Germany/Austria, December 3 to 19

Hello Liz,
I am so happy for you to take this trip! I was just in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland this past June (Austria for the third time) and loved every minute of the trip. Austria is my favorite European country, and I plan to go back in the future. I am definitely NOT one to give directional advice- I will leave that for some of the right brained experts- but I'd love to share some experiential ideas for your consideration.
When I went to Austria last year (Sept. 2013) I went with some colleagues from work who had not been there, so they wanted to go to the Schonbrunn Castle, etc., in Vienna, but as I had already done that, I decided to take a day trip to Mauthausen. Mauthausen is a town with a WWII concentration camp. I was very glad that I made the effort. As a history buff, I was in awe of the surroundings, memorials, and museum. I could envision the prisoners and Nazi guards, especially as I was in the garage area and the barracks. I stopped a guide and asked him what I should not miss, and he pointed out the quarry (I would've missed this without his advice, because I didn't know its history beforehand.) It was amazing to see and find out its history, especially regarding the "Stairway of Death." I read up on it afterwards and couldn't believe the atrocities that the Nazis had committed there. Mauthausen should not be missed if one is visiting Austria, in my opinion. The beautiful scenery alone is worth the trip. I was so appreciative that I had read about it on this site. The museum also was very informative, I learned a lot there as well.

Salzburg is my favorite city, but unfortunately, it was raining the two days that I was there in June, so that dampened (no pun intended) our visit a bit. Have you been to the Benedectine Abbey in Melk? You might want to check that out if you haven't, it is simply amazing. It is one of the most incredible historical places I've ever been. The history and the views are unparalleled- and the food was fantastic there as well.
Also, in Austria, there are several salt mines that are really cool to see- we went to the one in Hallstein. If you are really active, you might want to consider the Ice Cave (info@eisriesenwelt.at) It was incredible- but quite a difficult walk to get there and around.
Vienna is a fabulous city- there are tons of things to do and see. If you are interested in music, you may want to go to Mozart's birthplace (now a museum) or to a opera or ballet at the Staatsoper (www.wiener-staatsoper.at/) There are also several art museums including one dedicated to Klimt. We never had time to hear the famous Boy Choir or see the Spanish Riding Horses but I've heard rave reviews on both.

Sorry for the long post- as you can tell I simply adore Austria and can't wait to return in the future. We were only in Germany briefly, in Munich and the Black Forest area, but really liked Triberg where they have the largest cuckoo clock etc.
Hope this helps! Feel free to direct message me if you have questions about anything I referenced.
Happy Travels,
Faith

Faith, lots of good information in your post, thank you. I love to travel, but have never taken a vacation in December to any where. I'm concerned about how cold it will be and how it will affect my sight seeing? I'm not too fond of the cold. Not sure if I should take in as much as I can while I'm there in December or just do the time with my sister and go back to visit when it's warmer also. I'm trying to get more bang for my buck. Airline tickets are expensive.

Germanys Christmas region is the area between Nuremberg, the Thuringian Forest and the German/Polish border, i.e. Thuringia and Saxony. That's where most of Germanys Christmas traditions come from. Gingerbread from Nuremberg, glass baubles from Lauscha in the Thuringian Forest, handmade wooden Christmas toys from the Ore mountains, Stollen from Dresden and gingerbread from nearby Pulsnitz, and Moravian Stars from Herrnhut in Upper Lusatia. Most Germans would call the Ore mountains, to the south of Dresden, Germanys Christmas country. You can read more about it here:
Hugging the Czech Republic's border, east Germany's Ore Mountains influence Christmas worldwide
The German towns that Christmas traditions sprung from
Germany's Christmas toy towns
The birthplace of the bauble
With some luck you could even see one of the miners parades.
Dresden is a good base to explore the Ore mountains (although you probably would need a car for Seiffen, IMHO the highlight when it comes to German Christmas). From Dresden you can also visit several other beautiful, preserved towns like Meissen, Bautzen or Görlitz. Görlitz, probably Germanys best preserved town with 4.000 listed buildings, offers a unique Christmas market where you can experience some Silesian traditions. Bautzen is the capital of the Sorbs, a Slavic minority, and offers a equally good preserved town with massive fortifications, and Germanys oldest Christmas market. Here are some impressions of Meissen and Freiberg (the biggest town of the Ore mountains, between Dresden and Seiffen).
Berlin and Dresden are also good choices when it comes to museums. Berlin offers more museums than you can ever visit, and Dresden has some very unique ones (Green Vaults, Armory, Porcelain Collection).

