It arrived this past Wednesday – the annual Heidelberg Christmas mercato in Piazza Santa Croce in Florence, Italy. This market features 50 wooden huts filled with holiday goodies. Lots of food is available from cheeses, breads, spices, and meats to sausages, pig, kraut, and pretzels with all kinds of toppings. Other gift items are handmade clothes, ornaments, porcelain and ceramics, candels, toys, and hats. Vendors come from Germany, Poland, Austria, France, and other countries.
I miss my friend Sylvia, from Austria, though. She was here last year selling the clove ornaments that I so adore. No one this year has anything like them.
One of the favorite selections among so many of my friends here in Firenze is the gluwein (pronounced 'gloo - vine') or as the Italians call it vin brulé, perhaps best understood as a VERY tasty mulled wine. Oh, the smell is yummy and the effect powerful. I asked a tourist to take this photo recently, documenting us drinking the stuff for lunch: from left to right, my Austrialian artist friend Skye; our Italian friend, photographer and model Sara; and, I hope, one of your favorite sculptors (ha!) on both sides of the Atlantic. ;-)
The night image I took on my way home of the carousel bar out in front of the entire mercato. You can see the façade of the Basilica of Santa Croce, where Michelangelo and other famous Florentines are buried.
Cin Cin (pron. ‘chin chin’)
