One of the best times of the year in Germany is the Advent season in November and December, when the outdoor Christmas markets take place. Shockingly, they actually call them Christmas markets here – not holiday markets – and I’ve yet to hear of anyone being offended by this.
The markets in bigger towns and cities usually run for a month or so, but the markets in smaller towns sometimes take place only for one weekend.
We went to our first Christmas market back in 2009, before we moved to Germany. Sean had gotten an opportunity through the Coast Guard, while he was still on active duty, to go to Friedrichshafen, Germany for a couple of weeks to work. I of course flew over to meet him afterwards to travel around a bit, and the weekend I arrived in Friedrichshafen their Christmas market was going on.
Sean was very surprised when my cousin Mary and her friend Cathy, who are both from England, showed up in Friedrichshafen to meet us.
Here’s me and Mary at the Friedrichshafen Christmas market.
Notice the mugs in our hands. One of the best things about Christmas markets is that they sell Glühwein there. Glühwein is hot, mulled wine. It’s usually red wine but you can sometimes also get white or rosé wine. Red is the best, though. You can also get your Glühwein “mit Schuss”, which means with a shot. In this photo (in which I’m very tired and jet-lagged, by the way, having just landed in Germany that day after flying from Seattle) the Glühwein we’re drinking has a shot of Amaretto. It’s yummy. And somewhat dangerous. Or so I’ve heard.
Another great thing about the Christmas markets is that you can keep your hot beverage mug if you like. When you get your drink, you pay a “Pfand”, which is a deposit. The Pfand is usually around 2 Euro. If you return your mug you get your deposit back, but if you don’t mind paying 2 Euro you can just keep your mug. We have quite a mug collection by now after a few years of Christmas market-ing.
On that same trip to Europe in 2009, Sean was even more surprised when my cousins Kathleen and Deirdre showed up in Friedrichshafen. Kathleen was living in Stuttgart, Germany at the time and Deirdre was living in Dublin, Ireland at the time. Yes, we’re a very international family.
The six of us decided to visit a couple of other Christmas markets in the Friedrichshafen area. The first one we went to was in Ravensburg, about 30 minutes from Friedrichshafen. We took the train there. Unfortunately I don’t know where my photos are from this trip and all I have is the few I posted on Facebook at the time.
The only one I have from Ravensburg is cousin Mary in front of the Christmas tree.
We also went to Konstanz, about an hour away from Friedrichshafen. That trip involved a ferry ride across Lake Constance (notice a similarity to the town’s name of Konstanz? Constance is the English version), also known as the Bodensee in Germany.
Again, I can locate only one photo from the market there. I believe cousin Kathleen took this photo of me and cousin Deirdre.
At the end of the weekend we parted ways with the cousins and Cathy, and Sean and I took the train to Salzburg, Austria.
Fans of The Sound of Music movie may recognize this as the church where Maria and The Captain got married. You can see a few little Christmas market stalls set up in front of the church, but this market wasn’t open while we were visiting the church.
We did go to the main market in Salzburg, though, but those photos are among the missing as well. At that market, we drank something called Orangenpunsch. You can get this either with or without alcohol. Guess which kind we had. I liked it so much that I brought a bottle home. Simply mix with hot water and you have a delicious drink. I am here to tell you, though, that if you polish off an entire bottle by yourself, you may suffer some adverse side affects both that evening and the next morning. I’ll leave it at that.
In December of 2011, after we’d moved to Germany, we started getting serious about Christmas markets.
Our first market in 2011 was the opening night of the Wiesbaden market (about a 15 minute drive from our house) at the end of November.
As you can see, it attracted quite a crowd.
Thanksgiving Day is obviously not a holiday in Germany. Although I had the day off from work as a U.S. Federal employee, everything was business as usual in Germany. We decided to do a walking tour of Frankfurt on Thanksgiving Day in 2011, and their market had just opened as well.
This is in an area of Frankfurt known as the Römerberg (Roman Mountain). The buildings in this area were bombed during World War II but were rebuilt to look as they did originally.
