Walked round the Christmas Market on South Bank and was a bit disappointed. It seems that there was a lot of cheap and nasty (though not cheap) mass produced stuff and lots of duplication on different stalls. There seemed very little evidence of original quality craft work bar one or two stalls. I suspect that some of the food stalls produce nice stuff but having just eaten, I did not sample any of it. Maybe a sign of the times - perhaps quality craft work is too expensive for a tourist Christmas market. Nice atmosphere though.
It's bloody awful, not a Christmas Market but yet another collection of open air take away food stalls, with some very average 'craft' stalls which stretch the definition till it snaps. The smaller one outside City Hall was even worse.
To be fair, we were in Hamburg the other week and the Christmas Markets there were almost entirely gluhwein, sausages, and gingerbread houses repeated again and again.
it's such a shame. I remember the frost fair a few years back along the river from the mayor's glass ball being rather wonderful with lots of original stalls and some pretty nifty recreated gladiator fighting in the theatre basement.
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