The Smell Hits You First
It is not the lights. Not the wooden stalls or the choir singing off-key near the fountain. The first thing that tells you a Weihnachtsmarkt is nearby is the smell — burnt sugar, cinnamon, something yeasty and warm drifting out from behind a church. You follow it around a corner and suddenly the whole square is there, glowing.
Germany runs somewhere north of 2,500 Christmas markets between late November and Christmas Eve, depending on who is counting and whether you include the tiny ones in villages that technically only have six stalls and a guy selling Glühwein out of a van. The big ones — Nuremberg, Cologne, Dresden, Munich — get most of the press. But even the mid-tier markets in places like Erfurt or Regensburg have their own pull, their own regional quirks that the famous ones have sometimes polished away.
Five Markets Worth the Train Ride
Nuremberg Christkindlesmarkt has been running since 1628, which is the kind of fact that stops meaning anything after a while — just know that it is old, and that the city takes it seriously. The opening ceremony features a young woman dressed as the Christkind delivering a prologue from the balcony of the Frauenkirche. The market’s signature items are Zwetschgenmännle (little figurines made from dried prunes — stranger than they sound, and oddly charming) and Nuremberg Lebkuchen, which is denser and spicier than what you might think of as gingerbread.
Cologne actually has several markets clustered around the cathedral area, not just one. The biggest sits directly in the shadow of the Dom, and at night the Gothic spires lit from below behind the market stalls create a backdrop that photographs cannot quite capture — the scale of the building against all those tiny wooden huts makes the whole thing feel like a nativity scene someone forgot to finish. Over 150 stalls, though honestly the ones closest to the cathedral charge a premium. Wander a block or two further out.
Dresden Striezelmarkt claims to be Germany’s oldest, operating since 1434. Whether that is exactly right or just the earliest written record is debatable, but the market itself is not messing around. Dresden’s thing is Stollen — the dense, fruit-studded bread dusted with powdered sugar — and the city makes an absurdly large one each year for the Stollenfest in early December, paraded through the streets on a special cart. The Erzgebirge wooden crafts here (nutcrackers, smoking men, pyramid candle carousels) are the real deal, not imported copies.
Munich Marienplatz is the postcard version — enormous Christmas tree, Bavarian brass bands, and the Kripperlmarkt tucked alongside, which specializes entirely in nativity scene figures. It gets very crowded. Very. But the Glockenspiel on the Neues Rathaus still goes off on schedule, and watching it with Glühwein in hand while surrounded by a thousand other people doing the same thing has its own strange charm.
Erfurt does not make most lists, but should. The market fills the broad square in front of the cathedral and Severikirche, and the setting — two massive churches looming behind a sea of fairy lights — is arguably more dramatic than Cologne. It is also significantly less crowded and less expensive. If you are doing a multi-city route, Erfurt sits on a direct ICE line between Frankfurt and Berlin.
What You Are Actually Eating
Glühwein is non-negotiable. Every market serves it, every market has its own mug design (ceramic, collectible, you pay a deposit and either return it or keep it as a souvenir). The base recipe is red wine with cinnamon, cloves, star anise, and orange peel, heated but not boiled. Some stalls do a white wine version, and a few places offer Feuerzangenbowle, which involves setting a sugar cone on fire over the wine — theatrical and a bit stronger.
Bratwurst varies by region more than you might expect. Nuremberg’s are small and thin (Rostbratwürstl), usually served three in a bun with mustard. Thuringian ones are longer and herbed differently. The ones in Bavaria tend to be thicker. None of them are bad.
Kartoffelpuffer (potato pancakes, fried crisp) with applesauce. Gebrannte Mandeln (candied almonds) sold in paper cones — the smell carries half a block. Dampfnudeln in Bavaria. Stollen everywhere, but especially in Dresden. Reibekuchen in the Rhineland, which is basically the same as Kartoffelpuffer but they will tell you it is different.
