Here I’ll show the christmas markets we visited, in the beautiful squares of Vienna, Prague, Krakow, and many more. So here are first some of the sites of the Christmas markets throughout Europe, and then compare specific markets from different cities.
What You’ll See At Christmas Markets
Mulled Wine
As you can imagine, if you’re going to stand outside and drink, it might as well be something hot. Hot wine, hot cider, fruit-based wine, and sometimes hot chocolate with alcohol.
Bratwurst
Germanic countries (Germany + Austria) and a lot of eastern Europe, they love their meats.
Maybe especially so in Poland.
Chocolates
My wife loves this aspect of Christmas markets. And for the record, European chocolate is delicious.
Trinkets and other Junk
Souvenirs, aren’t my thing, to say the least. I don’t want to spend my holiday buying junk made in China. But there are often hand made crafts as well. Still not my thing, but apparently normal people enjoy it.
Salzburg, Austria
Salzburg is where we spent Christmas, and while the rest of town was dead, the christmas market was hopping. Out of 60 stands though, only 10 were food. But it was a beautiful market, in a beautiful city.
Vienna
Vienna is possibly the birth of the Christmas market as its “December Markets” have been around since the 13th century.
Although, I’m not sure which market should be described as the christmas market, since they are all over the capital city. Perhaps my favorite was in Karlplatz, which seemed to be where tons of locals went to socialize and drink.
Krakow, Poland
This was one of my favorite markets, partly because of the view. Poland is cheap, Krakow is beautiful, and Poland does Christmas markets right.
Warsaw, Poland
We stayed in “Old Town” which is the beautiful part of Warsaw. The Christmas markets weren’t as big as some of the others, and Warsaw isn’t as cool ask Krakow. So if you had to choose… go to Krakow.
Wroclaw, Poland
This is by far the coolest Christmas market we saw. The food was amazing (and cheap), there was tons of it, and the market was huge and all around the beautiful main square. But the coolest part is how bizarre the market is. Weird little glass boxes with a freaky animatronic wolf waiting for little red riding hood, and equally weird rides.
Prague, Czech Republic
Prague also had a ton of Christmas markets, including in the beautiful main square.
But my favorite was a cheap local market on the weekends under Charles Bridge.
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Nothing much…
Brussels, Belgium
They had a fair christmas market exceeding in the area of chocolates, as you can imagine. And waffles, as it is Belgium.
Villach, Austria
I wouldn’t ever recommend Villach over Salzburg, Innsbruck, Hallstatt, Vienna, etc… Still, it was small but charming.
Verona, Italy
A northern Italian christmas market isn’t too different. Just replace waffles with pizza.
Just finished up a few days at the Nuremberg Christmas markets and it was absolutely awesome. The brats, the gluhwein, lebkuchen, etc. were all so delicious. Couple the markets with the rich historical nature of the city, and it is truly a unique experience.
I’ve heard good things about Nuremberg, but never been. I think I got Germanied out last time we were there. :-p But I’d like to go.
Christmas market food made up for the cold, imo!
I guess the food hall aspect is fun (though plenty of cities have food year-round in restaurants)… but I can’t stand that MICK (MICK = made in China krap).
Every pound of plastic you buy from China is pumping crap into their terribly polluted air. I don’t know about handcrafted items; everything I saw at the many Christmas markets in Paris/Munich last trip was definitely factory-stamped MICK.
I was giving the benefit of the doubt that surely something was local.
But my bias is already negative. My general opinion of buying souvenirs is already bad. My sterotype is that people think about how neat it is in the moment, then they buy some wooden shoes that end up in their attic. But then if you realize that these things are not only not useful, but they are made in China and have nothing to do with Paris…
But, I try to see some positive. :-p
I’ve found the best markets this year to be the ones in Berlin which was also the best for decorations. Thought Prague was a bit blah.
I also thought Prague’s weren’t much of a sight, except for the fact you’re in old town. I’ll have to check out Berlin’s sometime. Although I did swear off the cold for a while.
I’ve been to Christmas markets in Manchester and Birmingham, UK and also Copenhagen. They all seemed to be cookie cutter franchise type things. We joked that there must be a company out there called christmas markets r us, or kristkindermarkt gmbh.
So, I’ve never been to what I would consider an authentic Christmas market and wonder how you could tell beforehand. I mean, OK, in England, maybe you could expect that to be an imported money making scheme. But I really expected the one in Copenhagen to be sort of authentic.