Christmas markets are a big deal in Germany and Austria. In Bolzano, as well as in the rest of the South Tirol region in Italy, the Christmas market opened at the end of November, and ran at least until Christmas, if not longer. 

So, we move to Germany, and sure enough, there are many Christmas markets all around us. Most of them opened last week, and will run at least until Christmas, which is what I expected after our experience in Bolzano.

What I didn’t expect, though, is that in Tübingen, the Christmas market is quite tiny, doesn’t open until the middle of December, and lasts only a weekend. Who would have thought – that’s quite a smallish style Christmas market, in our vastly limited experience. 😉

However, not to worry. There’s a festival on now here in Tübingen that is bigger than Christmas … at least bigger than the Christmas market in Tübingen will be.  ChocolART, the Internationales Tübinger Schokoladenfestival, opened yesterday, and will run a full 6 days through Sunday. Which is twice as long at the Christmas market here.

I gotta think that at some point someone in town said, hmm, how can we compete with the nearby Christmas market that has people dressed in medieval costumes, speaking in medieval German? Or with with the big festival in another neighboring town that has an outdoor skating rink? Or with the one that has a petting zoo?

In other words, the festival folks in Tübingen needed a gimmick. And what’s a better gimmick than chocolate? So, they created this festival, the biggest chocolate festival in Germany,  which happens in parallel with the Christmas ones.

Not that I’m complaining, you understand. I see absolutely nothing wrong with having a festival that’s all about chocolate. And, I was even able to justify scoping out the stands yesterday and today because I was actually doing some homework for my German course. Our teacher recommended trying a banana on a stick covered in white chocolate.  Now, I’m not usually a white chocolate fan, but I always do my homework, hard-working student that I am. 🙂

I tried two different variations on that theme (one per day) for comparison. One was from this stall, where it was made while you wait:

White, Milk and Dark Chocolate fondue

And one from this stall, where the chocolate created a hard-shell around the banana:

Fruit skewers in chocolate

For my money, the hard-shell one was better. Es war sehr lecker – it was very tasty. There, I’ve done my homework. Hopefully our teacher will assign something tomorrow to try that has dark chocolate. I’m ready to do my homework. 😉

Anyway, here are a few more photos from the 2011 Schokoladenfestival in Tübingen:

"Live Production" stand where they are making chocolate

Chocolate production, while you watch

Wurst and mulled wine stand (just like at a Christmas market)

Chocolate Candy Street. The house looks like it belongs on that street.

Packs of fancy chocolate