Any suggesstions for my trip to munich/prague/amsterdam/london?

I don't know when you will be arriving in Frankfurt, but we do have one of the largest and oldest Christmas markets (600 years) which will take up quite a while just to even walk through. There are also quite a lot of things here to do and see, it is worth more than just a 3 hour visit which is all Rick Steves grants us. I am not sure who gave him his tour, but they really did this great city a huge injustice. If you do happen to be in Frankfurt on the 24th, they have the pealing of the bells. This is all 50 bells from 10 churches in the old city center that ring together in a harmony for half an hour. I believe it is at 1600 or 1700. This is an amazing treat for the ears. Don't know about the snow in Germany, it has been iffy the past few years.

We will arrive in Frankfurt @ 7AM on the 26th of december.

Yeah, snow has been iffy in minnesota too...a little slow.

We REALLY wanted to see the german markets, but it looks like we will be missing the bulk of it all...

Re your question: Will it even be snowing at this time??Of course no one can reliably answer that question this far in advance of December. But if this helps: The weather in places near the Atlantic or English Channel--such as London, Amsterdam, Paris--normally is going to be milder on the low temp side than places in interior Germany or farther into Eastern Europe that are not near large bodies of water. This moderating effect of the Channel/Atlantic is especially noticeable in limiting how cold the low temps get. It's similar to the difference between Seattle and your Minneapolis weather in the winter: similar latitude but Seattle will be 40F when you're at 10, because Seattle has a Northwest Marine type climate influenced by the large body of water the air passes over before it gets to Seattle, while Minneapolis has an interior Continental climate not moderated by proximity to an ocean on the north or west side. Same concept with European weather.

Thanks Kent, that was a good refresher, I just took geog 1101 in college, climates were tough :-p, but the concept was easy.

So MAYBE there will be snow in Germany ^_^.

Any ideas what we should add to our trip? Or something we are overlooking and should spend more time on?

Is it possible to go rafting, or hosreback riding in certain countries? Or is that sort of thing closed during the winter?

Anthony: If I'd known you know more about climate than I do (from your course), I would have skipped the lecture.There's pretty much always snow in Germany in December, if you go high enough into the mountains. It's an elevation thing, I realize you don't have serious mountains in Minnesota (yeah, a few hills up north but they aren't real mountains)--but they do have real mountains in southern/southeastern Germany. So you can find snow if you really want it. :)I have to admit I haven't looked for rafting or horseback riding in northwestern Europe in December--so I don't know if you can do those in December, my guess would be no as to the rafting and I'm not sure whether there is much consumer demand for horseback riding in December in northwestern Europe, let's see if somebody can explain that I'm wrong on that?I realize that anything above 25F in December is going to seem almost subtropical to someone from Minneapolis, but remember that the European tourist service providers think December in their neck of the woods is pretty chilly.

None of your destinations have skiing in the immediate vicinity, although there are some world-class pistes to the south of Munich near Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Innsbruch. The Czech Republic has a few ski resorts, but nothing too impressive and none near Prague. At this time of year, you won't find any rafting (and none in the cities at any time of year).

A bit of advice on Prague... during holidays, the tidal waves of tourists tend to increase the waiting times at restaurants. The places Rick recommends tend to be particularly packed. So, make reservations, and don't use Rick as your only source of information.