Finally Getting To See The Christmas Markets in Europe
Picking up right after our Balkan road trip, we finished in Zagreb where we returned the car and checked into an Airbnb right in the center of town. The timing was perfect as it was right as the Christmas Markets were getting into full swing. I’m not sure if it was all of the Christmas lights that won me over, but Zagreb was a city that really surprised me. I had always heard “visit Zagreb for a day, then head to the coast”. And while I can certainly understand the hype of Croatia’s insanely beautiful coastline, the capital city is not one that should be missed. I mentally noted it as one of my top picks for a future digital nomad destination.
Zagreb was just our first stop on our self-made European Christmas Market Tour, but it was 100% my favorite stop. The city was completely draped in lights and decorations with market stalls selling mulled wine and hot chocolate, playing Christmas tunes on every corner. We were there for 3 nights and still felt like we didn’t see it all.
The highlight for me was ice-skating in Ledeni Park. I’ve never seen a skating rink like the one in Zagreb, and for my first time ice-skating, it was such an awesome experience. I’ve always been a sucker for NYC at Christmas but Zagreb blew NYC away in my humble opinion.
Other highlights included strolling down StrossMartre, a pedestrian promenade in Upper Town Zagreb. This is one of the most charming parts of the city. Also, indulging in one of the classic desserts, fritule, which is pretty much a doughnut hole you can top with a variety of guilty pleasures (chocolate sauce, powdered sugar, cinnamon = YUM).
I can see why Zagreb has placed #1 as the best Christmas market in Europe multiple times. I can’t imagine anywhere else topping it! I wish I had spent more time photographing it because my photos don’t do it justice. But for this major bucket list experience, I was just enjoying being in the moment as much as possible.
We then took the 5-hour Flix Bus ride from Zagreb to Budapest, our next stop for Christmas markets. The ride was so much better than we thought it would be. We were among just a few other passengers so we had plenty of room to spread out. Additionally, the Wifi worked pretty well as we had heard “sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t”. Our driver was very friendly and it was a pretty painless border crossing as well.
Budapest, as you probably know, is my favorite city in Europe. This would be our 3rd visit, but the first time seeing it in all its festive glory. I think I loved it even more at Christmas than I did in the summer. It didn’t have the massive amount of obnoxiously drunk tourists and bachelor parties that are nonstop in the summer. It was a completely different pace. We also had another amazing Airbnb, which seems to be a pattern there. This one might have been the best yet though (sign up for Airbnb using our link to get $40 credit on your first trip)
Our lovely Airbnb in Budapest
The holiday markets definitely didn’t disappoint either. There were many markets throughout the city the selling the typical mulled wine, hot chocolate and a lot of the same things we saw in Zagreb, but with less burgers and hotdogs and more of Hungary’s delicious food staples. My favorite market to visit was near St. Stephen’s Basilica, which is always one of my favorite parts of the city to visit anyways.
To top off our time in Budapest, I got to celebrate my birthday hanging out in the famous ruin bars with our favorite Irish friends, Carlo and Flor. Usually, I’m anxious for our next move, but that’s never the case when leaving Budapest. In fact, I really hated leaving again. But Prague is always lauded as having amazing Christmas Markets, so I definitely wanted to see what the hype was all about.
Budapest did bid us a nice farewell with this gorgeous display of colors at sunset on our last night.
We took the train to Prague, which is the same trip we did in reverse a few years ago. Honestly, it was really crowded – I believe it was overbooked – and we kind of wish we had used FlixBus again. But we arrived and checked into another nice Airbnb in Prague.
This was our second trip to Prague. The first time we were there was for 2 weeks in the summer of 2015 during a heat wave. We loved it then, but the heat kept us indoors and working a lot. It was also so crowded in the Old Town that we were practically walking elbow-to-elbow with the rest of the tourists. In the heat, that doesn’t really make for a fun time. We hoped that winter would be a little quieter, but we were so wrong. Apparently, Prague is insanely busy all of the time.
That being said, the markets were still incredible and I’m even more in love with the city after seeing it at Christmas. It has to be one of the most photogenic cities I’ve ever been to, both in the summer and winter. The Old Town is simply stunning, and it’s worth visiting even if you have to fight crowds for a day.
Pro tip: visit on a week day if you can. It was significantly less crowded and much more enjoyable!
The Christmas Markets in Europe were number one on my bucket list for a long time and they exceeded any and all of my expectations. Even Charlie, who is somewhat of a Scrooge at Christmas, was really impressed.
I just love Christmas so much and I’ve always heard that Europe really knows how to “Christmas”. And that proved to be so true. In the US, the holidays seem to center so much around shopping. Everyone is always running around in a mad rush and stressed out. In Europe, however, it’s all about the spirit. The music. The lights. The food. The Christmas cheer is almost tangible. It’s about everyone coming together in celebration. I wish we had more of that at home.
We were almost ready to fly home for Christmas but we had one last stop. We headed to Barcelona, which was not only our first visit to the city, but to Spain as well. However, things didn’t go exactly as planned. Actually, things turned pretty sour.
I was robbed.
Again.
I’ll save that story for next time…
About the Author Charlie and Brittany
We are Brittany and Charlie - we traded the 9 to 5 and the so-called "American dream" to live our own dream and see the world. We sold all of our belongings and left the US in August 2013. For 5 years, we lived primarily in Thailand and built our online business and location independent lifestyle while we traveled to over 30 countries. We’ve had house sitting gigs on 3 different continents and we’ve even appeared on HGTV’s House Hunters International.
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