Enjoying Some Old-World Holiday Fun at "Kriskindlmarkt" in Sparta Wisconsin

I have been envious for years of Europe's Christmas Markets.  I've longed to go to overseas for the holidays just to go shopping at the markets and see all the Christmas lights and displays.  So just imagine my surprise when I discovered I didn't need to travel thousands of miles away from home to have this old world experience, and I could get a taste of it in the small town of Sparta, only one and half hours away from my house.

Sparta Wisconsin is located in west-central Wisconsin and has a population of 10,025 residents.  But during Christmas, that population increases with visitors from all over the state to see how this tiny little town is transformed into a European Christmas Market.

Bavarian-style huts line the streets and town square.  These huts are filled with goods from both local and non-local Artisans and lots, and lots of great food!  The market is open starting the final weekend of November and three weekends in December.  The Artisans change daily so if you live nearby, you may want to come more than once!  

Because this is Wisconsin it does get cold, so they have plenty of fire pits to warm up!  We enjoyed all our food while standing near a toasty fire.  Pictured below are roasted pralines!

I wish we could have been there at night to see the place all lit up.  I can only imagine how beautiful it must be with all the stringed lights I saw.

There are 27 vendor huts in all, located in three clusters in the downtown area:  Meuller Square (pictured above), Creekside Village (pictured below), and Love Lock Village (named after it's Love Lock Bridge ).

Sparta's Kristkindlmarkt is inspired by Germany's Christkindlmarkt.  I would have preferred they would have kept the "Christ" in their celebration and not changed the name.  Christkindlmarkt  is literally translated to "Christ-Child Market". It is a German tradition dating back to medieval times where an outdoor street market is held during the four weeks of Advent. 

There is a full schedule of holiday entertainment at Kriskindlmarkt too.  Some events are a holiday evening parade, musical performances, chainsaw-carving, and an appearance by Santa and Mrs. Claus.

We arrived right at lunch time and spent most of our time eating.  In addition to the roasted nuts, we had a Bavarian pretzel (best pretzel I ever had!),  German sausage, and a blueberry crepe.  I was stuffed by the time we left!

Of course we had to get our photo taken on "Love Lock Bridge".  Yes, the bridge had plenty of locks on it from romantic couples dedicating their undying love.

I had never been to Sparta before and I was pleasantly surprised at what a pretty downtown park and Main Street they had.

This lady worked tirelessly making crepes!  She was so busy!

We sat down at a table on Main Street to eat our crepe, and I enjoyed people watching and looking at all the pretty historic downtown buildings.

The local stores were all open for business, and they were enjoying the traffic.  I couldn't help to think how much this event helps the small businesses!

We visited all the stores, but we were especially impressed with "Ginny's Cupboard".  We went inside to look around and we just loved the old fashioned decor.  The food looked great too, but we were so full from the market food we didn't order anything here.  I would love to come back sometime just to eat here.  

 Sparta's Kriskindlmarkt received the State of Wisconsin tourism Award for Innovation.  It has also been named the best Kridkindlmarkt in Wisconsin by travel bloggers.  

We had a blast at the market, and plan to go back next year.  I'd love to rent a hotel room so I could enjoy seeing the market at night.  It was my very first experience at a Christmas market, so it was exciting and new for me...as I'm sure you could tell by the joy on my face!

Have A Great Day!  Amy

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Exploring the Natural Attractions and Flower Gardens of Mackinac Island and A Quick Stop at Oswald Bear Ranch

This post is part four of a travel series to Michigan's Upper Peninsula.   To start at the beginning go  HERE.  The remaining posts in consecutive order are HERE and HERE.

For my third and final post of Mackinac Island, I wanted to share some little tidbits of other points of interests on the island, like its natural attractions such as Arch Rock pictured below.  Then I'm going to pivot to a brief stop we made at a bear ranch enroute to our next destination in the Upper Peninsula.

Arch Rock

After spending some time on the porch of The Grand Hotel, we headed up the West Bluff to see the grand mansions and take a walk along the lakeshore.  These are some of the views you see from the top of the bluff.

Mackinac Island is much more than fine restaurants, beautiful homes, and shopping.  The island is actually 80% park and has 70+ miles of trails!  I wish we had the time to have hiked these trails, but we were only there for one day so we were only able to hike along the lakeshore if we wanted time for other activities on the island.  

We decided "Devil's Kitchen" and "Chimney Rock" sounded interesting so we took the "Pontiac Trail" from West Bluff Road to the Lakeshore.  It says on the sign that there are not any stairs, but I assure you, there are stairs down to the water.

See!  Here are the stairs!  They look new, which makes me wonder if the sign is just old and needs to be updated.

