Those of us who have traveled to European cities or Caribbean beaches during the summer are familiar with the throngs of tourists whose anxious bustle makes traveling hectic and exhausting. When lunch is an hour wait at every restaurant and your view of the famous attraction is obscured by a hundred cell phones taking photos no one will see, already expensive trips seem even more taxing. For those who are able to travel during the off season, the rewards far outweigh the colder weather.
I learned this lesson in the winter of 2013 when I visited Germany for the first time. The timing was intentional, I went with my grandmother to photograph the famous outdoor Christmas markets in Germany’s smaller towns and villages. It was late November and a thick blanket of snow already covered the German countryside by the time we arrived. The weather was cold, and the days were short, but the beauty was unmatched. The sun shone brightly in the clear blue sky and sparked through the frozen crystals of snow and ice that covered the ground and the trees during the day. But the true magic of the Black Forest’s winter wonderland was revealed when the sun set over the trees and we were plunged into the cold dark German winter.
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