Looks around Leavenworth, WA

During our stay, it was very cool and misty, with rain everyday except for of course, the day we left when it was clear and sunny and bright. But, I liked the mysterious romantic atmosphere of the mist that would envelope the snowy mountains. On Friday morning after Thanksgiving, we took a walk around 10am or so, when the streets were still relatively empty as most of the stores and the Christkindlmarkt had not opened yet. Our walk included a visit to Waterfront Park as well as up and down the town to admire the Bavarian theme of the buildings and some of the holiday decorations that were up already.

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Looking around Leavenworth- morning at the Front Street park overlooking into the yet to open Christkindlmarkt from our rental condo above the pharmacy. Our rental condo is across the street from the Gazebo, where we would be able to watch the opening Welcome ceremony with St Nick, Mr and Mrs Claus, and the Christkind or listen to the live music from our balcony, conveniently located right in the middle of Leavenworth on Front Street, so smack dab in the middle of everything.
 

Here are some shots I took capturing the Bavarian buildings, holiday decorations (more were going up in anticipation of the Christmas Lighting festival that starts next weekend) and the misty mountains you can see surrounding town. Hopefully this gives you a good feel of the charm of this little town. In my next post, I will show you some more of the beautiful misty mountains from the Waterfront Park walk we took
 

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Leavenworth, Washington- Thanksgiving Destination 2012

Leavenworth is a village in Washington state, approximately 5 hours N of Portland, Oregon or a little more than 2 hours east of Seattle. Or, instead of driving, take the Amtrak to Leavenworth "Icicle" Station (LWA) .

In researching this town, I was impressed by the
Leavenworth City Website– they have really good website information architecture,
including one whole section where you can be guided for more information
on exactly what a resident cares about, varying from building things on
your property or destroying/getting rid of things or paying for various
utility services. Good job website designer for the city of
Leavenworth!

What makes Leavenworth unique is that this former logging town, trying to save itself when the Railway Company rerouted elsewhere and the sawmill closed ending the logging business, decided to turn Leavenworth into a Bavarian-themed tourist destination. Their bet was to draw visitors in by offering a taste of Germany, leveraging their natural snow capped alpine mountains (the Cascade mountains to be exact) around them and a little extra work to the town itself. This includes Tudor revival architecture to give the impression of an Alpine village, old fashioned lamp posts and imported German chefs, a Bavarian Village style shopping area of Front Street boasting beer halls and nutcrackers and chocolates and bratwurst, an Autumn Maifest, one of the largest Oktoberfest celebrations outside of Munich, and an annual Bavarian Christmas celebration.

This will be our destination for Thanksgiving. During the weekend immediately following Thanksgiving, it still be too early for their full Christmas celebration season, as it is still before their Christmas Lighting Festival (which occurs the next 3 weekends when it's December proper). But, they will have a Christkindlemarkt all weekend right after Thanksgiving. These are Christmas markets that are in towns where local tradesman and artisans sell their craft, so are usually full of lots of unique homemade items for sale and which will include some items which are specialties of that region.

I've always wanted to have a European holiday experience. Yet, the very first time I went to Europe was just earlier this year. My trip then was for work and only included a few days in Germany (mostly Munich- although I did get to stop and have a visit at Nuremberg on the way there from Frankfurt)- work obligations had me continue on to Asia for more work instead of being able to visit a little longer. Being there in February gave me a chance to enjoy some of the snow crunching under my boots (which I then discovered had a hole in them!) and chilled crisp air, but without the benefit of the smell of sweet candies or spiced breads or sights of nutcrackers and other carved handicraft goods.

When I lived in Chicago, there was a Christkindlmarkt that they had downtown that I would visit every year, and I could never say no to the latkes and pierogi and spiced cider and stollen… but it's been 4 years since I have visited one.

So, I can't wait for Leavenworth! Can you tell I'm quite excited!?! Here's some examples of my list of hopeful to-dos in Leavenworth… we'll see what I report back.

There are also a lot of wine tasting room options, though I won't list them now. But I will leave this Woody Goomsba video, which is a character starring in a  video among several in his Youtube channel created to promote tourism to Leavenworth, here…

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