Esslingen has a talent many bigger cities lack: it knows how to do darkness. Once the torches are lit in Advent, the old town slips back a few centuries. Jugglers gather between the half-timbered houses, a fire-eater lights up the lane for a moment, and somewhere someone plucks a lute as if telephones had never been invented.Around 180 stalls, more than a million visitors. That sounds like a crush, and it is, if you come at the wrong time. Saturday afternoon on the Rathausplatz? I'll pass.
My hour starts later. When the prams have gone home and the lanes grow quieter, the market comes into its own. Your breath hangs in the air, the mulled wine is hot enough to warm your fingers, and in torchlight everyone looks a little more at ease. That's when I turn off the main square and into the Ritterstraße. On weekends, craftspeople show what hands can do there: felt, wood, leather, things somebody truly made. If you don't want to waste an evening, stand here longer than you would in front of the stage.
And afterwards? In Advent, gentlemen often ask me where an evening can end without feeling like an obligation. Esslingen has a few quiet addresses for that. The Leonardo Hotel Esslingen has a lounge with a fireplace and a bar, with a view over the old town. The Hotel am Schelztor is privately run, calm, and only a few minutes' walk from the market. And if you'd like a glass of sparkling wine, the Kessler Sektkellerei belongs to this town as much as its timber beams.
If you have business in Stuttgart [LINK: Stuttgart], the S-Bahn gets you there in under twenty minutes. That makes Esslingen the quiet extension of an evening that began loudly somewhere else.
The best thing about a market this size is a side effect: nobody stands out. A million people are the finest discretion one could wish for.
Esslingen in December is no secret. But in the last hour of the day, it is one.
Discreetly yours,
Lena