My husband loves me very much. We’ve been living in Germany for about 3 years, and in that time I’ve visited more than 30 Christmas markets. Not because he wanted to visit them (although he enjoys going with me) but because I wanted to go. And so the Christmas Market Run was born.

Last year during our “It’s a Small World After All, Christmas Market Tour,” we managed to visit 15 Christmas Markets in 4 different countries. We spent a few days in the Netherlands (and learned about a few local Christmas traditions that made us slightly uncomfortable). We also visited a few towns in France (including Colmar…which I now call Christmas Town) and we saw a few more markets in Switzerland and here in Germany.

This year we managed to see 17 markets in 3 different countries over a period of 10 days. We saw the bulk of the markets between December 2^nd -December 7^th and the last of the markets between December 21^st -December 22^nd.

We began our “Run”…right here in Germany. Our first Christmas market was in the city of Böblingen. This is a small town that borders Stuttgart, and the market reflected just how small this town is. There were maybe 30 stalls (booths)…most of those selling food and drinks. Not too exciting, but the experience was helpful in getting us into the spirit of the Christmas Market Run.

The next day (Dec 2^nd) we packed out bags and headed to Brussels, Belgium. But we stopped at a few markets along the way: Koblenz, Germany was our first stop. This city is bigger than Böblingen, and the booths were spread out around a few areas in town. I picked up a few items and we hightailed it out of there. I would have looked around a lot more but I wasn’t made aware of the plan. Mike later informed me we had a few more markets to see (time permitting) before we got to Brussels.

Our next stop was Aachen, Germany.  This was a great Market. They had hundreds of stalls, and everything was organized (one of Mike’s favorite words to describe anything in Germany). I did buy few things, but it was late and we still had to get to Brussels. Once we arrived in Brussels, we called it a night went to sleep.

The next day we got on the train and headed into the center of Brussels. Okay, we took a detour to see a few things before we headed to the Market. I had never been to Brussels (Mike has been several times). I wanted to visit the Gillio Store (makers of a beautiful leather agenda I wanted to buy…sadly, there were out of stock…but that story ends happily) and the Hard Rock Café. We actually visited a few other places while we were in that part of town.  We saw the Hall of Justice building, the Grand Palace, a cathedral and a huge town square. We eventually made it over to the area of their main Christmas Market (some cities have several Christmas Markets). The market was fine. Mike will remember it fondly because of a savory crepe sandwich he had from one of the vendors. I believe she was from Marrakesh. Now it won’t be too hard for me to get him to take that trip to Morocco. 🙂

The next day we left Brussels and stopped in Lille, France. I thought this was going to be a tiny town, but it was bustling with activity, and it had several large town square areas. The Christmas market was fine…it was confined to one area with about 50-75 stalls. It was here when Mike and I started to realize that it wasn’t just size that differentiated the markets…but products. As we crossed into France, we noticed that most of their market stalls were filled with crafts and food and wine and handmade goods…but not a lot of Christmas stuff. Say, what?  No, Christmas Markets are not created equal. We were getting that feeling in Brussels, but it really hit us in Lille. It felt more like a Craft fair than a Christmas Market.

Our next market was in Arras, France. This was a cute town. All the buildings surrounding the market, were all shaped alike. Very cute. But the Christmas market was about the same…not a lot of Christmas stuff. Next stop…Paris.

It has been about 9 years since we visited Paris, and we were excited to see it at Christmas. We spent a lot of our first day seeing some things we’d never seen before, and seeing some things for the first time…again. We took the Metro to the Gare St Lazare (train station). We thought there was going to be lots of Christmas stalls set-up here…but there were probably 20.

We went to the Hard Rock Café…again, and we finally saw the inside of Notre Dame. When we visited Paris before, we just didn’t go inside. This time around we went inside and were thoroughly impressed by this church. On this trip we actually saw about three other cathedrals named Notre Dame. But after seeing the one in Paris, we now know why we’ve heard of that one, and not the others.

