The markets debut today, the first Sunday of Advent. But late October and November are when preparations kick into gear: Stalls for these town-square bazaars are laid out, wooden toys are carved by hand, glass is shaped for ornaments, and gingerbread (called “lebkuchen’’) is being baked. I wanted a preview of the festivities. So earlier this month, I went on the hunt for mugs of mulled wine, the first finished nutcracker, and the earliest fresh-cut spruce to get its garland and star.
In this tradition-bound part of Germany the season was in full gear. Mountains had their first dustings of snow. Village toymakers, glassblowers, and bakers were hard at their crafts and open for touring.
The minute I arrived in Dresden, the capital of Saxony, I headed to the old town to poke around. Steeples and gables flashed with sun, showing off flourishes that had been carefully restored and painted in soft yellows, blues, and greens. It was hard to believe that this was the same city that had been firebombed during World War II, then spent decades deep in the former East Germany.
Dresden’s Altmarkt square is the site of Striezelmarkt, one of the oldest Christmas markets in Germany. In a few weeks it would be a mass of bundled-up carolers and stands hawking the local Christstollen, a seasonal pastry studded with candied fruit. “Striezel’’ means “stollen,’’ and the market officially opens with the slicing of a giant cake.
To see how Dresden’s market stollen is made, I headed for Bakery Grundmann on An der Dreikonigskirche. Frank Ludolphy, a master at this, showed me how he blends the batter. Ludolphy lost part of an index finger in his kneading machine, but it doesn’t affect his dough rolling or folding of the mix into a sort of log. “Thirty-three percent is butter,’’ he boasted through an interpreter, apprentice Michael Glaeser. Glaeser sported a pigtail tucked up under his chef’s cap and not one, but two braided goatees.
