The first weekend in December I was lucky enough to go on a girls trip to Basel, Switzerland , to go to a European Christmas Market. I honestly didn't know anything about Christmas Markets, but when Angie invited me to go on a girls weekend trip - I didn't much care what we were doing or where we were going- I just wanted in. I needed a weekend out of Rome and some time to be with and chat with other women. Girls nights out are pretty much non-existent for me- so I was very much looking forward to a weekend away. Oh, and the fact that the whole point was to eat yummy food and go shopping. Pretty much perfect, right?!
Angie organized the whole thing- bought plane tickets, booked the hotel and planned out the weekend- so all I had to do was show up. Yes, she's pretty much the best friend ever. Angie lived in London before moving to Rome, so some of her friends from England met up with us in Switzerland.
It was such a fun weekend! I hope to be able to go to another Christmas Market next year.
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| The streets in downtown Basel were lined with shops of just about everything. |
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| I loved how cute everything was decorated. This was an shop with hundreds of different Christmas tree ornaments. |
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| Christmas villages! |
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| Entrance to the Christmas Market |
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| Loved this huge windmill |
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| Angie is the best friend ever! |
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| This is a church in the town center. |
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| This is the river that ran right through Basel. And yes- it was as cold as it looks! |
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| We took a little ferry boat across the river. |
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| These guys were dressed up as the Three Wisemen and would bang their staffs really hard on the ground when people would put money in their basket. |
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| One night while we were walking through downtown we noticed everyone lined up along one street. We thought for sure there must be a reason- so we hung around to find out what it was. Turns out it was a "Santas on harleys" parade! It was awesome!! |
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| Crepes!! |
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| This little water fountain park behind us had frozen water! |
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| Michelle, Allison, Angie, Louise, Me, Michelle and Christina |
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| Michelle wanted a picture of her with her food, but since we were sitting so close together, there was no way for me to be out of her picture- so I just joined in! |
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| Racclette! |
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| It was freezing, so we decided to buy some warmer beanies- just so happens that we have similar taste and ended up being twins! |
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| Chocolate covered strawberries!! |
December 8th is an Italian holiday to celebrate the "Immaculate conception" - but Italians use this holiday to officially start the Christmas Season. Since Ryan had the day off, we decided to make a weekend of it and headed down south to Salerno. Salerno is a cute beachfront town, near the Amalfi Coast, but in the winter it turns into the city of lights. We thought it would be fun to get into the Christmas spirit by going to see all the lights. Its hard to see in the pictures, but all the "streets" ( they are more like walking paths) in the downtown area had lights between the buildings. In the town square there was a HUGE lighted Christmas tree and in one of the bigger piazzas there was a huge canopy of lights. They also had the "Central Park" decorated with lights from scenes of Disney movies. Since we went on the holiday- it was packed with people, but still lots of fun! 
On our way home from Salerno- we stopped in Caserta to see the castle there. If you look carefully- you'll notice that this is where they filmed Queen Amidala's palace in the Star Wars movie. The castle was enormous and absolutely beautiful. 
