Thinking of planning a trip this Christmas to the German holiday markets. We want to travel exclusively by rail (no bus or cruise). Hit maybe 3 cities in Germany and/or Austria. Have never been to that part of Europe before. No interest in world war historic sights. Would be interested in also seeing museums or other cultural sites.
What cities should we go to? Any experience with traveling during the holiday market season.
We were in Brussels one year during the holiday markets, and also went to Brugges. It was so festive and fun! The music, projections, food, and fun gift booths.
Yes, GO!
We went to Berlin a number of years ago and found it fascinating. We did go to a museum about the Berlin Wall and thought it was very well done. Don’t know if that is too close to WWII thematically, though.
Went during summertime so no knowledge of holiday markets.
Both Berlin and Vienna have a multitude of museums in addition to holiday markets. I would visit them just about any time of year. There are a lot of fascinating Cold War sites (not ww2 per se) in berlin, but if you want to avoid those there are still plenty of museums to visit. In both cities some museums need advance reservations, you can research online which ones. Many art museums of all genres in both cities, but if you go to Vienna also pop into the Sigmund Freud house, it’s pretty interesting, and swing by the Hundertwasser houses. Berlin also has a great cinema museum, plus the checkpoint Charlie museum (which of course is technically post ww2). You could probably spend a week just in Berlin doing museums!
You can take the train between the two cities or the short flight. Depending how long you’ll be in Europe, not sure if I would add a third city, but if you do Amsterdam is probably a good one although somewhat west of the others. It’s been a while since I did Amsterdam in the same trip as Berlin but we took an overnight sleeper train between the two when we did that.
Alternatively, if you’re taking the train between Berlin and Vienna you might think of stopping in Prague (it’s kind of midway between them) as your third city. I don’t know about Christmas markets there but if you haven’t been to Prague before it’s worth the stop for sure.
When we went to Europe last year we flew into Berlin and back from Vienna.
When I think of German Xmas markets, Nuremberg comes to mind first, but that’s not a big city. I think every small village to large city has them, so it probably depends on what you want to see. Large city with museums and lots to do? Travel from village to village? A combo?
My parents have done several of the river cruise ones and want to go back. I know you don’t want that, but you could look at those itineraries.
Xmas 2022 I took my family plus the two GFs to vienna. I love vienna. We were technically after the Xmas markets, but the big ones stay open and transition to new years markets. There’s just so much to do there. There is something for everyone.
Then we traveled by train to Innsbruck for a few days and then to Zurich to fly out. We love the alps and wanted a scenic train ride. We also toyed with flying out of Munich vs Zurich, but it was easier for us to fly out of Zurich. It was a great trip.
We went in December 2019 with one sister and BIL and had a fantastic time. Salzburg, Munich, Nuremberg, Stuttgart, Strasbourg, ending in Paris to recover.
We experienced St Nicholas and Krampus festivities in Salzburg and Munich, totally unreal, especially in Salzburg. Nuremberg was great, and we all thoroughly enjoyed the medieval market. H and I decided after many trips to Germany, Austria, and Alsace, that we had more than enough Christmas items, so besides a few things for our daughters, it was a lot of looking around the markets and people watching. Lots of great food and drink throughout.
We flew into Munich and took the train straight to Salzburg. We traveled by train and stayed in hotels.
I don’t think we did a lot of museums as we’d been to Germany in the past. I think just the Residenz and Treasury in Munich.
If I can get clearance from my surgeon, I hope to make the trip this year with just my sisters and visit a cousin who lives near Munich.
Have done Vienna-Innsbruck-Zurich by train before too. Can confirm it is a beautiful trip, although we did it in autumn when the Alps were all red and gold. I imagine it will be equally beautiful in the snow. Innsbruck is utterly charming and I have a soft spot for lovely Zurich (the first European city I ever visited). It’s probably hard to go wrong with itineraries in the region really…
Let’s see if CC will cooperate and let me post.
Rothernburg ob der Tauber is so beautiful.
Not in Germany but Strasberg France is a premier Christmas market town. Colmar. Cologne has lots and lots of markets. Basel Switzerland.
Be prepared for crowds, big crowds. My son was in Cologne last year on a Saturday and said that it was unbelievably crowded.
If you are interested, YouTube has lots of information on Christmas markets.