Walking along the lakeshore on Mackinac Island is a beautiful, serene experience.  However, if I had to do it all over again I would have rented or brought a bike because it's a long hike and we quickly tired.  We saw a lovely lighthouse.

And more great views of the famous Mackinaw Bridge.

People often ask when is the best time to visit Mackinac Island and that is hard to answer.  Some people love to go in the fall to see the beauty of the fall foliage.  Other's prefer summer because some days Mackinac Island can be quite chilly and a summer visit might assure one of warmer temperatures.  We chose spring because many, many years ago I read an article about how the island is home to hundreds of different lilac bushes.  These bushes aren't native to the island, but were brought over by Dutch and French immigrants.  Today, Mackinac Island has more than 250 varieties of lilacs and is home to some of the oldest and largest lilacs in the world.  The island even has a special "Lilac Festival" in June to celebrate the lilac blooms.

We were on the island after Memorial Day so we were there before the lilacs were in peak bloom.  However, we did see lots of lilacs in bloom, like the one below!

While walking along the lakeshore below the west bluff, you will walk right past "Devil's Kitchen", so it's hard to miss!

We continued to walk for quite a bit more hoping to see Chimney Rock but started to grow tired (keep in mind, we have been walking ever since we departed the ferry) and decided to turn around.  We made a good choice as I don't think one can even see Chimney Rock from the bottom of the lakeshore as it is high above the bluff.  We do think we saw it on our ferry ride back to the mainland.  We found out later that Chimney Rock is a inland hike one takes on top of the bluff to watch the sunset, so it's a good thing we turned around.

After we turned back from our lakeshore hike, we had to walk through town again to get to the East Bluff area to see the Arch Rock.  I was determined not to leave the island until I got to see this natural wonder!  I enjoyed walking through the town once more so I could pay more attention to the beautiful flower gardens.  On my first walk through, I was too enamored with all the historic buildings to notice the flowers much.

When we first got off the ferry we headed straight west to The Grand Hotel, now we were walking east to see Arch Rock and we got to see some new sights like Fort Mackinac!

Fort Mackinac is a restored fort that has demonstrations and tours by costume interpreters throughout the day.  We didn't buy tickets to see the fort because we were only on Mackinac Island for one day and didn't have the time.  If I ever go back though, I would love to see it!

We walked past a lovely marina on our way to Arch Rock.

The farther along the east shoreline we walked, it seemed to get less busy, and more serene and lovely.  

I fell in love with this grassy area surrounded by a bed of tulips with the lake in the horizon.

This area even had a lovely gazebo.  I wonder if anyone ever got married here?  

Eventually as you keep walking east along the lakeshore you run out of civilization and right into Mackinac Island State Park.

We finally made it to Arch Rock and it was as beautiful as I had seen in photos!  It was worth every step!

By now we were pretty tired from all the walking (can I say one more time I wish we had rented or brought our bikes) and after looking at a map we took a shortcut back to the ferry via Arch Rock Road.  It was such a lovely jaunt through the woods and we saw some cute B&B's that were nestled on wooded lots plus we got the backside view of Fort Mackinac and we saw the Governor's Residence.  We came across this sign below and it made me wish we had more time and energy to see more, but it also gave me incentive to come back another day.  If you ever plan to visit Mackinac Island I would recommend at least two or three days to visit if you want to do more than just walk the Main Street and see The Grand Hotel.

Once we were back in St. Ignace we popped over to this little stand that was right across the street from our hotel.  We were amused that there was such a huge Packer fan in Michigan, but I think you can find Packer Fans just about anywhere. 

We picked up some smoked fish to eat on the trails we intended to hike in the next few days.   One fish lasted quite a long time, and it was quite tasty too!

For dinner that night, we headed to the famous "Clydes Drive In":  A vintage burger joint known for their 3/4 lb burgers.  They were delicious!

Enjoying a Clyde's Drive-In Burger!

The next morning we packed up our bags and said our goodbye's to St. Ignace and started the trek to Tahqueamnon Falls State Park, which I will cover next week.  On our way there we made a quick pit stop to Oswald's Bear Ranch.

My husband loves bears, so this was a thrill for him.  Oswald's is the largest bear ranch in the United States.  The bears are rescued bears brought here to continue their lives in natural habitats and comfort.  The bears are separated by sex in huge habitats of 1/4-1/3 mile perimeters and one habitat even includes a waterfall!

It costs $25 per car load to enter the ranch, or $15 a lone visitor.  You can also pay extra to feed the bears apples or have your photo taken with the baby bear cubs.

Our favorite part of our visit, was watching the baby cubs play!  Be sure to watch the video to see them in action. They sure seemed happy!

Next week I will continue this travel series with a visit to Tahquamenon Falls State Park.

Have A Great Day!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!