Holiday Shopping at German Christmas Markets
December Festivals Make Winter Nights Sparkle all over Germany
Nov 9, 2009
Germany hosts Europe’s unrivaled Christmas Market spectacular, a country-wide show of culture, art and craft that fills the squares of most larger towns and cities. Bavaria, in southern Germany, is the best starting point, with the greatest concentration of markets. It’s capital city, Munich, has more than a dozen different markets of its own, plus one in the atrium of the new Munich Airport, where arriving travelers can get a taste of the festivities from their first minutes on the ground.
Enticing Markets Throughout Germany
But despite its abundant markets, travelers should venture beyond Munich in December. Throughout Bavaria and the rest of Germany towns and cities glow with Christmas Markets, each filled with booths of local craftsmen and artists selling traditional carved nutcrackers, dolls, dollhouses and furniture, wooden toys and a full range of contemporary crafts.
Visit the Medieval town of Rothenburg-ob-der-Tauber, north of Munich, to shop from the Reiterlesmarkt stalls throughout the narrow streets that wind between half-timbered buildings. The sweet temptation there is the local specialty, schneeballen, a ball of sweet fried dough drenched in powdered sugar. Don’t wear black!
Nuremberg Hauptmarkt Germany's Most Famous
In Nuremberg look for the large Hauptmarkt. This is the most famous Christkindlmarkt in Bavaria, a glittering scene highlighted by a double-decker carousel of prancing reindeer and Santa’s sleigh. Nuremberg is the home of gingery lebkuchen and it is made into cookies, figures and entire houses, another holiday tradition we borrowed from the Germans.
Passau For a Low Key and High Quality Glass, Pottery and Clothing
In a beautiful location at the junction of the Danube and Inn Rivers, Passau's Christkindlmarkt is smaller but benefits from the city’s position on the Austrian border. The show includes craftsmen whose studios make the city a well-known craft center. Look for contemporary terra cotta nativity figures, stylish felt hats, and modern versions of the famous local Bohemian Glass and other arts that give Passau’s market a more contemporary feeling. Elsewhere, the cities of Bamberg and Regensburg hold their Christkindlmarkts in historic town centers listed as UNESCO World Heritage sites; Regensburg’s includes concerts by its famed cathedral boys’ choir.
And Throughout Baden-Wurtemberg
Throughout the state of Baden-Wurttemberg, just west of Bavaria, markets brighten nearly every city. Fashionable Baden Baden’s outstanding market fills a park near its famous spas, and is an especially good place to shop for – and sample -- foods from the Black Forest region. Smart shops throughout the old town add more shopping options. In the historic University town of Freiberg, dozens of booths decked in fir boughs display local crafts and holiday decorations. At Esslingen’s Medieval Market, jugglers entertain shoppers as they browse among fine bookbinding, silverwork, calligraphy, woodcarving and leatherwork in the torch-lighted marketplace.
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