CHRISTMAS MARKETS · FESTIVE TOURS WORLDWIDE
Find the lights. We found the way in.
Christkindlmarkt stalls in Vienna, the Alsace markets out of Strasbourg, the lights of London, husky sleds in Lapland. Real reviews of the festive tours worth booking, in the cities that do the season best.
Worth the trip for the season alone
Three cities built for Christmas.
Plenty of places hang up lights in December. Strasbourg, Vienna and Rovaniemi do something more: the oldest market in Europe, a city scored with carol concerts, and the snowbound village on the Arctic Circle. These are the ones people cross a continent for.
Alsace, France
Strasbourg
They call it the Capital of Christmas, and it earns it. The Christkindelsmarik has run since 1570, spilling out of the cathedral square and across the canals of Petite France into a hundred timbered-house stalls. A guide walks you the Alsace wine-route towns too, Colmar and Riquewihr lit up like a snow globe, with vin chaud at every stop and bredele biscuits warm from the oven.
- 1 Alsace Christmas Markets Day Tour from Strasbourg
- 2 Strasbourg 7-Hour Christmas Markets Tour
- 3 Immersive Christmas cellar visit and Alsace wine tasting
Austria
Vienna
Vienna does Christmas with an orchestra behind it. The Christkindlmarkt glows in front of the Rathaus, the Belvedere and Schonbrunn run their own, and between the punch stands and the baubles the city fills with Advent concerts: Strauss and carols in churches that were built for exactly this sound. A walking tour links the markets; a concert ticket gives the evening its hush.
- 1 Vienna: Christmas & New Year’s Concert in St. Peter’s Church
- 2 Vienna: Christmas Photoshoot with a Pro Photographer
- 3 Christmas and New Year Concert at St. Peter’s Church in Vienna
Lapland, Finland
Rovaniemi
This is the one children draw. Rovaniemi sits on the Arctic Circle and leans all the way into it: Santa Claus Village where you cross the line marked in the snow, husky and reindeer sleds through the forest, snowmobile runs and, when the sky cooperates, the aurora overhead. The northernmost Christmas a trip can reach, and the one most worth the cold.
- 1 Husky and Reindeer Experience
- 2 Santa’s Reindeer & Husky Safari + Aurora BBQ in Rovaniemi
- 3 Rovaniemi: Meet Santa Claus, Reindeer Sleigh Ride & Huskies
If you only book one
The festive tour more travellers rave about than any other.
Out of every Christmas market, lights tour and winter trip on the site, this is the one that sends people home telling everyone they know to go.
The crowd-pleasers
The Most Popular Festive Tours Right Now
Vienna market strolls, London lights by night, the Alsace villages, Dyker Heights in Brooklyn. The bookings travellers are happiest they made.
Start with a city
The best of the season, city by city.
Strasbourg for the Alsace markets, Vienna for the carol concerts, London for the lights, New York for the windows. Pick where you are headed and we will show you the festive tours worth booking there.
Where to spend the season
Three kinds of Christmas to choose from.
Before you pick a city, pick a feeling. Each of these is a corner of the festive world we cover deeply, and a very different December waiting at the end of it.
Vienna
Advent, set to music.
No city does the season with more polish than Vienna. The Christkindlmarkt glows in front of the Rathaus, the Belvedere and Schonbrunn run their own, and the evenings fill with Advent concerts: Strauss and carols in churches built for exactly that sound. A guided walk links the markets; a concert ticket gives the night its hush.
See the best Vienna festive tours →London
A million lights, after dark.
London switches on for December and goes all out: the Regent Street and Oxford Street canopies, the Covent Garden tree, Hyde Park’s Winter Wonderland and the South Bank market strung along the river. An open-top bus or a walking tour after sunset strings the best of it together, with the windows of the great department stores saved for last.
See the best London festive tours →Rovaniemi
Cross the line into the Arctic.
On the edge of Finnish Lapland, Rovaniemi is where the map says Arctic Circle and the ground agrees. Santa Claus Village sits right on the line; beyond it wait husky and reindeer sleds through snow-laden forest, snowmobile runs across frozen lakes, and the northern lights when the night turns clear and cold. This is the Christmas children draw, made real.
See the best Rovaniemi festive tours →New York at Christmas
The tree, the windows, the lights.
New York turns the season into a set piece: the Rockefeller tree and its rink, the Fifth Avenue department-store windows, Bryant Park’s Winter Village, and out in Brooklyn the famous Dyker Heights blocks where whole streets compete to out-dazzle each other. A guide walks or drives you through the best of it once the lights come on.
- 1 Dyker Heights Christmas Lights Guided Tour
- 2 Dyker Heights Brooklyn Christmas Lights Tour
- 3 Dyker Heights Christmas Lights Tour
How big a Christmas
How festive a trip are you after?
A gentle loop of the Vienna market with a mug of punch. A full Munich Christkindlmarkt with a guide who knows the stalls. A husky sled and the northern lights in Lapland. Pick the one that sounds like your kind of December.
A gentle wander
Vienna, stall to stall.A slow loop of the Christkindlmarkt at Rathausplatz with a mug of punch warming your hands: roasted chestnuts, hand-blown baubles, a guide pointing out which stand has been here for generations. All the magic, none of the hurry.
Markets and a tasting
Munich, the full Christkindlmarkt.Marienplatz and the smaller squares beyond it, with a guide who knows which stall pours the best gluhwein and where the Nuremberg-style gingerbread is worth the queue. The markets, plus everything you would never think to order.
The full Arctic
Rovaniemi, all the way north.Santa Claus Village on the Arctic Circle, a husky sled across the snow, reindeer in the forest and the northern lights overhead if the sky is clear. The biggest Christmas a trip can hold, in the place that does it best.
Prague
A market under the clock.
Prague keeps its Christmas in the most photogenic square in Central Europe. Wooden stalls fill the Old Town beneath the astronomical clock and the twin spires of the Tyn church, a second market spreads across Wenceslas Square, and the air carries trdelnik on the spit and svarak warming on every corner. A guide threads the lanes between them, with the gothic skyline lit up over your shoulder.
See all 5 Prague festive tours →By city
Pick a city to spend Christmas in.
Strasbourg for the Alsace markets. Vienna for the carol concerts. Rovaniemi for the snow and the sleds. London for the lights. New York for the windows. Prague for the stalls under the clock.
More cities
More cities worth a December weekend.
Nuremberg for the oldest Christkindlesmarkt, Salzburg for the Alpine glow, Colmar for the storybook Alsace, Budapest for the riverside stalls. The rest of the festive map, ready when you are.
Three cities, three festive days
Pick a city, plan a day around the lights.
A morning at Nuremberg’s oldest market, an Alpine afternoon in Salzburg, a riverside evening in Budapest. Three cities, three very different ways to spend a December day.
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