Light Up the Nights: Delft, Gouda, Budapest

Please tell me I can still blog about the holidays. I’m a little thrown by the “high of 13 C / 55 F” today, and the sunshine that has me scrambling to wash laundry. We haven’t seen a single flurry this year, but darkness—darkness we’ve had plenty. The long days of summer take their toll on Delft: two weeks past the solstice, the sun’s still coming up just before 9:00 and setting around 16:45.

Delft’s tree

All across Europe, the winter nights are the setting for Christmas markets and light-up nights. Delft’s lichtjesavond (mid-December) is similar to a US town’s “tree lighting” as pertains to the first illumination of a large tree—but Delft’s also includes a Christmas market, stands of hot chocolate and gluwein, free concerts outside and in the historic churches, and fire on the canals.

Christmas market in Delft on lichtjesavond

Lichtjesavond is one of my favorite nights of the whole year. The Christmas market is fun to browse, though some of it is outright junk. The best stalls are those by local artisans or food establishments (the ham sandwiches outside Slagerij Leo van Vliet—mmm).

Vintage ornaments at the market

The Gemeente estimates that 50,000 people turn out for Delft’s night, and that’s a lot on little medieval streets. This year I took a walk just as the sun was setting, between 4 and 5, which was quite pleasant. Then we felt less pressured to fight through the thickest crowds (probably 7-9 PM). Things quiet down pretty early, as vendors close and families turn in.

At the end of that same week, we finally made it to an event that’s been on my list for years—Gouda bij Kaarslicht (Gouda by Candlelight). Gouda’s night is more specifically focused around candles—notably the 1500 candles illuminating the town hall windows (below).

Gouda bij kaarslicht

In contrast to Delft, there was no specific market in Gouda, and the main activity was a longish dramatic reading with music that occurred just before the tree itself was lit (the tree is dark in the photo above). This was in Dutch, and we were way in the back of the crowd; it was mostly lost on us, so we decided to keep walking (rather than standing still in the freezing cold). If you enjoy atmospheric strolls, Gouda bij Kaarslicht is lovely. Every little house and establishment seemed to participate in the candle-lighting, from tapers in the window to rows of tea lights along the canals.

Gouda

We didn’t find a lot to “do” in Gouda that night, and wound up just choosing a restaurant and eating a long leisurely meal, with a walk both before and after. When we’d finished dinner, the crowds had thinned and the candles in the stadhuis had been extinguished, but the tree remained (electrically) lit in Gouda’s dramatic main square.

Gouda

The following week we were off to Budapest, happily using the last of Tim’s vacation days for 2013. We enjoyed the Christmas markets in Budapest very much, and the warm foods and drinks were a welcome fix after hours touring in the cold. By food I mostly mean meat. Meat, meat, and meat (though it was our fortune to discover kürtös kalács: warm, fresh pastry cylinders rolled over a fire and then rolled in a coating like crushed nuts or sugar).

Budapest Christmas market

We strolled several times through the busy market at Vörösmarty Square (Ter), but would happen upon others through the city’s open spaces. There was one spilling out in front of St. Stephen’s Basilica; an artsy market in a building just near Deák Tér metro (Help me out if you know the name!); and a beautiful, quiet local market in front of the church at Bakáts Tér, off Ráday utca.

Vörösmarty Square, Budapest

I’m not a person who loves being in the cold just for the sake of the crisp air, but I love the Christmas market season. We found this an enchanting time to be in Budapest (though I was grateful for my down coat and had my scarf yanked up to cover 3/4 of my face most of the time).

Vörösmarty Square, Budapest

I nearly finished this post without remarking on New Year’s Eve (one of my other favorite nights in Delft). After a very, very quiet expat Christmas, we had dinner with a handful of friends in our apartment on December 31. A French friend had organized the meal, with everyone responsible for a different element. We know too many good cooks, and we were stuffed to the point of disaster before we even reached the last courses (French cheese, and cake). We hauled ourselves to the Markt in Delft to add our firework to the maelstrom.

Delft in 2014

I hope that your winter has been full of light, and that you make many warm memories in the early months of 2014!

More info on Budapest Christmas markets:

Budapest by Locals

Budapest Moms

We Love Budapest

Gouda

Yesterday, I headed off by train to Gouda, NL. From Delft, it was about a 40-minute journey with a change of trains in either den Haag or Rotterdam (I chose Rotterdam). I knew when I’d arrived because the conductor called out, “HOWDA.”

In all of the old towns I’ve visited in this region, it’s fairly easy to navigate to the main sights without a map. Follow the signs marked Centrum or Markt, or just follow the tour groups (there are a lot of senior citizens on holiday in the Netherlands right now). My Lonely Planet book had a basic (very, very basic) map of Gouda, and there was a Tourist Information office (TI) where I could probably have gotten a free/better one.

Arriving a little after 11, I hustled down Kleiweg ignoring all the chain shopping stores, because I had my sights set on the Thursday cheese market, and it’s only open until around 12:30. My initial impression was something like being in a cheese-themed amusement park. Gouda knows what its tourist draw is. There are little cheeses strung like fairy lights across the streets, and monuments of cheese in the canals. And when you pop out into the market square…

It is like a cheese ambush. The main sight, above, was a play being repeated in Dutch, complete with characters in traditional costume. Two men and some boys were acting out the process of cheeses being bargained for and weighed at market. Meanwhile, girls (also in costume) hand out free samples of the town’s namesake.

Rising up behind this spectacle is the fifteenth-century town hall, which I found very striking even compared to buildings I’ve recently seen in Delft, Brugge, and den Haag.

Unfortunately, and I found this to be true of other sights in Gouda, they were not letting you see the inside for free. I think it was E1.50 to enter there, and it was E3 to see the stained glass wonders inside Sint Janskerk. Rain was definitely threatening at this point, and a few drops came down, but it didn’t get serious until later in the day. I perused the produce vendors at the market and bought a huge bag of carrots for E1 (deal!) and two lovely fresh ears of corn on the cob (E1.50). Thus began the day’s “heavy backpack” syndrome, complicated by the fact that I was already traveling with Lonely Plant The Netherlands and, yes, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in hardcover. Whoops.

I wandered away from the hubbub of the market and, despite a certain cheesiness to the town, found Gouda full of interesting shops and really beautiful side-streets. I intend to return, perhaps even to shop for some food specialties if I can work out some scheme with ice packs. My cheese from the trip came from the shop ‘t Kaaswinkeltje (kaas= cheese; winkel= shop). I have never seen so many varieties of cheese in one place, many of them looking quite delicious, and nearly all available to be sampled. (Gouda may not be for the faint of dairy.)

I bought the one on the left: Gouda Black. The green cheese on the right was flavored with basil.

From the case of non-Dutch cheeses, I think.

Further aimless wandering led me to an Asian food mart where, against all odds, I found Arm and Hammer baking soda (!); and a kitchen shop called Kokkerie, to which I hope to return. As I walked around the vast perimeter of Sint Janskerk, I even found some sort of artists’ collective that was open to visitors. It was really interesting and a thought-sparking juxtaposition to see some guys working on very modern art just a few feet from glass art of the 1500s, and feel like these works existed in some sort of mutual understanding.