Last weekend I went down to Canterbury to see some old friends and also to take in the sights sounds and most importantly smells of the ‘Whitefriars German Christmas Market.’ The market is housed in wooden sheds in the centre of Canterburys Whitefriars Shopping Centre.  The Centre itself is built on top of Roman, Anglo Saxon and Medieval ruins, with the former Austin Friary, later Whitefriars giving the area its name.  Back to the market, there were a variety of different festive foodstuffs and crafts on offer.

One of the stranger stalls I saw was, ‘Instant Snow’ some very strange stuff that when you added water, it created perfectly serviceable fake snow, although it was a little odd to to the touch something akin to silly putty.  Now what with the Christmas Market being a

German Christmas Market there is of course Bratwurst on offer unfortunately I didn’t have the time to try them but they smelt

amazing.  They were being cooked on an open fire grill and the smell of the cooking sausages and also the mulled wine from the stand next door sent the senses into overload.

Nestled in the centre of the market was a gem of a stall. It was covered in all kinds of fudge from tiramisu flavour to brandy butter to original and even a jet black coloured liquorice flavour . The choice was overwhelming, looking at the various colours was like being a small child again walking into a sweet shop and trying to figure out how you could (if at all possible) get every variety into the limited space available inside of a Pic ‘n’ Mix bag.  As it happened I managed to get a good range of flavours including the Brandy Butter and also a rather nice Coconut Ice, unfortunately I was not brave enough to try the liquorice flavoured fudge.

The final stop on our tour of the German Market was the mulled wine stall. It was definitely worth leaving until last, all of that walking around can develop a thirst.  The Mulled wine was perfect and incidently went rather nicely with a piece of original recipe fudge. So to sum up Canterburys German Christ Market is definitely worth a  visit, it’s on every year in Whitefriars and never fails to make you feel suitably festive.

PG