The Manor Pronstorf is located not far from Bad Segeberg in Schleswig-Holstein. It offers during the Advent weekends a wonderful Christmas market with thousands of lights and a huge variety of handcraft stands. It’s an amazing place to visit.
What I love most around the Christmas time are the markets. Not the Christmas markets in big cities, they offer mainly a lot to eat and drink, music and usual not-really-interesting-anymore-stuff to buy. I love the Christmas markets on the many manors, in little museums or old barns. They offer a world of handcrafts, of incredible ideas and the wonderful Christmas feeling with thousands of lights, oftentimes real candles. Just that atmosphere that gives you the solemn feeling of this period.
My friend told me about the manor already a few weeks ago, that she loves the incredible variety of the handcrafts, the whole atmosphere and the possibility for a nice cup of coffee. I was looking forward to know this place.
Pronstorf is a little village, typical for this area in Schleswig-Holstein. A lot of old farm houses, an old church made of field stones and of course the manor. You can find also a lot of tumuli around the village, witnesses of a long gone time.
The manor is still in the ownership of the same family – the Rantzau family. The Count and the Countess are still living in the main house. The manor was built in the 18th century (1716) and is built in the Baroque architecture style. Before the new house there was already a castle – owned by the same family and knights of the Danish king. The Manor has more than a thousand hectare and the owner is using it very well. Mainly living from agriculture, it is used also for touristic purpose. There is a hotel on the manor, there are famous music festivals during summer-time and in the winter-time we can enjoy a wonderful Christmas market. You can also rent rooms for a private event like wedding or even a congress.
The gatehouse is one of the biggest in the whole region, and even bigger than the main house. Here on one side you find also a big cafeteria with freshly made cake.
We paid a little fee to enter the court. Entering by the gate house you are greeted by the many lights and little huts full of the nicest handcrafts for Christmas. It took us hours to see more or less all the many stands, we bought a few things, had a great coffee and some of us (we were a group of 5) had cake. We stayed until closing-time. I enjoyed it very much. Lucky how I am, my camera didn’t want to work as the battery was dead. Not that dead though, as it took a few pictures anyway. That’s why I am so lucky!
I don’t know where I will be next year this period but I am sure I would really like to visit the Gut Pronstorf again. Maybe also in summer for some intriguing concert. Being a hotel-guest I could listen to the concert for free … Something to think about maybe?
Manor Pronstorf, Schleswig-Holstein/Germany:
For further information:
Gut Pronstorf (in German)
How do you restrain yourself from splurging on so many lovely handcrafted items? I also enjoy the wonderful pictures in the slideshow at the bottom of the page.