To be honest: I don't like nowadays' Christmas fairs. Especially the markets scattered about the lovely city of Düsseldorf attract masses of shopping tourists from many different countries (especially the Netherlands) that diffuse all around the city. This is true for the weekends, but also for all other weekdays and most of the time streets are crowded with people. There's no fun with this, and I don't understand why people will travel hundreds of miles or kilometers just to drop in here.

It's time to escape. To keep it simple, we'll just use our imagination and the web. There are plenty of places, real or virtual, where you won't meet any pro-shopper. So let's get started.

We're beginning with Australia's western coastline, a very remote place that has been discovered by Dutchmen in the 17th century, but now they're gone and chances are big that you'll meet virtually no human being at all. This coastline stretches several miles north from Kalbarri to the Shark Bay and it looks like it was broken away from a past counterpart. Huge dunes. This is the place where 700 ton VOC ship Zuytdorp (or Zuyddorp), captained by Marinus Wijsvliet, was wrecked on the coast of New Holland (now better known as Australia).

You might notice that I was initially searching for Dirk Hartog island, Australia's biggest and most western island, situated at Shark Bay. It's eastern coast is one endless beach. See? No Christmas market here.