We had lunch at a place called East End Burgers. It’s a small slip of a place that serves vegetarian food and seats about 20 people…tops! Good food, very small accommodations.

We headed to Gare de La Défense (another train stop) for another Christmas Market. The size of this market, was not disappointing. They were supposed to have 400 stalls, and I think they got pretty close to that mark. We looked around for a few hours, visited one of the malls that flanked the market, and headed to the Champs-Élysées.

The Champs-Élysées is one of the most famous streets in Paris: It’s bordered by the Arc de Triomphe in one direction and the Place de la Concorde in the other. The Christmas Market here was crazy. Take any big city in the world, line it with several hundred booths, inject several thousand out-of-town visitors…oh yeah, and keep the every day traffic going like nothing else is happening. Crazy! But we had fun.

The next day we visited the city of Reims,France (they have a Notre Dame, too). The Christmas Market was fine. All the stalls were open in the main market, but some of their ancillary markets were closed.

The next market we visited was in Metz, France. It was really cold when we arrived, so I pretty much wanted to keep moving so I wouldn’t get too cold. The people in town seemed to be doing more of their shopping in the stores. There wasn’t a lot going on at the Market…when we finally found it. The only thing we bought at the market was food: Mike had some Tartiflette (a dish made from potatoes, cream, cheese and ham), and I had a beignet.

The next day we headed to Baden-Baden, Germany. And it wasn’t bad…bad. We were back to familiar ground and now the booths were looking more Christmas-y. Last year when we visited this Christmas Market on the 24^th of December, it was already closed-closed. So, it was nice to see it open-open. We also visited our most favorite Italian restaurant in the area. It’s always fun to stop in Baden-Baden.

Our last Christmas Market of that week was in Durlach, Germany. This market had an authentic medieval theme. Instead of stalls, they had tents and lean-tos. It was very rustic, and smoky (everything was being cooked on a spit). But Mike did have his most favorite waffle there, and he bought a painting in one of the local shops.

We hit our next Christmas Market on the weekend of the 14^th.  We were home in Stuttgart, and figured we’d go to one of the best markets in Germany…Stuttgart. This is a pretty big market, and it was pretty crowded. It was wall-to-wall people. It’s a good thing we know our way around, or we might have been discouraged. There were plenty of stalls and plenty of Christmas stuff. We’ve always enjoyed our hometown Christmas market, but it’s still nice to visit the other ones too.

On the weekend of the 21^st we took a 2-day trip so we could see one of Germany’s oldest and largest Christmas Markets: Nuremberg. Oh my goodness. This was a great market. If Colmar is Christmas Town, Nuremberg has to be Christmas City. It was spectacular. Everything was so festive looking; there were lights and decorated stalls all around. It was great…but there were people everywhere. Somehow, we managed to get through the aisles, and even buy some stuff.

The next day we headed to Würzburg, Germany to see what they had to offer. It’s a nice town, they had a decent sized market, but I’m sorry, after Nuremberg, we couldn’t muster up that much excitement for the market. But the town was beautiful. It had several big churches, and those churches made the little town appear grand. There was also a fortress (today it’s a museum) on the side of a hill overlooking the town and the Main river. If we had had enough energy, we would have tried to climb that hill to get a closer look. But we didn’t.

The last Christmas Market we visited was in the town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Germany. It’s a medieval walled-town, and it’s absolutely charming. The market was fine. They had stalls in a few areas around town. But the charm of this city was it’s many Christmas shops. And even though it was Sunday, a lot of the stores were open…and they were ready for Christmas.  This little Christmas Village was packed with people, and they were all lining up for something called a Schneeball (snowball). It’s a ball of pastry, dipped in various flavors. It’s a specialty of Rothenburg.

We had a great time during this year’s Christmas Market Run. Here are some of the goodies I picked up:

 Frohe Weihnachten! (Merry Christmas!)