We like festivals, and we like horses, so why not check out what the Pferdemarkt (horse festival) is? We heard about the Leonberg Horse Market, and figured it was a good excuse to get out of the house since this was a down weekend for us.

A 15-minute drive, we opted for an hour on the train to see some different scenery and to allow us both to have an adult beverage or three.

The event itself isn’t set up very well, like a typical German CristMarkt, but smaller and split up between the old town center where the bands were and the city park where the horse market was.

With our limited German, we saw no obvious signs of where to go once we realized that there wasn’t a single horse downtown. After watching the general direction that people were coming and going, we deduced that there was something else happening and finally made it to the arena/park.

Very interesting shows, with riders galloping around the ring carrying (mostly) full beer steins, a girl standing on the back of two horses as they trotted around, and some pageantry whose symbolism was completely lost on us.

Good times when you have a beer in hand and nothing else to do, but the real question – would we go again? Probably not unless we had winter cabin fever and needed to go to something local. Still very cool to see, taking in the German culture one bite at a time.

Witches In The Windows

Witches, windows, and a random guy climbing a ladder trying to sneak in. Makes absolutely no sense to us, but it’s all fun nonetheless.

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The Mad Baker

It looks like this statue is about to lay the smack down with a rolling pin

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Ponies

Well, it is a horse festival, so one must have horse photos!

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The Staredown

This guy wins the staredown contest.

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Shiver Me Timbers

We love the traditional German half-timbered houses here in the Leonberg Rathausplatz

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Leonberg Berliner

We’re not much on pastries, but since we’ve never had a Berliner before, and it’s decorated like a horse …

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