My husband and I are planning a trip to Europe for our 40th anniversary during the 2015 Christmas season. After reviews and books, I am still confused to how to narrow our trip for a relaxing, eventful Christmas vacation for 14-21 days prior to Christmas Day. We are I our 60's but active. We enjoy staying several nights in one location. Our emphasis this trip is the holiday markets, lights, and cultural events the season has to offer. At the moment I am looking at Paris, Strasbourg, Nurnberg or Dresden, Prague, and Vienna. I feel that this is too scattered and any input would be valuable at this time. Thank you!
Posted by
OP
Dallas
49 posts
Initially the trip began with the idea of the European Christmas markets. Then I read Rick's European Christmas book and also, investigated online. For older Christmas markets, I found Strasbourg and Nurnberg very interesting. Then the opportunity to visit Prague and Vienna became a thought of a romantic holiday season. Since we would be in Europe and my husband has not been to Paris....the city of lights became magical.
Posted by
Billings, Mt
29 posts
Don't know if river travel sounds appealing, but a number of cruise operators have Christmas market cruises. We traveled with Grand Circle Travel (gct.com) a few years ago, so I'm more familiar with their offerings but others such as Viking undoubtedly have similar offerings. GCT for example has cruises on the Seine (back and forth from Paris), on the Rhine, and on the Danube (Nuremberg to Vienna or vice versa). These run just over a week. It would be possible to book open jaw airline tickets and take two of these cruises with a rail trip between. For example, do the Seine trip, then train travel from Paris through Strasbourg and Munich, then on to Nuremberg or Vienna for the Danube trip.
Posted by
Frankfurt, Germany
8938 posts
Basing in a larger city and doing day trips to smaller cities and their Christmas Markets is what I usually advise. Some of those small towns may only have their markets on just 1 weekend during Advent, so knowing your dates of travel can help you plan your trip. Also, most of the larger cities will close their markets sometime between the 21st & 23rd of Dec. Very, very few will be open on the 24th or on Christmas Day or after.
I enjoyed the Strasbourg market and Colmar. If you base in a large city like Stuttgart, you could go to Esslingen (one of my favorite markets) and Tübingen. Stuttgart actually has one of the nicest markets in Germany and I think if Rick would visit here, he would probably agree. Basing in Frankfurt, you could visit Mainz, Wiesbaden, Rüdesheim, Heidelberg, Bad Homburg, Marburg, Worms, Aschaffenburg, or Würzburg, and depending on the weekend, Büdingen, Idstein, Seligenstadt, Eltville, or Gelnhausen.
Going to the East with Dresden, add in the Erzgebirge with Seifen, Erfurt and Liepzig and possibly Berlin.
From Munich, you could do Salzburg and Garmisch.