I’ll post a few more photos of the Frankfurt market just because I have them.
This one shows a pretty big food and Glühwein stand.
Notice the snowman covering the trash can in the lower left-hand corner. You see a lot of this type of thing at various German festivals. They’re very creative when it comes to trash can covers.
And here you have Santa drinking a beer.
Here’s an example of the mugs I mentioned earlier. You can see that we kept two from the Frankfurt market.
You can just catch a glimpse of a candy cane with holly on the inside of the mug on the left. Nice little touch.
In 2011 we were lucky enough to have lots of visitors for the Christmas markets: my mom, my brother Ed, cousin Mary and her husband Charlie, cousin Elise and her friend Jared, cousins Deirdre and Margaret Mary, and our honorary family member Kellyanne.
My mom had arrived first and while she was here we took her to the market in Rüdesheim, a very cute little town about 40 minutes away from us.
I will have to cheat and post a photo that I took of that market in 2012 though. I don’t think I took any photos (very unlike me) while I was there in 2011.
There was no snow when we went to that market in 2011, but there was in 2012 and it was very pretty.
After the rest of the gang arrived, we all went to the markets in Wiesbaden and Mainz. I’ve already posted a photo of the Wiesbaden market so here is a photo of Mainz (also cheating as this one was taken in 2012).
The gang also went to the markets in Hochheim (the little town where we live) and Frankfurt, but I unfortunately was ill and couldn’t join them. I didn’t mind missing the Frankfurt market because I’d already been there, but was disappointed to miss the Hochheim market as it takes place for only one weekend each year.
That same year, 2011, Sean and I went to Nice, France just after Christmas. Their market was still going on. It wasn’t quite as good or as fun as the German markets but it was OK.
During the Nice trip, we made a side trip to Monte Carlo in Monaco. It’s about 45 minutes away by bus, which is how we got there. Their Christmas market was also still going on and you can catch a glimpse of it behind the marina there. Also not nearly as good as German markets.
In 2012 we really stepped it up and visited quite a lot of Christmas markets.
We went to a tiny market in the town of Geisenheim.
That market, as you can see below, had a child working at one of their Glühwein stands. Something you probably wouldn’t see in the United States.
We also went to Miltenberg, where we saw a mug shaped like a boot for the first time.
Of course that one is now part of our collection.
The same day we went to Miltenberg, we also went to the market in Michelstadt.
Yes, the Glühwein Angel was in Michelstadt!
Michelstadt had wooden Christmas-y figures throughout the town. Here you see the Three Wise Men smoking hookahs.
This building in Michelstadt – the one you see straight ahead in the photo – is their very famous town hall, which was once featured on a German postage stamp.
The town hall was built in 1484.
We also went to the market in Idstein. Here you see what’s known as the Schiefes Haus or Crooked House with some Christmas garland on it.
The building to the right of the Crooked House is the town hall.
Idstein is famous for having persecuted witches in the 17thcentury and you can see lots of witch-related things around town. They even have a Witches Market every year which is an historic celebration.
Another market we visited in 2012 was in Hanau.
Hanau is famous for being the birthplace of the Brothers Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm. Yes, the same brothers of fairly tale fame. They are depicted in the statue in the photo above.
One of the more unusual markets we visited was in Johanniskreuz. It was unusual because it takes place in the Palatinate (Pfälzerwald in German) Forest rather than on the streets of a town or city. This market seemed to have more hand-crafted items vs. mass-produced items for sale as well.
They also had crafts for kids to do at this market.
I’m always amused when I see things here that you would never see in the United States, like the child bartender mentioned above. For example, in this photo the kids are using hot “pens” to burn their names or whatever into pieces of wood. You’d never see unsupervised kids doing that in the U.S. because someone might get hurt.
We also went to the market in Weinheim.
This town is known as Zwei-Burgen-Stadt or Two-Castle city. You can see one of the castles up on the hill in this photo.
Mannheim was another market that we visited.