PS: and between Dresden and Nuremberg is Erfurt, which offers the only big Christmas market (200+ stalls) staged in a completely preserved town. All other cities with big markets, like Dresden, Nuremberg, Munich, Stuttgart or Cologne, where destroyed in WW2.

I don't quite understand your plan. Are you thinking to visit Berlin, Dresden, Munich and Vienna over a period of 4 days? That would be quite impossible. Or are you saying that you would spend 4/5 days in Vienna only?

December is cold, yes. I used to live in TX and am a warm weather gal, but I can tolerate it. It really only gets miserable in March when it just seems endless.

The good thing about your dates is that Christmas Markets will be happening. This is a very special thing to see in this part of the world.

I took a 12-day trip a couple of years ago for the Christmas markets (Alsace, southern Germany and Salzburg). After I learned how to dress properly, I wasn't really cold. I wore lots of thermal underwear, usually 2 layers of tops and one of bottoms, and thick wool socks over my regular cotton ones, hat and scarf and really good gloves. I also used disposable chemical handwarmers occasionally. Also I wore a rain poncho over my coat when it was snowing, after a day when my outerwear got really wet (the snow melts). The only real problem with lots of layers is that if you go inside, you will be really uncomfortably warm unless you can easily shed them. It's easy to get hot food and drink (alcoholic and non-) in the markets.

The Christmas markets are pretty much everywhere in the city centers, in just about every plaza and spilling into the side streets. For the most part, they open around noon. In Germany and Salzburg, they were fairly crowded at lunchtime, when the locals come out for lunch and then thin out for the afternoon. Around 5 they start to fill up again as locals get off work. In most places it was very hard to walk at all by around 7 and certainly by 8, because of the throngs of revelers. The locals come more to drink and eat, and drink some more, so they aren't moving around much at all. I had lots of sightseeing hours during the day, interspersed with wandering the markets.

I visited Strasbourg and Colmar (easy train trip from Stuttgart) and enjoyed both cities and their markets very much. The French markets were a lot different, less oriented around eating and drinking, and more stuff for kids. A really special event is the nightly caroling by children on boats along the canals in Colmar. The most unusual market was Eslingen, a short train ride from Stuttgart. They have a medieval market, vendors in costumes, stalls with wares and amusements of the period. I know this is in the opposite direction of your idea, but I highly recommend 3-4 days here.

Don't overlook some of the towns near Wiesbaden, particularly to the north. It's a really attractive area that most tourists simply skip on the way to Bavaria. If you'll have a car, look into visiting Büdingen, Idstein, Dillenberg, Braunfels, Marburg, Wetzlar, Bad Homburg, Königstein im Taunus and Fritzlar. The open-air folk museum at Hessenpark is also open all year (although only about half of it is completed thus far). Visit at least two of these towns, within easy day trip distance of Wiesbaden, before deciding if you need to follow the tourist hordes far out of your way to Rothenburg.

The weather probably won't be as cold as you might fear. The upper Rhine-Neckar-Main valley (of which Wiebaden is on the northern end) is one of the warmest regions of Germany. Temperatures are usually well above freezing in December, and this area isn't particularly windy. Munich, Dresden and Vienna will likely be colder, though. Berlin can go either way in December.