Best European Christmas market for city break?

[incognitopurple]

Really torn. We have 3 days to spend somewhere, I adore Christmas and want to go somewhere super festive. Recommendations?

Currently considering Prague, Berlin and Cologne. Open to comments on all of these or suggestions for anywhere else.

I did Vienna Xmas markets in 2019. We had a lovely time. No snow though. we we’re able to walk everywhere around the city.
mum thinking of Berlin this year…

Vienna is great

These sound amazing too.

I shall look forward to reading the OP’s thoughts! And then....what accommodation?

We’ve booked Copenhagen this year! So I’m glad to see it’s been mentioned a couple of times.

Vienna, Nuremberg, and Prague were also on our shortlist.

Oh thanks for this thread OP! I recommend Berlin and Copenhagen. Berlin has loads of markets everywhere and Copenhagen is super festive.

I'm just at the point of booking our trip, but I'll have two small DCs so leaning towards Paris so we can take the train. May also train to Brugge!

Don't do Berlin, we were disappointed with the markets. Cologne is lovely. Strasbourg another option. I haven't been to Prague but it's supposed to be beautiful l

Munich was amazing, particularly combined with a day trip to Neuschwanstein castle. I think there was even a Christmas tram serving glühwein, although this was before the pandemic. My parents used to go to a different German city every year and know they rated Nuremberg as per PP.

You said not the UK but Edinburgh has a fantastic one and contrary to what others have said, it absolutely did have the atmosphere of the German markets.

But otherwise Cologne is good, very accessible by train, and has lots of different markets - you also have Bonn, Duesseldorf and Aachen down the road so can go to different ones outside Cologne as well. Frankfurt is good too and has frequent flights. Nuremberg is also great but not as easy to get to compared with Cologne and Frankfurt.

Strasbourg is also worth considering and is also very accessible by train via Paris (takes about 2.5 hours from Paris).

Agree that Feuerzangenbowle is better than Gluehwein, although Frankfurt used to have a stall that used a stronger red wine for its Gluehwein and it was yummy!

@ludocris is Krakow Christmas market any good? I'm looking at going at some point

Perhaps a bit less easy to get to, will need a car, but Monschau is truly magical. Aachen also good.

I've been to Cologne which had a nice atmosphere, so I'd recommend. We've booked to go to Krakow this year so hopefully it's a good one!

We went to Berlin for the Christmas markets. Loved the city so much but didn't rate the Christmas markets particularly. I got a few decorations from a shop just down from our hotel and some truly beautiful Christmas cards from a shop in the mall. I would like to go back to try again and see a bit more of Berlin but maybe try elsewhere for the markets...

We're doing Vienna this year. German ones normally great. Avoid Bruges like the plague if going for markets, they were dire.

If you're just going for the market, no. Small, heaving and expensive

Another vote for the Vienna markets. Really lovely, lots of other things to do too, and so easy to get around by tube.

Biased, but I love Manchester (also Jewish , so shouldn't really do Christmas Markets)!

Vienna has nice markets and plenty else to do, we enjoyed it. Bruges, as @Whitney168 said has awful markets. We are trying Munich this year. Have done Basel too, was cold! Nice markets but expensive city and just didn't wow us.

Vienna, Innsbruck, Bozen, Bratislava. You could fly into Verona and out of Vienna or Bratislava and do all of them with fantastic scenery on the trains in between, on the Bozen to Innsbruck leg in particular.
Never been to Ljubljana in December but I’d bet they have a nice market too.

Prague, we spent Christmas 2019 there, magical just magical! But it's one of my favourite places anyway!

I agree with the PP who mentioned Cologne/Düsseldorf/Aachen. We used to live in Düsseldorf, which has its own Christmas markets - at the time they were spread out all over the town so would give you a good chance to look around too. It's also a great town for shopping in general. We also went to Cologne, which was one bigger market at the time, and Aachen, which was fabulous but absolutely heaving! Lovely town too. You could easily do all 3 in a long weekend.

I loved it!

@BishyBarnyBee Sorry but as a German I don't rate the UK ones anywhere nice.

The UK has lots of great cities and areas, we thoroughly enjoy UK breaks and holidays but if you want a Christmas market you need to go away.

OP - I would go for Munich or Vienna or Prague. If you had more time I would have suggested Nürnberg on top of Munich (direct train connection) or Rotheburg ob der Tauber.

I would go to a British one, and go the world sightseeing in longer trips.

Unless you go by train - Id get Eurostar to Paris, change and go to the one in Rome.

If that's too time consuming for a weekend then Brussels, Lille or Strasbourg by Eurostar

Another vote for Düsseldorf. The gorgeous quaint squares are so cosy and you can ramble along the Rhine river. They had a big wheel by the river the year I was there. It was magical.

I don't get the love for the Vienna markets. The bigger ones had all the same stalls and a lot of it was tat. They were also very expensive. I bought one bauble because I thought I ought to at least buy one thing. Having said that, I loved the city and I'd go again but not for the markets.

I've been to Budapest twice and loved it. The markets were lovely and felt much more authentic than Vienna. There was a lot more crafty stuff and it was very reasonable. I had to tell myself to stop buying because I just didn't have enough space in my suitcase.