What you see here is a bar selling Glühwein etc., but the bar is modeled after a common German Christmas decoration called a Christmas Pyramid. You can see lots of photographic examples of pyramids
On the decorative pyramids, you light the candles and it makes the “propeller” on the top spin around. That in turn causes the figures inside the pyramid to spin around. In the life-size pyramid that you see at the Mannheim Christmas market in the photo above, you may be able to make out the Virgin Mary up by the “candles”. I found it very amusing to see that above a bar. In any case, nativity scenes are very common on the decorative pyramids.
A couple of days before Christmas, we went to Bamberg for two nights. Some of the stalls you see at the markets are very brightly-lit and nicely-decorated like this one.
Bamberg was a nice city and it’s known for its Rauchbier or smoke beer. We tried it and it really does have a smoky flavor. I didn’t really care for it. Bamberg is also famous for having a lot of breweries – nine, to be exact – in the city.
While we were in Bamberg, we took the train and made a little side trip to Nuremberg, which has the most famous Christmas market in Germany.
This photo was taken in the Kinderweihnacht section of the market which is geared towards children. Normally the whole market is VERY crowded because it’s so famous, but it was absolutely pouring rain when we were there so as you can see it was pretty empty. That was fine with me.
Despite the rain, it was actually fairly warm weather for December in Germany. Good thing, too, because about an hour after we left home Sean realized he’d forgotten to bring a coat with him. Luckily I’d brought a coat that had a zip-off waterproof shell, so I zipped it off and gave it to him to wear and we were both still warm enough. Here he is in the Kinderweihnacht section of the market, watching the toy trains with the other children. (Yes, I said “other” children.)
While we were in Nuremberg I decided to try another hot drink that’s commonly served at Christmas markets called Eierpunsch.
It’s supposed to be sort of like eggnog (Eier means eggs in German), but I didn’t like it at all. Oh well, I got a nice mug out of the deal.
The Nuremberg market is known for its prune people, which are figures made from prunes and dressed in different costumes. We picked up a Santa prune person while we were there.
While wandering around the city of Nuremberg, we ran into Santa and his helper.
We had been in Nuremberg earlier that year and had seen this same guy and his dog, in that same spot, dressed as clowns. People give the guy a Euro or so to pet the dog and/or take a photo. He probably makes a better living than I do.
If the name Nuremberg sounds familiar to you, it’s probably because that’s where the famous trials took place just after World War II ended. But this is a blog about Christmas markets so I’ll stick to that subject.
In 2012 we were again lucky to have visitors join us for Christmas market festivities. Mary, Charlie and Deirdre were able to come over again, and cousins Veronica and Nicole also visited from New York.
We all stayed at a hotel in Wiesbaden and went to that market a couple of times. Our first day there it snowed and it was very pretty. Here’s Charlie, Mary, Veronica and me enjoying Glühwein in the snow.
We were able to make it to the market in my little town of Hochheim as well. If you remember, I’d missed it in 2011 because I was not feeling well, so I really wanted to check it out in 2012.
We also took a train trip to see the Rüdesheim market. The snow was still around which made it a nice experience.
The town of Rüdesheim is known for drink called Rüdesheimer Kaffee. It’s sort of like an Irish coffee but instead of whiskey it’s made with Asbach brandy, which is made in Rüdesheim. Of course we couldn’t leave without a sample of this local deliciousness.
One of the fun things you can do in Rüdesheim is take a cable car ride up over the vineyards to what’s called the Germania monument. The ride is normally closed for the winter but was open for the Christmas markets. We took the ride and it was worth suffering in the freezing cold because we got to see Santa!
On our last night in Wiesbaden we went back to that city’s market. Believe it or not we were kind of Glühwein-ed out so we were not drinking that evening. Cousin Mary and I were just strolling along, minding our own business, when we heard someone yell “There’s my English friends!” Turns out it was the young lady who’d served us lots and lots of Glühwein on our first night in Wiesbaden. We unfortunately did not remember her as clearly as she remembered us. She said “I kept telling you guys that we also had coffee and hot chocolate but you all kept saying “No, more Glühwein!” Yes, I’m sure we did. So here we are with our friend, good ol’ what’s-her-name.
