Winter has well and truly arrived in the UK and Christmas is almost upon us. We decided to head to Portsmouth on Sunday to what is described as the 'third best xmas market in the UK' - what a title. So we bundled up really warm (we had sooo many layers on cos it has been freezing!) and headed in to enjoy the Victorian themed market.
The market was held at the Historic Dockyard on the waterfront and as well as having heaps of stalls there were people everywhere in period costume. It was hilarious and so much fun! There was one street that had snow machines, victorian facades, a bawdy house with 'ladies of ill repute' screaming at passerbys, old people sitting on stoops smoking pipes... the lot! It was pretty incredible and seemed to involve a large theatric society of some sort.
We wamed up with mulled wine, pear cider and warm ale... all very traditional - the warm ale was really interesting, basically they put sugar, cinnamon and spices with rum in a the bottom of a glass, fill it with ale and then take an iron poker out of the fire (off the coals) and stir the ale. The glass froths up and warms through really quickly.... apparently we can do this at home with a microwave... but lets face it most of the allure was in the fact that you got to stir it up with a whtie hot iron poker!
We also sampled lots of other food and came away with no so traditional cheeses, chocolate coated strawberries, fudge and other yummy treats. We toured through the HMS Victory, a huge ship that has been restored and shows how they sailed back in the olden days! We watched how rope was made and had a go on some of the 'fairground' type attractions. All in all it was a really fun day, despite the cold and was so impressive to see how much people got into the spirit of things.
We understand that this is just a taster to the way that the xmas markets work in Europe, so are looking forward to heading to one of those in the next fortnight!
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