Christmas Market Road Trip: 5 Wonderful Stops in Germany!

After renting a car in Prague, we drove three hours on the Autobahn, to the city of Nuremberg — “the little city of wood and cloth”.

Speaking of the Autobahn… Contrary to popular beliefs, there are, in fact, speed limits on the Autobahn. Certainly there are sections of this 12,000km (7,200 mile) network of highways when no speed limit is defined, road construction, and city limits, will restrict the speed limit to 100 or 110kph (~65 mph). You need to pay very close attention to these changing (speed) limits, as they literally switch quite regularly. For those who chose to ignore the posted signs, know that there are unmarked police cars and automated roadside photo boxes everywhere. Read here to familiarize yourself with the rules of the road prior to renting a car. From what we observed, Germans are very good drivers. We were told that you cannot obtain a drivers license here until you are 18 years old and have completed a very stringent “driving school”.

Nuremberg Christkindlesmarkt, Germany

Anyway, one of the oldest and most famous Christmas markets in the world, the Nuremberg Christkindlesmarkt, can be found on Nuremberg’s Main Market Square. The Nuremberg Christkindlesmarkt is famous for its Rauschgold angels, wooden nutcrackers, nativity scenes, and colorful stars. It also boasts culinary highlights like (gingerbread-ish) lebkuchen, mulled wine, and bratwurst. Parking is not easy to find, even on a rainy Wednesday afternoon, but we finally squeezed into a spot in an adjacent neighborhood that was a 5-minute walk away.

At this point in our journey, we were still new to the concept of the Christmas Market. In Prague, we had sampled the roasted chestnuts and the ice cream. We had the local currency now though, so the world was our oyster. It was cold and rainy when we entered the markets, so we stopped at the first stall with a covered area. This stand happened to be selling several Christmas decorations, but the “pilots” (of course) zeroed in on the airplane ornaments. We purchased two, and then also picked up two of these cute, but oddly shaped, mugs. At this point in time we had no idea that these mugs would soon become one of our most cherished souvenirs.

Minutes later, the sun was shining, and we were able to dry off and browse the rest of the market, indulging in our first of many bratwursts. The kids took great interest in stall with a multitude of wooden puzzles. The woman there was very helpful in finding a puzzle that was challenging enough for Roy, a sixth grader, who looks to be about eight. (At a different market in Austria, the woman was not as kind, snatching the puzzle from Roy barking “This puzzle. NOT for YOU! Too young!”) We left Nuremberg at 4PM and drove the two hours to our hotel, the Ferienwohnung Max, in Gilching, a suburb of Munich, where we would spend the next two nights.

Spitzingsee, Germany

Our plan for the next morning was to drive an hour out of town to Spitzingsee. Here we would be able to enjoy an epic sled ride on a traditional wooden toboggan, at Obere Firstalm. (Thank goodness we had packed our snow clothes!) Unfortunately, traffic in Munich, was no joke. We were staying in the burbs, but leaving at 8:30AM, it took us over 30-minutes to to drive the mile from our hotel to the Autobahn. From there, we spent another 45-minutes in Munich traffic. Clearly Germany has yet to adopt the “work from home”, or “staggered start time” concept that we have in California. We made a “note to self” to never attempt to drive during “rush hour” again.

Once we left the city, it was a beautiful drive through the country to Spitzingsee, parking when we saw the sign in the picture below. At the time, we were the only ones there. We started our trek up the Trautweinweg to Obere Firstalm. It was actively snowing, creating a winter wonderland for our two California-raised boys. Keeping a pretty decent pace, it took us 45-minutes to reach the top, and as you can see, we shedded many layers in the process. On a Thursday morning we passed absolutely no one, to the point where we were not totally sure we were on the right trail.

When we finally made it to the “lodge”, it was pretty empty. Roy, was parched, and refused to eat the snow (he thought it could contain gluten?!) so we asked for a glass of water from the bar. The young, blonde woman working at the bar charged us 5 euros for tap water. Disgraceful. It gets worse. Just wait. Anyway, Roy did not drink the full glass, but since we had paid a fortune for it, I finished it off. We paid about 7 or 8 Euros for each of our sleds and then left to head down the hill.

Apparently, most will descend in 10-minutes, but It took us 20-minutes. This was probably because the kids didn’t weigh enough to go very fast. I finally positioned Greg on his stomach, allowing him to “bomb down” the rest of the way. We left our sleds in the pile at the bottom of the hill, and raced back to Munich for a planned tour of the BMW WELT factory. The tour was offered in German-only (fine print at the bottom of the ticket) and made it very clear that if “you do NOT speak German, YOU are VERBOTEN! (forbidden).” Those Germans do not mince words. Instead we walked around the BMW convention center, quickly came to the conclusion that none of us were interested in BMWs, and headed back to our apartment in an effort to ditch the car for public transportation so as to never deal with all that horrendous traffic again.

