EVERY year, a scenic gorge in Germany’s Black Forest is transformed into a charming Christmas market with over 40 stalls and live music performances.

Ravenna Gorge Christmas Market, also known as Ravennaschlucht Weihnachtsmarkt, is located between Hinterzarten and Freiburg in southern Germany.

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The German Christmas market is set underneath the 40m-high Höllental Railway Viaduct, making it look like it’s been plucked straight from a Harry Potter film.

Ravenna Gorge Christmas Market first started as a small gathering of local vendors in the early 20th century.

However, it has since become one of the region’s most popular festive markets.

The viaduct is lit up during the festive period, with wooden huts and snow-dusted trees lining the bottom of the gorge.

The Christmas market is home to over 40 stalls that sell a range of handmade items, including wooden toys, cuckoo clocks and ornaments.

There’s also a range of food and drink vendors serving a range of local grub like Bratwurst, Flammkuchen (smoky German pizza), fire-roasted nuts and crepes.

Traditional choirs and bands perform at the Christmas market, while a series of live demonstrations also take place.

Younger guests can also take part in a Christmas quiz and follow a nativity trail.

Ravenna Gorge Christmas Market even has its own post office where younger visitors can send letters to Father Christmas.

Previous visitors have raved about the Christmas market.

Travel blogger Prost with the Proppes writing: “The Christmas market at Ravenna Gorge is one of the most magical we have been to.

“The market is smaller than the ones in bigger cities, therefore I don’t think you need more than a day or two.”

Another travel blogger, known as A Dangerous Business, added: “This magical Christmas market in the woods lived up to all my expectations.”

Ravenna Gorge Christmas Market will open to the public on select dates in November and December.

The Christmas market will be open on November 22, 23, 29, and 30, and it will also be open on December 1, 6, 7, 8, 13, 14 and 15.

The market will be open from 3pm to 9pm every Friday, opening an hour earlier on Saturdays and Sundays.

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Entry tickets cost €5.50 (£4.60) for adults who arrive before 4pm, with this fee rising to €7.50 (£6.27) for entrants who arrive after this time.

Tickets for children aged between six and 15 are free.

Shuttle services operate from several nearby towns and villages, including Titisee, Hinterzarten, Himmelreich and Freiburg.

Children will need to pay €2 (£1.67) to board the shuttle service from Titisee, Hinterzarten and Himmelreich, with shuttle services from Freiburg costing €28 (£23.41).

Visitors can also book onto torchlight hikes, lantern walks and winter hikes to the Christmas Market.

EuroAirport Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg is the closest airport to the Christmas market, with British Airways and easyJet both operating a direct route from London.

One-way fares start from £15 in December, with return fares from as little as £32.

Meanwhile, this travel writer thinks their hometown has the best Christmas attraction in the UK.

A city in Germany has been dubbed “Christmas city” because it has one of the world’s oldest and most famous Christmas markets.

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A MULTI-million indoor water attraction is to finally start works in the UK – years after being first announced.

Therme Manchester revealed plans for the £250million resort back in 2020, being dubbed the ‘UK’s first wellbeing resort’.

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Initially hoping to have opened in 2024 – only to be delayed by the pandemic – works are set to finally start next year.

James Whittaker, Executive Director of Development at Peel L&P said: “After five years working in partnership with Therme, we are delighted to hear planning permission has been approved for this incredible, high-quality health and wellbeing resort in TraffordCity.

“We’re looking forward to working closely with the whole of the Therme team to deliver something truly unique and iconic in the UK.

“Not only world-leading for health and wellbeing, but will also create a significant number of new jobs and have a huge positive economic impact for North West England.”

The huge indoor attraction will be in Manchester’s former EventCity conference centre next to the Trafford Centre.

While primarily indoors, it will also have some outdoor experiences.

Spread across 28 acres, Therme Manchester will include:

• 25 swimming pools (including a wave pool)
• 35 water slides
• UK’s first all-season indoor beach
• Wellness area with steam rooms and spas
• Adult-only zones
• Swim up bars
• Restaurants and cafes
• Outdoor gardens

Car parking and a dedicated tram stop to the attraction are also part of the plans.

Last year, the attraction was forced to change its initial designs which would see one large attraction underneath a glass dome.

The new designs are meant to replicate “rippled waves”.

There will instead be several structures connected with a “pavilion style concept”.

The website says: “Set to welcome 1.7 million guests in its first year, guests at Therme Manchester will enjoy a year-round 33°C indoor climate made possible with a sustainable glass infrastructure amid warm water lagoons, botanical gardens and palm trees.”

David Russell, chief executive of Therme Group UK previously said: “This development will stand as a beacon of wellbeing and innovation, contributing to the cultural and social fabric of Greater Manchester.”

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The current opening timeline is 2027, although this could be delayed.

Works are estimated to take between 24 and 30 months.

Ticket prices are also yet to be confirmed.

If you can’t wait, Therme has a number of other similar attractions around the world.

