The Strasbourg Christmas market experience

Les Secrets du Chocolat

On Saturday 2 December we travelled to Les Secrets du Chocolat in Strasbourg, France. We got to see the many different chocolate displays and were shown a demonstration of how the chocolate is made. The staff gave us little boxes to put our favourite chocolates in and many of us even tried a cocoa bean! There was lots of information about the chocolate and at the end we went to a gift shop and bought lots of chocolates for family and friends.

The Strasbourg Christmas market

After the chocolate factory we went to Flam’s where we got to eat lots of different types of Flammkuchen! And after a delicious lunch we went to the Christmas market. There were so many stalls and it was quite busy but we had a great time. We also bought lots of souvenirs and saw the beautiful Christmas lights!

Hannah H
Year 9

Gingerbread galore

On Sunday 3 December, 30 students studying French and/or German visited the Fortwenger – a gingerbread factory in Strasbourg. We left our accommodation at around 9am, and reached the gingerbread factory at around 10am. Everyone was extremely excited and we all couldn’t wait to try some gingerbread.

The building was beautifully decorated, inside and out, and (we could all agree), smelled amazing. After taking a few photos at the entrance, we went through the first of many doors. The first room was decorated like an old antique shop, with pictures of little gingerbread houses and people scattered around the walls. The next room was decorated like a snowy winter wonderland – there were snowmen and of course…more gingerbread men!

The third (and probably my favourite) was full of lights – lit Christmas trees framed the room, and realistic fur animals and igloos were placed together in the midst of decorations, such as fake snow, mist machines, hanging garlands, and so much more!

While we were walking to the final room (the shop), we all noticed the many pieces of artwork on the walls, made of 100% gingerbread. Each painting was uniquely and intricately decorated, it was such a fun thing to see.

After eating some complementary gingerbread, we made our way into the shop. The shop was a large area filled with any gingerbread-themed items you could ever imagine! There were plushies, biscuits, mugs, bags… and of course, lots and lots of gingerbread!

Get your skates on!

After returning to the coach with bags full of souvenirs and yummy treats, we started to drive to our next destination, Baden-Baden in Germany. As Strasbourg is close to the border of France, the journey only ended up being one and a half hours long. When we arrived at the location that held all the markets, we all split into groups and started to explore. There was such a wide variety of stalls, for example, there were food stalls selling authentic German and French food, jewellery stalls, and stalls that hold handmade products, to name a few. It was unbelievably cold, but so much fun! After a good two hours of looking around the stalls, we all met back up so that we could make our way to the indoor ice skating rink.

We all put on our skates and made our way to the ice rink. It was the first time skating properly for some – it was such an exciting experience despite all the times we fell over! We skated for around an hour, and although we were all cold and tired, no one wanted to leave!

Satisfied after a full day of adventure and activities, we made our way back to the coach to head back to our accommodation in Strasbourg.

We all had such a nice time that day, thank you to Madame Paris, Frau Brierly and Frau Sigusch for making this possible!

Ahaana P R
Year 9

I really enjoyed going ice skating in Germany because I love to skate and it was fun to do it with people, but my favourite thing was practising French in France with French people and just generally being surrounded by the language I want to learn because I think it was really helpful and I understand both the language and culture much better. I really liked Germany even though I don’t study German and I think the culture was even more interesting since I didn’t know much, if anything beforehand.

Shriya S
Year 10