This year, a couple of friends and I booked a hotel to visit the Winchester Christmas Market in the middle of November during its opening weekend, and we had been looking forward to it for the past couple of months. This was the first weekend of the market, and it turned out to be a horrible weekend weather-wise with Storm Bert over both days. Nevertheless, we went as we had our train and hotel tickets and planned to make the most of it.
We arrived late on Saturday and had a wander around the market. The weather was very bad with wind and rain, but we made the most of it.
We had some mulled wine and walked around the rainy market and bought some items.
We had more mulled wine, which was even stronger and closer to the German version of mulled wine, gluhwein.
We had a little bit of food. I got some Indian with paneer, but it was not that enjoyable.
I had crumble for dessert, and the crumble was delicious.
Afterwards, we headed for some drinks.
We ended up at The Eclipse Inn pub and had some bubbly and mulled wine.
After a couple of mulled wines, I got a little hungry as I hadn't eaten much earlier. I bought a pizza from Three Joe's, and I shared with my friends.
The Eclipse Inn pub is a small pub near to the cathedral. I was surprised that it was not busy.
Afterwards, I had a walk around Winchester to get my steps in.
The next morning, I also woke early to take advantage of the decent weather. The rain and wind had ceased. I had a walk around Winchester and then went to the market once it opened.
I bought a few items from a couple of the sellers while my friends were sleeping in.
I had lunch booked at Bishop on the Bridge, which is a pub next to the river that I have been to before that I have enjoyed. My friends and I went straight there after they were ready. While we were there, it started to rain and the wind picked up again.
We finished the meal and headed back to the market, but three minutes from our arrival to the market, we saw that they were closing the market. The sellers that my friends wanted to go to had closed before we got to them, and we were disappointed because the day before was much worse with the weather, and it wasn't even raining (but had rained when we were inside having the meal). We eventually made our way back to London, and it was a long trip with busy trains.
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