, mixing cheese and milk and herbs. I don’t think there’s any wine in it. And when you order a fondue, she takes a ladle, pours a paper container about 1/3 full of cheese, then crams a fistful of bread on top, then ladles over another helping of cheese. Yum. This was a delicious, inexpensive, and not overly time-intensive lunch option. I was sure I’d be back there many times over the next few days. Those were more innocent times. I also enjoyed a glass of white wine with my fondue, from Switzerland.
After that, I began looking around for what else I might want to try. Potato pancake? Soup? Fried dessert? I made my way to the fried dessert stand and ordered an order of beignets (though the photo they show is of what we would usually call doughnuts, not beignets). There are 6 flavor options, so I opted for ‘Speculoos’ flavor. I expected they’d make the doughnuts, then glaze them, then dip them into some crumbled speculoos cookies or something. Tasty. But that’s not what happened. I watch the lady behind the counter as she pulls out a package of speculoos cookies. And she takes them, one at a time, with a pair of tongs. And she dips them into beignet batter and drops them into the hot oil. What?! Mind. Blown. She takes them out of the oil, covers them in powdered sugar, and passes them to me. Let me say: wow. The same way that speculoos cookies get all melty when you dip them in coffee, they get all melty when you dip them in batter! So the beignets were like, full of cookie butter. They were spicy and delicious. And I apologize to the entirety of the country of Luxembourg for the powdered sugar. It couldn’t be helped. 😉
it just melted – into deliciousness
That’s the only market open today, so I went home, went to class that night, and went out for beer and a burger after class. Nothing terribly interesting, but yay for this week of classes being finished.
The Main Markets
The markets in Constitution Square and the Place d’Armes are the largest markets in Luxembourg city. They open on Friday, so I go check them out at lunch time. Constitution Square has a huge ferris wheel, some rides for kids.There’s a Christmas tree that is ride, and you can ride in the decorative balls. Round and round and up and down. There’s a place called the ‘Pyramid’ which is a giant version of the tabletop wooden candleholders that spin when the hot air rises. There are tons of craft booths with handmade wooden ornaments and metal cookie cutters. There are some gourmet food booths selling artisan cheeses, honeys, hunnegdrëpp, and sausages. And of course there are lots of food options. But the largest number of booths are dedicated to: Gluwein.
Pyramid 
Ferris Wheel 
Christmas Tree ride 
Bobbing for Christmas decorations 
The view from the top
If you are coming to the Christmas markets to get tipsy mid-day, that would be easily accomplished. There are tons of booths for Gluwein, which I had originally thought was a mulled wine, but is instead just hot wine. You can order red, white or rosé. As cool as that sounds…. I do not have the stomach for hot alcohol. I can’t even drink Irish coffee, which sounds delicious, but as soon as the hot alcohol hits my stomach, I’m very unhappy. There are, of course, some stands with beers and other cold drink options. And even something called feuerzangenbowle, which is a special apparatus in which hot red wine is put into a mug, and a little metal thing is used to hold a large brown sugar cube over the wine. Then rum is poured over the sugar cube enough to wet it and get some into the wine. THEN – the set the sugar cube on fire. Because of the rum, it burns itself into caramel all the way until it is melted into the wine. I suppose I will have to try one of those because it looks so interesting. But not today. Today, I opted for an Eierpunsch, or egg punch. Having seen a photo, I’m imagining a New York deli egg cream. I went for a drink that would be cold, and not have alcohol. But I was very wrong. The Eierpunsch has ‘Verpoorten’ egg liquor in it. And it’s served hot. The whipped cream on top is very misleading. It was ok, sweet, but I would have preferred it cold.
I’m not so sure about this one… 
Santa Clause gives it a thumbs up
After my heavy creamy drink, I decide to take a ride on the ferris wheel. It seems like the best place for a view of the city. I go around a few times and take some photos from the top, then make my way to the Place d’Guillaume. The market here is more centralized. There’s like one giant structure. The options here are food and drinks, or ice skating. Still not hungry after my heavy egg punch, I decided to have a go at ice skating. The rink is large and decorated with tons of Christmas lights and reindeer. Since it’s the middle of the day and all of the children are still in school, the only people on the ice are myself and a guy who thinks he’s Adam Rippon. He’s in the middle spinning and jumping and I’m going around the edges flailing my arms periodically and stopping for selfies. I had a fun time. I even remembered my EU shoe size for the rental skates.
From there, I moved on to the Place d’Armes. This is the square in the center of town. And right now, around lunch, is when all of the people who work downtown are coming out to eat. So it is by far the liveliest of the three markets. There are tons of people wandering the rows of booths. And there are lots of booths. Far too many to list. Mostly food. My favorite was a huge stand that makes only gromperekichelcher. They have hundreds of them pressed and ready to fry, just stacked on shelves. I wandered around for a bit, but still feeling unsettled after my egg punch, I decide to walk back to Constitution Square for a flammekuchen. It’s like a crackery thin crust German pizza. I thought it would be small and bread-y for settling my stomach of its hot alcohol.
Gromperekichelcher stand 
flammekuchen
