Which Country for Christmas

The is only one place to go for Christmas -- Germany and the Christmas markets and probably Rothenburg for Christmas. We spent this past year in Munich for Christmas and New Years in Prague.

Austria is lovely at Christmas. Vienna has a very cosmopolitan atmosphere and some very nice Christmas markets. Salzburg is pure magic!!! We've also enjoyed Inverness, Aviemore and Edinburgh Scotland in the winter.

We spent christmas in Paris in 2003 and 2006; in Venice in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010. We are again going to Venice this Christmas..........

Germany and Austria are both pretty spectacular around xmas time. I was there from around Dec. 14 - Dec. 31 some yrs ago and enjoyed the markets, festive crowds, decorations, skiing (spent xmas eve and day skiing in St. Anton am Aelberg in the Western part of Austria) and, of course, the food & drink. The makets in Vienna, Salzburg and Munich were very pretty and great fun. Truth be told, I don't even celebrate xmas (Jewish here); but had great fun and loved seeing how the locals warmly embrace their local Christmas traditions. With 3 weeks, you'd be able to combine, say, Germany, Austria and Swizterland; you'd be hard-pressed to find better places than these 3 beautiful countries, especialy at such a festive time of year. Good luck w/ the travel planning; funny, seems long off, but the 2011 holiday season will be here before we know it!

Thank you all for the GREAT suggestions, now to the planning stage....

Our Christmas trip was a long time ago, but it included St. Moritz, Innsbruck, Salzburg, and then December 23-26 at the Gruener Baum, a family run hotel about a mile above Badgastein. Most of the families staying there appeared to be German speaking; the hotel seemed to be a place where many people traditionally went for Christmas each year. Christmas Eve all of the children marched in singing carols and lit the Chirstmas tree with real candles (tree was surrounded by discreetly placed fire buckets).........Christmas day, we hired a two-horse sleigh which took us back through a mountainous valley to a tiny inn where we had hot mulled wine next to a blazing fireplace....... We then finished with a week in Paris.

A little known secret in Ricknik-land... besides Germany and Austria, France, Belgium and the Netherlands also have their own well-established Christmas market traditions. I'm going to take a wild guess that other countries also have their own markets of which I am not aware. Truth be told, the merchandise you find at the markets is mostly... well, not much better than your average flea market in the US, and sometimes, much crappier. But... it's all about the atmosphere. And the drinking in a public, outdoor space, can't forget about that important point.

Hi Jerry, We visited the Christmas Markets in Austria late November last year. Spectacular. Truly a festive atmosphere. We went to St. Gilgen, Salzburg, Innsbruck, Hall in Tirol and Rattenberg. Next time, we are going to include Brixen/Bressanone and Sterzing/Vipiteno, which are in Italy and within an hour of Innsbruck. www.worldisround.com/home/pja1/index.html To comment on your question, I'd suggest Bavaria, Austria and maybe northern Italy. Paul

We spent Christmas in Nuremberg and went to Prague the day after. It was lovely and a wonderful place to be during Christmas.

It's hard to beat Nurmberg, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, and Salzburg at Christmas time. That being said, I spent a Christmas season in, of all places, Brno Slovakia a few years ago and the whole experience was absolutely charming (we didn't plan on staying there, but sort of got snowed in). We spent several days at the fabulous Jakuba Hotel (when I say FABULOUS, I mean in a time capsule/Humphrey Bogart sort of way - a bit frayed around the edges but with the tarnished gleam of glory days still evident), and I will never forget the sound of the cathedral bells pealing and the festive market place full of locals buying some sort of huge fish, and precious young girls in traditional dress singing a capella eastern European carols - all in a very non-touristy environment. Sometimes getting snowed in can be a great stroke of luck. Thank you, Brno, for a very sweet Christmas.

In 2007 we split our time up in two places. Germany for the XMass markets, and So Portugal for the warm weather.
So Spain would be even warmer.