Leavenworth, the Bavarian Village

The penultimate Saturday of my work trip in the US saw us driving to Leavenworth, a town located in central Washington with the entire town centre completely modelled after a Bavarian village in the 1960s. Naturally this town became a major tourist attraction with festivals and activities organised year round to keep up the hype. P really wanted to visit for the beer and the sausages while I was sold when I heard about the Christmas lightings. Since it wasn’t too far a drive from Everett, we left it as one of our final day trips before we flew home.

It was very scenic along the way since Leavenworth is located within the Cascade Mountains and was an apt precursor to how the town would look like. As usual, I didn’t embark on any research, leaving all the decision-making to P our exceedingly competent trips organiser. We made a quick stop at the entrance to the town to take pictures of and with this welcoming board.

We walked into the town and saw the signature Bavarian architecture along the beautiful main street. It felt like we were instantly transported to the European continent. The multitude of visitors ambling about was evident of the popularity of this town as a weekend getaway. Apparently everyone shared the same braincell: most of us wanted to arrive at the town early enough to enjoy the atmosphere while there was light but were all eagerly awaiting the Christmas light-up.

It looked like the children were having loads of fun sledding down the gentle slopes and I envied them. To be honest, I wished I were a child again, living in the moment with no cares in the world except for going down the slope as quickly as possible and making a splendid landing. Also, I was secretly envious of the way they were all warmly bundled up because I was starting to feel the chills, having been out in the open for a while. My two companions were feeling the same way, so we started exploring the retails shops instead, admittedly it was mostly for their heated spaces.

By and by, the small town got more and more crowded as visitors drove their way here before dark and getting harder to move around with hindrance.The sun was setting, so was the temperature dipping rapidly. Most revellers began drinking German beer or mulled wine to keep warm, but since I enjoyed neither, I continued suffering the cold in silence. It was an unfortunate circumstance that the sausage bun I ate did little to elevate my little problem that was frozen fingers.

And night fell. Everyone gathered and huddled closely together in the central square and in the darkness, waited with frozen, bated breath for the instance when we would be greeted with the awesome Christmas lights. We were not disappointed; the atmosphere was magical and brought back fond memories of what I felt as an eleven-year old in California Disneyland near Christmas. This was even better, with real snow!

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I took a gazillion number of pictures after the light-up but only these few made the cut. The difficulty of taking pictures at night is very real for an amateurish photographers, and it showed in how many of them I had to painfully reject. Few there might be, they were enough to bring back the memories of that evening in the magical town nestled within the Cascade Mountains. Although I’m not fond of driving in winter, I would love to bring the mister back to visit one day.