Valkenburg Christmas Market

This past weekend I went on an ITT tour to the Valkenburg Christmas Market in Holland.  It was about a two hour bus ride, so not too bad.  Once we arrived though we had quite a bit of a walk to get to the little town of Valkenburg and the Velvet Caves where the Christmas Market was.  I nearly slipped and fell several times in my leather-bottomed shoes (which is why one of the purchases I made there were real snow boots).

The theme of the market was Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.  Throughout the caves there are decorations that have to do with the Christmas Carol story.  It was very cool and not too crowded until around the time I was done, which was good.  I got a lot of good things for very cheap prices.  I also stopped at cafe inside the caves and had some hot chocolate and a waffle.  They don't provide syrup for waffles like we use in America, but it was still really good.  It was nice to just sit and watch the people go by.  It was also a little bit disconcerting because I happened to be sitting in front of a display and people were stopping to take pictures.  Oh well, they can watch me eat if they want to. :)

Well there was still a lot of time before the bus left so I walked around the town a little bit and looked into some shops but soon got tired because the stuff I bought at the market were getting heavy.  I decided to stop at a cafe near where the walkway back to the bus was and discovered our tour escort in there.  I sat with her and had some hot chocolate and some apple strudel while we talked.  We had a great time.

We decided to go walk around the town some more and we stopped at a store where I bought my real snow boots.  Finally it was dinner time so we decided on one of the many restaurants and had a light dinner of pea soup with a ham and cheese sandwich.  It was very good.

Finally it was time to go back to the bus and head home.  The walk back was harder with all the stuff I was carrying (lots of steps to climb), but it was worth it.  Here's a picture of how I have to bundle up to stay warm around here.