Buon Natale! One day after Christmas, we thought it would be fun to provide an update in the form of a special blog post covering our latest Christmas market adventure in Italy!
Indy and I both grew up in snowy places–me in Michigan and him in Tahoe–so we don’t mind traveling somewhere chilly for the holidays. This is our third year flying to Europe for the primary purpose of visiting Christmas markets. Many people think that once you’ve seen one Christmas market, you’ve seen them all, but we wholeheartedly disagree. Each city and country has their own regional dishes, market styles, and varieties of hot beverages. Plus visiting a new place to check out their Christmas market also provides a great way to get the vibe of the city since locals vs tourists often gather at the markets, especially in smaller cities. It's also kind of fun to collect the mugs most markets serve mulled wine in as souvenirs.
A few years ago, we visited markets in Germany. Last year we did France and Switzerland. This year, we focused on Italian Christmas markets, mainly in the South Tyrol region, which borders Austria. Indy recently acquired Italian citizenship and we’ve been studying Italian for about a year so I can pass my language test and hopefully get citizenship too. We flew into Milan and out of Venice, visiting a number of markets along the way in the following cities:
Bassano Del Grappa
Bologna
Bolzano (this was our home base for a good portion of the trip)
Brixen
Bruneck
Klausen
Lake Garda
Merano (we saw a Krampus procession here)
Ortisei (aka Urtijëi)
Rovereto
Sterzing
Trento
Verona
One thing that is unique about Italian Christmas markets–and Italy in general—is that there are loads of options for gluten free travelers. Many of the markets we visited had labeled menus indicating which items could be prepared gluten free.
Some common gluten free dishes you can find in South Tyrol Christmas markets include polenta, lentil soup, potato soup, goulash, and sausages. It’s also fairly easy to find lots of varieties of gluten free potatoes including fries and Italian rösti. There were numerous sweet stands with gluten free options including some gluten free panettone and holiday cookies. Most of the vendors were familiar with celiac disease and Indy felt very comfortable eating at markets with gluten free menus.
When it comes to festive beverages, Italian markets offer a wide variety of mulled wines (vin brulè in Italian) and hot drinks, some of which are brewed in massive cauldron-like vats. One of the most unique drinks we tried was Parampampoli, which is a shot-sized beverage unique to Trentino. Served over a hot flame in characteristic little cups, the parampampoli is made from coffee, wine, sugar, honey and grappa. Another Italian classic is the Bombardino, which literally translates to “bomb.” This small eggnog drink is topped with whipped cream and is an alarmingly bright shade of orange. As a big eggnog fan, I tried one during the trip and decided it was a bit too rich for me; I prefer the classic eggnog with a shot of cognac or armagnac instead.
If you’d like to check out the full photo dump from our market hopping, please see this Google Photos album. All in all, we had a fabulous time exploring Italian Christmas markets and sampling all of the gluten free offerings. We hope to return next year to explore more markets and continue to practice our Italian...and collect more mugs!
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