After most of the visitors had gone home and it was Mary and Charlie’s last day with us, we visited the market in Darmstadt with them.
I think this guy was suffering ill effects from the cold.
Okay, I think I’ve covered all the markets we hit in 2012. As you can imagine we added a large number of mugs to our collection that year.
This year (2013), we of course went back to the Wiesbaden market (3 times) just because it’s so close to where we live.
The market there is called the Sternschnuppenmarkt, which means Shooting Star Market.
On a cold day, you might want to get a nice, hot bowl of soup (Suppenbar in German means, as you might guess, soup bar) at the market.
Unless, of course, the Soup Naz…..oh wait, never mind. I might not want to make a joke about that when writing about German Christmas markets.
Once again we had the pleasure of meeting up with family for the Christmas markets in 2013. This time we all gathered in Munich: me, Sean, my parents, my brothers John and Ed, cousin Mary and her husband Charlie, cousins Deirdre and Veronica and cousin Elise with her friend Carl.
Carl was kind enough to take this photo of the rest of us in front of the Christmas tree at Marienplatz in Munich.
Munich has several markets throughout the city. In addition to the one at the Marienplatz, we went to the one at the English Garden, which is a large urban park that is bigger than Central Park in New York City.
The English Garden market takes place near this landmark, which is the Chinesischer Turm or Chinese Tower. In the summer, there is a huge outdoor beer garden near the Chinese Tower that seats about 7,500 people.
We also went to another Munich market near our hotel, which was very close to Sendlinger Tor, one of Munich’s remaining city gates.
You should be able to make out the Tor in the background. The sign for the Christkindlmarkt indicates that the Christmas market is there, but Christkindl literally translates to Christ Child.
One of the stands at the Sendlinger Tor market was selling these items.
Took me a minute to realize they’re supposed to be chimney stacks.
This next photo is back at the Marienplatz market and shows the town hall of Munich. It’s an amazing building that I’ve seen several times and never get tired of looking at.
And yes, I know that I just ended a sentence with a preposition. Grammar Girl says it’s OK, though, so there. If you don’t believe me, you can read about it here.
The Marienplatz market had a little section called the Kripperlmarkt.
Krippe is the German word for manger, so all the stalls in this section sold nothing but manger scenes and accessories.
We had a great time in Munich with the family (and Carl!) and look forward to next year’s festivities.
Sean and I also went to the market in Eppstein in 2013.
The cool thing about Eppstein, as you can see, is that there’s a castle smack dab in the middle of town. The market itself was very small with more Glühwein thancraft stands, so we spent most of our time in town exploring the castle.
Here’s a view from the castle looking down at the town, and you can see part of the Christmas market.
The weekend before Christmas, we spent two nights in Rothenburg ob der Tauber for the last market hurrah of the season. Rothenburg o.b.T (as you sometimes see it abbreviated) is a very cute, very touristy little town.
Surprisingly, their Christmas market was very small but there are enough things to do in town to warrant a weekend visit. I say surprisingly because Rothenburg o.b.T attracts SO many tourists that I just thought they’d have a huge market.
One of the things you can do there is climb to the top of the Town Hall tower. We did indeed climb the 214 steps to the top during our visit. Here is a view from the top where you can see a section of the market.
While we were in Rothenburg o.b.T we made a side trip to the town of Dinkelsbühl, about 35 minutes south. Dinkelsbühl is also a very cute town, but far less touristy than Rothenburg o.b.T.
Their Christmas market was also small but very nice.
You may notice that there are a lot of dogs in this photo – six of them, in fact. There seemed to be some kind of dog club meeting there so there were a LOT of dogs. Both humans and canines seemed to be having a grand old time.
So there you have what’s hopefully a good idea of what the Christmas markets are like here, as well as some tidbits about the towns and cities we checked out. We are looking forward to next year’s markets and visitors!
