Locals and visitors to the city love the market and decorations on Vienna’s Rathausplatz (City Hall Square).

The Magic of Advent in Vienna is a favorite place to meet, with many visitors returning several times each season. Young families, teens and tourists are particularly enchanted by the yuletide atmosphere on City Hall Square. It comes as no surprise that the Magic of Advent in Vienna is known as Europe’s most child-friendly Christmas market.

A new lighting concept featuring a number of additions will ensure that the Magic of Advent in Vienna makes a still more dazzling impression this year. Still more glittering lamps will enhance the festive atmosphere, drawing visitors away for a gentle stroll apart from the hubbub of the main market.

A tour of the beautifully decorated Rathauspark – where the famous Heart Tree, festooned with 280 glowing hearts, awaits – has written the opening chapter to many a love story over the years. And perhaps you will meet the Vienna Christ Child on its walk around the park, or listen when it reads a Christmas story in front of the crib.

There is a packed program of arts and crafts for kids and teens at the Christmas workshop. During the six weeks of the Magic of Advent, youngsters are hard at work painting, shaping, turning, sawing, stenciling, applying glitter, threading beads, sticking, firing, decorating and packing as they create a total of around 70,000 presents for their parents and grandparents. Over the years the Christmas workshops have featured virtually every imaginable art and craft. Some of the creative spirits who tried their hand at arts and crafts in the workshops back in the 1980s are now returning as adults, and can’t wait for their own children’s first cookies and artwork.

The vibrant and colorful Christmas market, offering a vast array of Christmas handicrafts, tree decorations and other yuletide gift ideas, is the centerpiece of the Magic of Advent in Vienna.

Evocative Advent aromas, festive concerts, a tall tree blazing with countless Christmas lights against the backdrop of City Hall, and the enchantingly decorated Rathauspark are just some of the highlights that give the Magic of Advent in Vienna its unique appeal.

This year the official opening will take place on November 13 and run until 6 p.m. on December 24, when Christmas really is just around the corner.

A copy of the free Magic of Advent brochure can be obtained from branches of the Austrian National Tourist Office or the Vienna Tourist Board by calling

(+43 1) 24 555, Fax: (+43 1) 24 555 666.

Source: http://www.christkindlmarkt.at/English.39.0.html

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CNN) In Germany and its European neighbors Austria and Switzerland, a long weekend in a converted barn – sleeping on a bed of freshly raked hay – is fast becoming the ‘staycation’ of choice.

Heuhotels (‘heu’ is German for hay) offer exactly what their name suggests. For as little as eight euros ($11) a night backpackers, couples, families and, in the case of one “hay hotel” in central Germany – ‘groups of up to 60′ – can rest their heads in a way nature intended. They are popular among lovers seeking romps in the hay, say hotel staff.

With private bedrooms and the option for “real” beds, the ‘Zum Alten Marstall’ is at the “luxury” end of the market. It also takes advantage of its position at the foot of the 11th century Castle Guttenberg…

Read the full Story by Georg Webster for CNN

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