Berlin’s City Hall Christmas Market: Bigger, Better, Beautiful

The Christmas market in front of City Hall turned into one of the best in Berlin this season. It used to be pretty small and unimpressive with just a few stands right in front of City Hall and the neighboring mall. Now they made the market much bigger and gave it a whole new concept. There are many huts decorated with big photos of historic buildings.  In contrast to other Christmas markets in town this market has many more huts offering a lot of seasonal art items. And the centerpiece of this market is an ice skating rink surrounding the illuminated Neptune fountain with a great view of the City Hall and the TV tower. There are so many Christmas markets in Berlin -  there is one on just about every corner downtown – but this market is special.

skating rink at Christmas market by Berlin City Hall

ice rink at Christmas market by Berlin City Hall

Skates needed

While many areas in Berlin are clear and easy to walk there is some others that turned to blank ice. Large areas at Unter den Linden, the Lustgarten or Hackescher Markt are almost ideal for ice skating. While at Hackescher Markt they at least made a path to walk, a large segment of the walking path directly at the Lustgarten is almost impassable.
Thinking of that especially here a lot of tourists are walking around the city leaves not a good impression .
The situation in the sidestreets or less central parts of the city is not good either. Various times I saw some joggers running on the streets instead of on the sidewalks.

But winter in the city has it’s nice views too. This photo here shows one of the few fountains of the city that work troughout the year. It is situated at the Beisheim Center.

Frozen fountain at Beisheim center

ice in Berlin

Generally, living at a big street is not really an advantage besides the effect that the public transportation provides these streets and you won’t have it far to the next streetcar or bus stop. There is often heavy traffic and noise bothering the one having an apartment at such a street – unless you have some good windows that absorb the noise. But in these wintry times one unbeatable advantage pops up, something special that little side streets cant compete with: They are free of snow and ice. The big streets and their sidewalks are the ones that always are cleared off first and very often only those are cleared while on little side streets slippery ice reigns. I don’t want to know how many people fall down in these neigborhoods but you just need to look at such streets and imagine how hard it is for people to walk along there.

Pure ice on one of the above mentioned side streets