Christmas Market Help :)

Do you need to return to Paris? Fly into Paris then home from Zurich (Open Jaw), so no back tracking. Or vise versa.

jeremy.mcdowell2013,
Just to begin, plan your trip by counting nights, not days. And arrival day is often lost a bit to jet lag, orientation to Paris, etc.
Remember that a travel day between locations takes away 1/2 or a whole day from your sightseeing (checking out of lodging, getting to train station or airport, time to transit, getting to lodging on arrival and checking in). E.g. you go from Paris to Metrz on Nov. 30, and Frankfurt on Dec. 1. Unless you have a teleportation device, you will have only a half day at most in Metz. Frankfurt will be a half day and one full day. You should reconfigure your days to account for train time.

If it were me, I would eliminate three or four locations. And, for me, if I planned on Christmas markets in every town, I would be Christmas-marketed-out after day three. There are many contributors to the forum that would visit lots more than I would, so it depends on each person.
Also, my geographical knowledge of Germany is sorely deficient, but it seems that you are doubling back. Is that because of the dates the Christmas markets open? Intuitively, I would go to Strasbourg/Colmar first, after Paris, and stay there four days, but I could be wrong about your route. (Strasbourg and Colmar are 30 minutes apart. There are day trips to lovely towns in the area from Colmar as well. And my experience of Zurich is that it is not the ideal Swiss city to visit, but the Switzerland section of the forum can help you better than I. Perhaps someone will chime in here.
I hope your trip is a joyful one!

@brushtim: I looked at that, and flying into Chicago isn't direct. Also, on American which I am not a fan of. But, I really looked deep into that idea!

@Judy: Thank you for putting into prospective! BTW, I do own a teleportaion device :) I guess we were trying to squeeze as much in as possible since the GF has never left the US before. The trip days are 100% loose at this point, and that is why I am here! For input for everyone!! I will have to look into the travel time and probably eliminate Frankfurt. That will free up 2 days, which could be added for travel time.

Thank you both! Great insight so far!!

I agree you should see if you can book a multi city ticket so that you don't have to back track to Paris. We are doing a Christmas market trip this year and going to a few of your stops. I don't think you need to stay in Colmar and Strasbourg. I would stay in Colmar and day trip to Strasbourg. We are also going to Metz for one night, but we've been there before. Be sure you go into the Cathedral to see the stained glass. Frankfurt seems like a big outlier. somewhere in the Black Forest would be much closer and makes more geographical sense. Frieberg maybe? We're going to Heidelberg which would also make much more geographical sense to your itinerary. I wonder why Zurich? I don't think it's known as a place with great sights or a great christmas market. If you want to hit Switzerland then Basel would be a better choice IMHO.

Honestly, I think you'll be exhausted from traveling, Christmas Markets and only seeing things from the windows of a train. It's kind of like when you try to go to the Louvre, Orsay and Pompidou Center on the same day. After a while, everything looks the same and you appreciate nothing.

I'd also cut out a lot of that itinerary. Maybe something like Paris-Metz-Strasbourg and fly home from Basel. Colmar is a 30-min train ride from Strasbourg. Trains are inexpensive and run all day. There's a bus that runs continual loops from Colmar to the Mulhouse airport daily,

There are navettes (small buses) that take people from Colmar to Eguisheim, Ribeauville and Kayserberg on weekend days. These small villages are charming themselves, but they all have their own Christmas Markets too.

That's six markets right there. I didn't count Paris because their version of a Christmas Market is a dire thing, full of tourist tat and junk food.

I agree you need to buy an open jaw ticket, say fly into Paris and out of Frankfurt.
I have been going to Christmas Markets every year for almost a dozen years. The best are in Germany with Austria as a second. Paris markets are not that great. The Alsace region (Strasbourg, Colmar) are great. Once you get into Germany you can visit Nurnberg, Regensburg, Cologne, Munich or my favorite, Dresden. If you want to visit Austria, Vienna is wonderful and Salzburg is very nice. I’m trying Innsbruck this year.
I recommend you post on the Germany page where there are many more Christmas Market posts.

What about this:
fly into Paris - spend multiple days
Colmar/Strasbourg and all the other towns in Alsace - spend multiple days
Nuremberg - at least 2 nights here, this market is wonderful
fly out of Munich and do a day trip to Salzburg markets - spend multiple days

If you base out of 4 cities, you can then research easy day trips by bus or train for other smaller, quaint markets. I did Germany a couple years ago and absolutely loved it. I'm doing Bath/London and Paris/Alsace region this year. You can't go wrong wherever you go, but staying longer and basing out of cities allows you more time to explore and relax vs. packing up and traveling every day.

Have fun!!

