Evening 4: Christmas market in Bolzano

One thing we hadn't done during this short break is visit the Christmas market in Bolzano in the evening. We'd got back to the hotel early enough today to be able to go out again in the evening, so after night had fallen, we put our coats and boots on, and headed out the door.

Soprabalzano was pretty in the dark.

It had its own Christmas market outside the cable-car station.

It appeared that we were going to be the only people taking the cable car at the point we boarded.

Yes, the doors closed without anybody else coming through, so we had it to ourselves.

About 7 minutes into the journey. an illuminated Bolzano appeared in the distance.

There were two very handy landmarks standing out. There was a Christmas market alongside the Big Wheel, and another in the main square, which had the cathedral on one edge.

The first cabins were enclosed by trees with beautiful fairy lights and large red baubels.

And the street had lovely lights suspended above it.

The edge featured reindeer and lights.

The cabins happened to be closing at the point we arrived, so we said goodbye to the reindeer and walked towards the main square.

We knew we were nearly there when the cathedral appeared.

Each side of the square featured a light show of moving stars.

We were really pleased to see that one of the cabins housed a nativity scene.

There was a beautiful tree at the side of it and a lovely view of the cathedral and its roof above it.

We stopped beside it to have a small mug of Glühwein.

Although it was time to head back home, we decided not to take a direct route, leaving the square from the end opposite the cathedral.

It took us up a street we'd already seen in the daylight.

We knew where we were going. We'd seen that the nearby streets had decorations up, and wanted to see them at night.

There were plenty of trees in the nearby square, surrounding some more cabins.

And some Christmas lighting guiding our way back home.

It was a fun evening to a fabulous day, before we fly back home tomorrow.