11 December 2009
	TRAVEL Northern lights By Katy Chance

As a secular being, perhaps I'm not fully qualified to say this, but what the hell: Christmas belongs to the northern hemisphere. There's something about crisply cold, if sunny, afternoons - which rudely become night at 4 pm in a European winter - that lend themselves to wearing red, eating roasted chestnuts on street corners and going gaga over garish baubles. And nothing screams "Silent Night, Holy Night" quite like the annual Christmas Market in Basel, Switzerland. Two days before the market was officially opened in late November, the streets around Barfüsserplatz (Barefoot Square - something to do with monks arriving with no shoes a few centuries ago) were already buzzing with a merry mien. A determination to be jolly - Basel's Christmas Market Stalls were slowly being built, boxes were being unpacked, stories were being swapped and metres of Christmas lights were being wound around anything that stupidly stood still long enough. Basel is a gorgeous city (with a population of just 190 000, really a large town) and a perfect setting for Christmas festivities. There are endless tiny back streets of shops with spectacular window dressings and interiors filled with faux snow, stars, Father Christmases, baby Jesuses, trees, sleds and so on. Rather than being trapped inside, out on the streets is where the excitement of the market - and Basel's determination to be jolly - is best experienced, with larger-than-life cherubs hanging from the eaves of the pubs and restaurants; alleyways that open into impossibly pretty squares with antique shops; and cafés serving hot chocolate and spicy and never over sweet German cakes. The next day, en route to Marktplatz directly in front of Basel's rust-coloured and strikingly handsome Ratshaus (City Hall), I expected to see some expansion of the market. But it had not only doubled in size; it had grown exponentially to about eight times what it had been the day before. On the day the market was due to open - it was now 140 stalls strong - the whole town felt filled with a lighthearted tension as residents and visitors anticipated an official start to the festive season, sanctioned by the president of Basel's executive council with a speech and the flicking of a switch. Gluhwein is an imperative indulgence Actually, to avoid a power overload and its attendant black Christmas, it entailed the flicking of several switches in succession. The South Africans in the crowd understood this staggered necessity. There are inevitably stalls of candles of every colour and size, and Christmas decorations from the simple and secular to the deeply religious figurines of Jesus in various poses and the Virgin Mary (Visa and Mastercard welcome). But there are also superb hand-knitted goods; children practising their hymns near the steps of the church; chocolate, chocolate, chocolate; and an almost inconceivable variety of cakes and biscuits, from simple butter biscuits and the ginger- and nutmeg-based Lebkuchen cookies, to Fladen - "flat cake" - filled with an almond or, even better, hazelnut praline. Sometimes they're in the shape of Santa's face, which offers a macabre culinary enjoyment for non believers. It is also imperative to indulge in at least one mug of Gluhwein at the market. It is suitably sweet and poured with Swiss precision to the 200 ml mark on the mug. If you don't return the mug, you lose the deposit of three Swiss francs, but have in its stead a quite magnificent, one-off, collector's item worth at least one franc. It's essential to enjoy the Gluhwein, which is tasty and moreish, because Switzerland has the decidedly undivine capacity for turning their other wine into water. All the Swiss wines I tasted, red and white, lacked structure and complexity of any kind. And flavour. And, possibly, alcohol. After enjoying the Gluhwein and the intense pleasure of being able to walk, at night, among polite people on safe streets, even I was moved by the spirit. And it was time for the city's main Christmas tree - a perfectly vertical, light-strewn fir about 20 m high - and the festive street lighting to be turned on. Marktplatz is a five-minute march from the Christmas market and was filled with a transfixed, standing-room-only crowd staring silently at the stage, waiting for this event. I found the square easily enough; like the crowd, I simply followed what was surely the sound of a choir of angels. It turned out to be a choir of humans inspired by angels, which sounds much the same. The writer was hosted by Lufthansa and Basel Tourism