Best Christmas market

[Baconking]

I fancy a weekend away late Nov to visit a Christmas Market.
Either in the UK or within a couple of hours flight from London.

Any recommendations please?

i love bath christmas markets

@rosydreams

It wasn't great last year, fine if like me you are 40 minutes away but not good enough to travel to. They have all become a bit samey in recent years in my opinion

The two best ones I went to last year were Bath and Winchester.

Both Bath and Winchester are lovely cities, with good restaurants and hotels. we stayed in The Wykeham Arms in Winchester, a pub with rooms above. Good food too.

York?

Cologne does a great Christmas market.

Bath has shoppers Christmas carols in the Abbey at various times throughout the day which is lovely. However it is extremely busy.

Arras in northern France is wonderful if you want something quieter. It's a very pretty city with two beautiful squares that were rebuilt stone for stone after the war. The ww1 (Carriere Wellington) tunnels under the city are really interesting if anyone in the group wants to do something more than just shop.

I also love Budapest - the mulled wine and wooden Christmas ornaments are much more reasonably priced than in the UK. Plus we went to some fab restaurants/ruin bars and to a lovely spa

I’m close enough for a day trip and we always enjoy a festive visit to York. Their market is made up of independent local traders and they had Thors Tipi.

I second Cologne. They have several markets spread out over the city and each has a different theme… similar stalls though. Absolutely loved it - great atmosphere.

Thanks all.

I really wanted to go to Cologne but struggled to make the flight times fit so have booked Berlin for this year.

Any recommendations of things to do and see on a 2 day visit will be welcomed!

We loved Lille but it is some years ago we went.

I’ve heard Winchester is good.

More votes for Bath and Winchester.

Avoid Edinburgh, it's awful! Full of mass produced tatt, lots of stalls all selling the same thing and gets ridiculously overcrowded at weekends.

Someone told me Lincoln is good. Birmingham is good but has a lot of tat these days. Tbh I think they have all gone a bit cheap and focus more on food.

What’s your budget? Germany or Austria will be better.

You’re welcome

https://www.thetimes.com/travel/destinations/europe-travel/best-christmas-markets-holidays-rff27td28

I did Cologne last year. If you do go, avoid weekends like the plague.

It is incredibly popular, security is minimal and crowd control non-existent.

It's OK in the week but on a Saturday you are just inching along in the direction of the crowd. At one point I realised these were ideal conditions for a mass stabbing and spent the rest of the evening trying to forget that.

We ended up preferring the smaller markets in Aachen and Dusseldorf as they had the same stuff but were much more chill.

Winchester is great, and I like Edinburgh too!

We love Birmingham though for the markets, it's annual tradition now, if a little overhyped 💁‍♀️

Cardiff is really good, it's more local craftsmen with stalls rather than 20 stalls all selling the same cheese for the same price, Manchester I'm looking at you.