Budget-wise, Glühwein runs about 3-4 euros a cup. A Bratwurst is 3-5 euros. You can eat and drink your way through an evening for 15-25 euros fairly comfortably, more if you are buying the fancy Kinderpunsch for the kids or going back for seconds on the almonds.
The Parts Nobody Romanticizes
It gets cold. Obviously. But the specific kind of cold — standing on cobblestones for two hours in damp 2°C air while your fingers go numb around a ceramic mug — is different from what you imagine when you picture yourself at a Christmas market. Layer more than you think. Thermal underwear is not overkill. Wool socks matter. Gloves that still let you hold a mug and operate your phone simultaneously do not exist, so pick one.
Weekends are rough. The major markets in Cologne, Nuremberg, and Munich get genuinely packed on Friday and Saturday evenings — the kind of crowds where you are shuffling more than walking and the stall queues stretch fifteen people deep. Weekday evenings (Tuesday through Thursday, after work hours) are dramatically better. The first week of December before the tourist wave builds is ideal, but some markets do not open until the last days of November, so check dates before booking.
Getting from market to market by rail is easy in theory. In practice, Deutsche Bahn delays in winter are common enough that you should not plan tight connections. Build buffer time. The ICE network connects all the major cities, and a day trip from, say, Frankfurt to Nuremberg and back is doable but tiring.
Compare flights and hotels on Trip.com — worth checking if you are planning a multi-city route, since booking trains and accommodation together sometimes saves more than doing it separately.
Bringing Things Home
The Erzgebirge crafts are the standout. The region along the Czech border has been producing wooden Christmas decorations for centuries — nutcrackers, Räuchermännchen (smoking incense figures), Schwibbogen (candle arches), and the spinning pyramid candle carousels. At the markets in Dresden and Nuremberg especially, you can find pieces directly from workshop artisans rather than mass-produced copies. They are not cheap. A hand-carved nutcracker from a reputable workshop might run 40-80 euros depending on size and detail. But they last decades.
Smaller items that pack well: hand-painted glass baubles, beeswax candles, Lebkuchen tins (the cookies keep well and the tins are reusable), and Herrnhuter Sterne — the folded paper stars that hang in windows across Germany during Advent.
One thing to watch for — some stalls, particularly at the larger tourist-heavy markets, sell mass-produced items imported from elsewhere. If the price seems too good for handmade, it probably is. The stalls run by actual craftspeople usually have workshop details on display or can tell you about their process. When in doubt, ask.
If you want a local to handle the logistics of finding the best stalls and hidden markets, GetYourGuide has guided Christmas market tours in most major cities — not something I have personally done, but the reviews suggest they are useful for first-timers who want context beyond just wandering.
Getting There and Getting Around
Most visitors fly into Frankfurt, Munich, or Berlin and connect by rail. Frankfurt is the most central hub if you are planning a multi-city market tour — Nuremberg is about two hours by ICE, Cologne under two hours, and even Dresden is reachable in about four.
Europcar has pickup locations at all major German airports and train stations if you prefer driving, though parking in city centers during market season is its own kind of adventure. Rail is honestly easier unless you are headed to smaller villages.
For eSIM or pocket Wi-Fi to stay connected while navigating between cities, AeroBile offers travel SIM cards and Wi-Fi device rentals that cover Germany.
After the Last Mug
The markets usually close on December 23rd or 24th, not the 25th — check before planning a Christmas Eve visit. By late afternoon on the final day, the stalls start packing up and the squares go quiet fast.
I left Nuremberg on the last evening one year. The Hauptmarkt was already half-dismantled by the time I walked through — bare wooden frames where stalls had been, a few strings of lights still on. A woman was sweeping nutshell fragments into a bin. The Lebkuchen shop on the corner was closed but still smelled like gingerbread. My train was delayed, naturally, so I stood on the platform with a paper bag of Stollen and cold hands, waiting.