I like Casie’s proposal. Paris for as many nights as you can. For me there’s no such thing as too many nights in Paris. I haven’t been to Metz so I can’t comment. I’ve stayed in both Strasbourg and Colmar. I suggest staying in Colmar over a Friday-Sunday period to take advantage of the navettes that go to the wine villages. When I was there last December I arrived on a Monday. The only navette available on the weekdays other than Fridays was to Eguisheim. Strasbourg is an easy train ride from Colmar and had several good markets. Don’t forget to go to the cathedral to see the Astronomical Clock. I have heard really good things about the market in Salzburg, which is a charming city. If you have time it would be nice to spend 2 nights in Salzburg to give you a full day there. It’s about a 2 hour train ride from Munich. Fly home from Munich.

While I can't speak for the Paris Christmas markets I did all the following last year. Unlike everyone else telling you to go to Germany, I'll advise you not to. In fact, drop Frankfurt altogether; it's not that good. Plus, the only reasonable way to get there from Paris is to fly.

Do Paris, then Metz, Nancy, Strasbourg, Colmar, and Zurich. Fly out of Zurich. Metz and Nancy are not as big as Strasbourg's markets, but they are beautiful cities and have a lot to offer. Plus, if you had to add one more place, make it Luxembourg or Basel.

I don't know why Americans don't visit Metz or Nancy more often, but I'm happy they don't. Nancy in particular is overlooked and I spent a couple days there last winter just walking the old town. To me Colmar is a day trip, Nancy is a weekend.

I have never been to Metz. I concur with the suggestion to skip Frankfurt. OTOH Stuttgart has a good market and it is an easy day trip to Esslingen which has a wonderful medieval market - plan to spend hours there and stay for an hour or so after dark, when much of the market uses no electricity. I'd spend 2N in Strasbourg, not so much for the markets but for general sightseeing. Then 2-3N in Colmar and see at least a couple of the nearby villages. I'd skip Zurich - from all I hear, there's not much to see/do there. Maybe fly home from Frankfurt? If you do that you don't have to split your time in Paris, which I assume you want to stay for a longer time for general sightseeing.

If you do Paris > Colmar > Strasbourg > Stuttgart > Frankfurt, then I would suggest you spend 2-3N in Frankfurt. Day trip to Mainz & Wiesbaden which have very nice markets and sights as well. It's possible to do both in a single day. While Frankfurt's markets aren't that great, it has very good sightseeing.

The Alsace markets started fairly early in the day and ended around 7 pm, though some in Strasbourg close later. In Germany, the markets generally get going in the early afternoon (to attract the locals for lunch) and start getting crowded after 5 pm when the locals finish work. By 7 pm many are so jam-packed it's seriously hard to walk through them.

So there's plenty of time in the mornings and early afternoons to sightsee.

Google "Noel en Alsace" for more info on those markets.

First of all, I would like to praise all of you for the responses you have given! It is amazing that there are so many people on here that give such great insight; you have given so much to consider!
I am making notes, and getting ready to look at all suggestions this week while traveling for work. You all have helped rid some of my concerns about the amount of train travel I was having! I hated the idea of lugging bags from stop to stop, just for a day or two.
I knew setting up an account and asking for suggestions on here was a good choice, I just didn't think that it was going to be the best choice I made for this trip!

After going though all of the suggestions, and looking deep into this trip, I think I have made smart changes to a better, less stressful trip. Here is what I have switched up:

1) Paris – Nov 25 – 30
2) Strasbourg – Dec 1 & 2 (hotel 1 – 6)
3) Colmar – Dec 4
4) Random – Dec 5
5) Metz – 6
6) Paris – Dec 7 - 11

We would basically book 1 room in Strasbourg and day trip to locations around the area. This will also give us a little more time in Paris to enjoy more of the city.

Your new itinerary looks good! Personally I would spend the "random" day in colmar also. You could do a day tour to other villages in the area. We've also got Metz on our itinerary for December. We've been once and loved it! Can't wait to see it at Christmas time. I've been to a lot of Cathedrals in Europe and Metz was my favorite experience. The stained glass is amazing, but it was special because there were only a few other people in the Cathedral which made it a bit surreal.

That sounds like a great re-adjustment. I think basing out of Strasbourg is a wonderful idea as there is more to do and its easy to go on the day trips. I struggled with choosing Colmar vs Strasbourg to base from and glad I chose Colmar as the day trip. Its charming and delightful but much more touristy. I like a local vibe at some Christmas markets which might mean finding some of the smaller, out of the way ones and there were more in Strasbourg, I felt. Also a lot of people poo-poo the "markets" in Paris and I was only at the one in the Jardin des Tuileries 4 years ago and thought it was charming. Also the skating rink atop the Galleries Lafayette and whatever decorations they have going on were stunning. 2 years ago I did a very ambitious Christmas market trip from Vienna to Paris and spent A LOT of time on trains. 4 nights in Vienna but 2 nights everywhere else and the travel was exhausting. Your pace looks great!