In case you missed my write up of the Dresden Christmas Market last year, we went back this year to do it all over again. Mostly because Ania loves Christmas a lot, but perhaps also because we really missed that cheese and mushroom hot sandwich they serve there. Again, it’s only a three-hour drive at the most so getting there is not really a big deal.

This time, however, we noticed a significant increase in people compared to 2017. And it wasn’t just Germans that wrongly assumed Saturday afternoon was a good time to visit the market. Our southern neighbors from the Czech Republic showed up in force.

Just as is the case with our local Wroclaw Christmas market, the Dresden edition follows suit when it comes to keeping with the same shops in the same locations. We bought fries and wurst at the same stand we did a year ago, drank mulled wine from the same booth, and bought traditional Dresden cake from the same seller, as well. We also knew which food to avoid this time around, and that was parked in the same location, too.

A lot more police protection along with huge concrete barricades, though. I believe that’s in reference to the deadly incident from last year in Berlin, but we noticed a lot more precautions this time around. And even though I wasn’t thinking it before, I did feel safe seeing all the Police around. Only then did I start wondering “but would these Lego looking concrete barriers really stop a semi?” Never mind, I’m sure someone’s tested that somewhere. This is German engineering after all. There’s probably a document 10mb big with Failure Mode and Effects Analysis on the Lego brick alone. But I digress.

We ate good food, we drank good wine or warm fruit punch in my case, and we ended up in a small city Bautzen, again, on our way back. And, again, it started to rain just as we got to our favorite little coffee house where we ordered our usual Apfelstrudel. Love that thing.

Overall a good day trip, but the number of people was downright uncomfortable and tiring. After a while, I simply chose to go around tents bypassing the lines of slow-moving folk altogether. I think next year we’ll go somewhere else instead.