For this year, I would suggest figuring out your route and find accommodations asap. Check the dates very carefully. The traditional opening is advent, by Christmas Eve they are mostly shut down. Cologne is an exception. Don’t expect the American tradition of thanksgiving to new year.
Many markets I found have similar offerings and food.
Still thinking about this - maybe we should just pick one city with a holiday market and stay there instead of market hopping. The criteria would be a great market but also a city with lots to do (never been to any of these places before).
If people had to pick one of these which is best - Cologne, Vienna, Edinburgh, Munich, or someplace else.
Not interested in Switzerland, Italy, Spain, or France (since my daughter has been to these countries before).
Of the cities you listed, Vienna would be my choice.
But as I said upstream, we did Brussels and Brugge and I think these are two very underrated places. We stayed in Brussels and there is an easy train to Brugges.
We decided to try this for Christmas this year. We chose Vienna and Budapest. Will spend three nights in Vienna (and hopefully get tickets for the symphony) and then Budapest for two nights. The trip on the train between is supposedly wonderful
I adore Edinburgh but if you are looking for the more traditional German Christmas market, I’d choose Vienna from this list. If you are going to be in Europe for Christmas through New Year, then I would definitely say Edinburgh so you can be there for Hogmanay.
I did a search in German of “best Christmas markets” and one top 10 list was:
Some lists also include Leipzig and I will put in a plug for Leipzig because it is one of my favorite cities. 
How long will you be there for?
I’d pick Vienna from that list. Both Vienna and Cologne will have some easy day trips too if you get enough done in the city itself.
I love Edinburgh but not a fan at that time of year. It gets dark SO early - sunset is not long after 3:30pm and totally black by 4pm (with sunrise close to 9am). YMMV and days are short everywhere at that time of year of course, but I’d personally leave Edinburgh for when it’s not so dark and wet.
Obviously I picked Vienna. As I mentioned, there is just so much to do there outside the markets. And I believe there is something like 14 different markets throughout the city. If you have to go around Xmas - we were there between Dec 23-28 - there is still a lot open and a lot to do. You do have to read up which markets close early and are open, but there is always something. I was more caught off guard by Boxing Day. We knew grocery stores would be closed on Sundays, the 24-25th, but the 26th surprised me. Fortunately we had enough leftovers to scrape by. Restaurants are harder to find, but we found some.
On Xmas morning, my H’s favorite thing was Xmas mass performed by a Cardinal at St Stephen’s, and we aren’t religious. Schönbrunn palace (which I like 100x better than Versailles) was open on Xmas along with their market. We had lunch at the markets from the food vendors.
But there are palaces, art museums, regular museums, opera, Spanish horses (we saw a practice which as much cheaper and fun), a small amusement park (also with a market), plenty of shopping, parks, graffiti art, churches, etc.
You can get some good itinerary ideas from these guided tours:
If you end up deciding travelling to a number of cities I would recommend the following:
Dresden, Nuremberg, Munich, Salzburg. It’s an easy train ride between them.
Nuremberg - most famous Christmas market of all the German markets
Dresden - beautiful city, easily managed on foot with lots of art/architecture related museums and beautiful countryside a bit south of it (Prague is 1.5 hour car ride away, which might be another good one to see).
Munich - good airport to fly into, tons of museums of all kinds and close to the mountains and castles
Salzburg - incredibly beautiful old town and castle
Really any city in Germany will have a Christmas market, so you can’t go wrong with whatever you choose.
I have not been to, but my husband has and highly recommends the Dresden Porcelain Museum.
If you happen to be in Berlin as part of your Christmas market itinerary, check out the decorations at KaDeWe. No US department store can rival that IMO.
I am not a Christmas market expert by any means. They weren’t really our thing honestly. We happened to be traveling that time of the year.
I wasn’t that impressed with the markets in Prague. Maybe I wasn’t in the right place in Nuremberg but again not that great. It could have been that the weather was terrible and we were in Nuremberg on a Monday.
Cologne was great. As was Strasberg, Colmar and Basel. Rothenburg is a magical city. Haven’t been to Vienna or Budapest during that time.
My friend who lived in Germany for many years, thought that the smaller towns were better because they weren’t so commercial but that was years ago. Maybe everywhere is commercial and crowded these days.