Beth and I did the Viking Christmas on the Rhine cruise in early December, visiting 10 Christmas Markets. One was in the Netherlands, one in France, one in Switzerland, and seven were in Germany. We very much enjoyed the trip but quickly had our expectations reset on what to expect in a European Christmas market.
Christmas Markets have been done in these cities for hundreds of years and their origin was for families to come to the town square to celebrate the Christmas holiday with their neighbors. It was primarily a multiday party of eating and drinking with a few craftsmen hoping they could sell their wares to the partying crowd. We would call this a Christmas Fair or Party, not a Market as people came primarily to eat and drink, not to shop. Once we had that understanding, we enjoyed the different Christmas Markets and have some observations that may be of interest if you will be visiting any in the future.
Our cruise itinerary had us visiting the Christmas Market either just when it was opening, mostly 10:00 AM and 11:00 AM in one case, and returning to the ship at 12:30 for lunch, or in the late afternoon at 5:30 for a few hours before returning to the ship for dinner. We enjoyed the daytime visits much more. In the evening the crowds were much larger and people were doing more serious drinking. The largest of the markets we visited was in the city of Cologne and we were there on the Friday night when it had just opened earlier that week. The Friday night crowd was huge and very boisterous. Even though there were multiple market sites around the city, it was very hard to move through the crowds. We were very concerned about getting separated from each other in a foreign country, in the dark, in a very large crowd of people drinking heavily. From that point on we established a rendezvous point for every market we visited where we would go in case we got separated. Fortunately, that never happened, but the Christmas Market we enjoyed the least was Cologne, a really lovely city with a fantastic cathedral, but it was closed when we got there.
Many of the ones we visited when they opened in the morning were very small, but that was fine. They were friendlier and we had no crowd issues. The cruise we took started in Amsterdam and ended in Basel. It then turns around and reverses that itinerary. Our first visit to a market was in the very small town of Dordrecht in the Netherlands and they had about 8-10 booths each in two squares a short distance apart, very tiny. But it let us understand that at least half of those booths were selling food and drink and only a few had any kind of products you could buy. It was great to get this introduction up front and if we had taken the Basel to Amsterdam itinerary we would have ended at this tiny Market instead of starting at it and not gotten the same introduction to the Christmas Markets.
Understanding that people go to the markets to party, not to shop, let us establish our plan for each market we visited. We would have one or two snacks and something to drink (and I will talk about food and drink next). We would then walk the booths to see what was for sale. Most of the booths with products had exactly the same things made in factories in low labor cost countries, not in cottages outside that town. But we generally found a few that had local products of interest. Two of the markets had people blowing glass ornaments in the booth which we liked, and Viking brought a glass blower on board for an evening show which significantly impacted my wallet. We generally found something we liked at each of the markets either for us or as a present for the family. But most of the time was spent eating, drinking, walking, and observing the crowd at the market, usually all four of these things at the same time.
Very few of the food and drink booths took credit cards, Euros only. Some of the merchants did take credit cards, especially for the more expensive things like the blown glass ornaments. The primary beverage was Gluhwein – hot mulled wine. Every fourth booth was generally selling gluhwein. They had both red and white, but we only had the red. I could not taste any difference in the gluhwein from any of the 10 different markets we had it at, and in at least one of them we had it from two different booths. The recipe appears to be pretty standard. The best thing about Gluhwein is not the taste, it is that it is a hot beverage. The temperature ranged from the low 30s down to 19 degrees Fahrenheit and it was a damp cold from being on the river and often some wind blowing down the streets. Holding something hot in your hands was very pleasant and the warmth felt good running down your throat. It was sold in small glass mugs for 5-6€. If you returned the mug to the booth you got a deposit of 2-3€ back. I was very happy that Beth chose to only bring two mugs home. One of our friends that we met on the cruise pointed out to us that some of the gluhwein booths had the option to add a shot of rum, tequila, aquavit, or other liquors to the gluhwein for another 2€. We found that rum significantly improved the taste and did that several times. I did get an OK hot chocolate at one booth we were visiting in the daytime. Not thick enough to stand a spoon in but several orders of magnitude better than Nestle’s Quick. There were some booths selling beer and small bottles of wine, but gluhwein was the dominant beverage at every one of the Christmas Markets.
Two food items were also staples at all of the markets. About every fifth booth was selling a choice of different wursts or sausages. Most of them were about 12” long and you got them in a mini baguette about 4” long with sausage hanging out each end of it. We tried a couple of different ones and were happy to share with each of us eating from a different end and meeting in the middle. We were surprised to see Curry Wurst at many of the booths and tried it once. It was tasty but we had missed that the booth we bought it from put ketchup on as a default unless you told then not to. We scrapped most of it off and did enjoy the sausage which was not too spicy. The food we fell in love with was the potato pancakes or latke. For 3-4€we got either two pancakes about 6” in diameter or three about 4” in diameter, both about ½” thick. Perfect size to split. Apple sauce was the standard accompaniment, and we got that each time. While wurst and potato pancakes were the most common food booths there were some with flatbreads, only called pizza once that I saw, and with a baguette sliced in half horizontally and each half covered with different meats and cheeses and put under a broiler. We did not try any of them since we were getting either lunch or dinner back on the boat so the potato pancake with some gluhwein was our appetizer each time.
Most of the booth signs were in several languages and all of the people working the booths knew enough English to take your order and your money. And most of the time they were very friendly and appreciative of your business.
Our favorite Christmas Market was in Strasbourg, France. It had the most interesting crafts and was one of the larger ones we visited in the daytime with minimal crowds. We put Strasbourg and Lucerne on our list of places we want to visit for a few days in the summer on a future trip. Cologne was the only one that we did not enjoy and that was because the crowds were too much. I think if we were there on a Wednesday morning when it opened instead of a Friday night when everybody in Cologne wanted to party, it might have been one of our favorites.
One final consideration when visiting the Christmas Markets as part of a cruise. The good news is that you don’t have to worry about parking a car and you do not want to drive in Europe if you have been drinking and that is a big part of going to a Christmas Market. The bad news is that there were only a few of the Markets that we could walk to from where our ship was docked. We generally had a short bus ride with a local driver who gave us history and things of interest about the city or town we were visiting and generally gave us a 30 minute walking tour ending up at the Christmas Market. That was nice but if we needed to be on the bus to return at 12:30 or 7:00, it was because the ship would be on the move 10 minutes after the bus dropped us off and if you missed the bus, you missed the boat. Only in Strasbourg did we have an option to stay longer with buses back to the boat at 2:00, 3:00, and 4:00. We enjoyed having more time to walk around Strasbourg and chose to have lunch at a small café there instead of going back to the ship for lunch.
Beth had pretty much given up hope that I would ever consider doing a Christmas Market cruise and she was totally surprised when I suggested it this year. We very much enjoyed it and remain strong advocates for Viking.
Bill's Thoughts on Wine, Travel, and Food 