It wouldn’t be the festive season without at least one trip to an Xmas market. Normally these are disappointing experiences, overly commercial and lacking atmosphere, only made bearable by the consumption of glühwein, or bisschopswijn as it’s known in the Netherlands. I didn’t hold out much hope for the Dordrecht Xmas Market, but life is full of surprises, and a collection of musical Santa Claus’s and a nativity with real animals made it an entertaining day. I don’t recall there being a llama and a load of goats in the stable in Bethlehem, but what do I know, I wasn’t there.
Dordrecht is a lovely town, with a wealth of history and historic buildings that make a visit worthwhile regardless of whether there’s an Xmas Market or not. The city itself, particularly the picturesque area around the old harbour and Grote Kerk, formed an impressive backdrop for the festivities. As we walked down from the railway station, a small throng of people were headed in the same direction. Before too long the first market stalls made an appearance and the smell of glühwein was enticingly wafting through the air.
The Xmas markets I’ve visited in the Netherlands over the last four years all merge with each other in my mind. With the exception of Deventer’s exceptional Dicken’s Festival, none of them really stand out from the crowd. Dordrecht promised much though, its website even claimed that for an ‘authentic’ experience you no longer needed to visit Cologne or Dusseldorf. I wouldn’t go that far, but the roaming musical Santa’s make it one to remember.
It was a chilly day, and we stopped in the Stadhuisplein for a glass of glühwein. A Santa band was warming up on the stage. A crowd gathered and they launched into a series of upbeat seasonal songs in which assorted reindeer featured heavily. I was hoping for some traditional Dutch tunes but the set was entirely in English. Our spirits raised, and ‘Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer’ firmly lodged in our heads, we set off to see what the market had to offer. There were a large number of stalls selling pork-based products.
I’d like to say that this is a Dutch tradition but, honestly, there are processed pork products available everywhere, at all times of the year. Putting some holly around a few sausages isn’t going to make them any more festive. A little disappointed, we set off again and wandered into the Grotekerkstuin, where there was the promise of a ‘living’ Nativity scene. I wasn’t sure if we’d be forced to watch an unfortunate person giving birth in the square (this is the Netherlands, anything can happen), but whatever was going on had drawn a large crowd of excited onlookers. We made our way over.
Safely behind a fence (probably for the animal’s welfare rather than ours) a couple of disconsolate looking shepherds were taking care of a bizarre menagerie of creatures. These included the aforementioned llama, some donkeys, geese, chickens, sheep, goats and, the undoubted star of the show, a camel. I’m pretty sure it was the wrong type of camel for Palestine, even two thousand years ago, but when there’s a South American llama wandering around it seems churlish to quibble over the variety of camel they’d managed to acquire.
We managed another glass of glühwein before heading off again through the streets. Occasionally, there was a band playing and there were more stalls, but it was pretty busy and we were quite glad when we finally emerged at the end of the walking route. Ignoring the urge to have yet another glass of warm wine, we made our way back to the station, pondering as we went whether singing Santa’s, a camel and a misplaced llama could really rival the festive markets of Germany?
Notes from Camelid Country 