The most desirable period of the year to visit a city in a country where predominantly Christian Catholics live is probably December, and the second half of it?
I live in a country where the majority of the inhabitants are of the Christian, Orthodox faith, where church holidays are celebrated according to the Julian calendar, two weeks later than the Gregorian calendar, which was recognized by other churches and states.
Two weeks late, the celebration of Christmas comes to us at the beginning of January, when in the countries where Christmas is celebrated on December 25, the festive atmosphere has largely ended and the work is in full swing.
The same as we are doing now, while in other countries the festive atmosphere lasts a long time.
Because we like warm weather, we never dared to go to one of the nearby countries in the second half of December, when the weather is cold, when it snows and when the day lasts less than 9 hours.
And because the end of the year is almost always full of obligations, we need to find time for rest days.
And so, we were left with a long-standing desire to visit the Christmas market.
And we were so close a few times.
At the end of November, we saw the installation of large Christmas trees in Rome and Prague, we saw decorated streets in Vienna and Zagreb, we were in Bratislava for New Year's Eve, when the Christmas market had already been dismantled.
But we have never been to a foreign country while the Christmas market was open.
We also have several locations in cities in Serbia where small stalls with sweets, mulled wine, chimny cakes and food are set up at the beginning of december, but in december we don't have that Christmas spirit.
So for that reason, out of the desire to finally feel the debt of the Christmas market, we took the day off and made a trip to Szegedin, a city in Hungary.
Decorated streets, New Year's lights on buildings and squares, Christmas trees and light nets above the promenade, and a Christmas market set up on the square in front of the cathedral.
Crowds, inconceivably large for a small Szeged, where we used to be a only visitors in the entire square
The singing choir performing the most famous Christmas songs in front of the cathedral (they sound fantastic) gathered a large number of visitors, who, with mulled wine in their hands, stand next to the open flame and warm themselves in the cold December night.
There are kiosks with the products of small artisans, chocolate products, with the famous Hungarian chimny cakes, kettles with mulled wine for slightly older children (us, over 20 years old)....
And there are some attractions for younger children, a straw maze, riding ponies... Something for everyone.
I didn't go to a place with snow, to use that white symbol of winter to announce my post in #Winterchallenge, but from the hats that visitors to the market have on their heads, gloves on their hands and the fire that burns to warm us, you can conclude that it is still winter in the northern hemisphere of our planet.