Munich, Germany

As I said earlier, the 5 euro glass of tap water wasn’t the worst of it. After grabbing a snack at our hotel, we were just about to leave when we received an alert that Doug’s bank had just denied a charge for $1000 at Zara.com. Hmmm. I wonder if that twenty-something blonde girl, working at the Obere Firstalm, likes to shop at Zara.com? The only other person who could have possibly jotted down our credit card number was the wealthy Japanese businessman paying for parking behind us at the Convention Center. The one that was driving a 7-series BMW with his colleagues… I think we know who did it, don’t we, blondie.

Anyway, to arrive into Munich, we walked ten-minutes from our hotel to the Gilching-Argelsried station. We took the S8 train for twelve stops (30-minutes) to München Hauptbahnhof. Here we walked a minute or so to the Munich Christkindlmarkt in Marienplatz Square. This traditional market, with roots dating back to the 14th century, is considered to be the original of Munich’s Christmas markets. The village of stalls enchants with its old Bavarian charm. This location is also home to Germany’s largest Nativity scene. We happened to be craving a sit down meal so we headed away from the market to make that our priority.

En route to dinner, we briefly stopped in the (incredibly crowded) Hofbräuhaus — the most famous beer hall in Munich. This stop reminded Doug of the time he “overindulged” here with his brother many years prior. We found a quaint little restaurant in one of the alleys and enjoyed a sit down dinner of “wursts” and pretzels. We learned to stay away from the “schnitzel” when we were in Prague. A “schnitzel” does NOT equal a sausage, instead it equates to “deep friend something”. Typically veal. Yuck. Side note: while the pretzels look delicious, they are actually very dry and flavorless.

After dinner we discovered the best part of a Christmas Market – kinderpunsch. Our lives will never be the same again. This delightful warmed drink made of apple cider, cherry juice, orange juice, fruit tea, and a number of Christmas spices (cinnamon, cloves, star of anise, etc.) is the kid-friendly version of mulled wine. We could not get enough of it. Thus began our kinderpunsch tasting and subsequent mug collecting tour of Central Europe.

Neuschwanstein Castle, Germany

Looking to avoid another traffic nightmare, we left for the Neuschwanstein Castle at 6AM arriving just before 8AM. Nestled between the Bavarian Alps, Neuschwanstein Castle (known as the German Disney Castle), is one of Germany’s most popular destinations. Guided tours in the winter begin at 10AM, but we did not have tickets, so decided to walk up on our own to admire the exterior. We had the place to ourselves until we came across a tour group on our way back to our car.

Berchtesgaden (and Lake Konigssee) , Germany

The drive to Berchtesgaden was approximately three hours. We made a quick stop acouple of miles south of town, at Lake Konigsee. This is Germany’s deepest and cleanest lake and has been used for outdoor recreation for centuries. Bavarian royalty and the local rulers hunted here, Hitler went boating on the lake, and Eva Braun liked to sunbathe on the shore. You can take an inexpensive boat tour around the lake, but the weather wasn’t cooperating, so we used the stop to stretch our legs and use the public restroom. Luckily we were able to secure one of the three parking spots in town.

We had a tour of the Berchtesgaden Salt Mine scheduled for 3PM. This is highly recommended as it was probably the kids favorite stop. Adorned in a traditional miner’s outfit, we road on a speedy “mine car” to the actual underground location, then got to slide down two slides, and take a boat across the “glittering mirror lake”. We even got to sample the salt from the mine.

After touring the salt mine, we visited Berchtesgaden. Berchtesgaden is one of Germany’s most famous mountain resorts and the location of Eagle’s Nest – the retreat built for Adolf Hitler. In the month of December, visiting Eagle’s Nest is not an option, but a visit to the Berchtesgadener Advent is, and definitely well worth it. This was, by far, my favorite Christmas Market. This market is smaller and more intimate than Munich, and we were serenaded by several guys in lederhosen playing their alpenhorns. (So German. Or maybe Austrian? No idea.) Berchtesgaden was also the location of a bakery that made the best vanillekipferl (crescent-shaped almond cookies coated with a dusting of vanilla-flavored sugar) I have ever tasted.

We ate dinner near the markets, and then grabbed a kinderpunsche for the road. In the morning we would be on our way to Austria!

Follow along here: 4 Amazing Days in Salzburg and Vienna at Christmas