Inside the Therme Bucharest attraction

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The Sun’s Steve Corbett recently visited the Romanian Therme attraction

Picture one of those famous Center Parcs domes, then imagine it seven times bigger.

Therme has its own exotic climate — the air temperature never drops below 30C — so you’ll see bananas and coconuts growing on some of its cherished 800,000 trees, plants and living walls.

Then there’s everything you can see and do inside the waterpark-spa hybrid, from whirling water slides for kids to high-tech treatments for couples and poolside bars, with DJs, that stag and hen parties would love.

Grown-ups can enjoy a hydro-massage bed, visit “wet saunas” — some of which are infused with botanicals and herbs — and sit in a relaxing salt library, with walls built from blocks on Himalayan salt, known for its medicinal and mental health benefits.

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Make sure to stay until the early evening if you fancy a bit of a boogie.

Open until midnight, the place becomes an Instagrammer’s paradise after sunset, with a DJ delivering energetic vibes.

Best of all, a day ticket, offering full access, costs from just £28.

Romania has it’s own Therme Bucharest, although the Manchester attraction will be double the size.

And a new Therme resort is to be built in Ontario in Canada.

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“The very air here is miraculous, and outlines the reality of change with the moment…. a dream hangs over the whole region….” John Steinbeck, The Log from the Sea of Cortez, Los Cabos, Mexico

In 1940, author John Steinbeck sailed from Monterey, California, to explore the narrow gulf  between Baja California and mainland Mexico. The goal of this trip, documented in his book, The Log from the Sea of Cortez, was to collect marine samples in order to better understand the ecology of the unexplored, mysterious gulf.

Christian Horan Photography, Four Seasons Resort Los Cabos at Costa Palmas

By the 1950s, the same southeast coast of Mexico’s Baja had become the hidden-in-plain-sight playground of California celebrities and Texas fishermen. The celebrities flew their small planes to reach an undisturbed landscape on the Sea of Cortez. Yet, thankfully, much of the East Cape area is, miraculously, still untouched, still serene. 

Now, upon landing at Los Cabos International Airport, guests of The Four Seasons Resort Los Cabos at Costa Palmas turn left, while other Cabo groups turn right. These directions define two varying views of vacation: turning right, there are Cabo resorts where tourist groups play and party well into the night. But, turning left, guests embark to another place, another life: on a 45-minute drive through open desert and sky before reaching the still private, still serene East Cape of the Baja Peninsula, and the Resort. 

Christian Horan Photography, Four Seasons Resort Los Cabos at Costa Palmas

Situated on 2 miles of a quiet, white sand beach, The Four Seasons Resort Los Cabos at Costa Palmas overlooks a calm Sea of Cortez, now a UNESCO Marine Heritage site. It is a site that Jacques Cousteau once said was, “the aquarium of the world,” as 900 species of fish swim these waters.

Though over an hour away from any other major Cabo resort, The Four Seasons Resort Los Cabos at Costa Palmas has been awarded recognition on this year’s Town & Country Magazine’s 2020 Best New Hotels in the World list, marking the third accolade of this kind for the resort. Winners are selected on the recommendations of a roundtable of the world’s top travel specialists and is the only property in Mexico to have been chosen for this list. 

Christian Horan Photography, Four Seasons Resort Los Cabos at Costa Palmas

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Sailing From The Resort’s Private Marina

Christian Horan Photography, Four Seasons Resort Los Cabos at Costa Palmas

The Four Seasons Resort Los Cabos at Costa Palmas has its doors open and offers open-air public spaces including the lobby and almost all dining venues.  It has a low-lying architectural footprint with no need for shared elevators or hallways, six pools and a two-mile swimmable beach that allows for a particular sanctuaried relaxation. 

Isolated from the tourist corridor, the East Cape and the Resort landscape is rich in nature — with hidden waterfall exploration, desert dune off-roading, and snorkeling in one of the most biologically diverse bodies of water in the world. The guests may also set sail out of the Resort’s private marina. 

Christian Horan Photography, Four Seasons Resort Los Cabos at Costa Palmas

But, no matter how serene the Resort is, it still resides right now, in a new travel environment.  With that in mind, Four Seasons Resorts have embarked on an enhanced global health and safety program, Lead With Care, that bolsters the brand’s already stringent health and safety policies and procedures. Grounded in health care expertise and enabled by access to leading experts, technologies and tools, Lead With Care sets out clear procedures that educate and empower employees to take care of guests and each other. The program is focused on providing care, confidence and comfort within the new travel environment and beyond. Four Seasons App and Chat also provides guests with real-time, contactless interactions with employees from their own device on nine global platforms and in 100+ different languages.

Steinbeck, were he alive today, would surely have been pleased with this resort’s attention to ecological and eco-cultural detail, where nature and culture are both enhanced through its attention to environmental and personal health.  The dream, as he described it 80 years ago, “still hangs over the whole region.” And the very air still feels miraculous. 

Christian Horan Photography, Four Seasons Resort Los Cabos at Costa Palmas

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