A Charming Christmas
One of the first places we locked in when we started planning this journey was Dresden for Christmas. I have always wanted to experience Christmas in Germany, and we knew the fam would be coming to join us for Christmas after our 3 months on the road so we needed to plan ahead.
Kurt Vonnegut wrote about the firebombing of Dresden in one of my favorite books (Slaughterhouse-Five) and ever since reading that book I have been absolutely intrigued by Dresden. The Dresden Christmas market (also called Striezelmarkt, Weihnachtsmarkt, or Christkindlmarkt or depending on where you are in Germany) is also consistently listed as one of the top holiday markets in Germany, so Dresden was decided early on.
We didn’t actually stay in Dresden proper. We stayed in the quaint and delightful town of Radeberg just outside of the city. We found this absolutely magical and cozy duplex that overlooked a beautiful vista perfect for a family christmas. Can’t say enough wonderful things about the place we stayed, we all instantly felt right at home.
The host even set up Christmas decorations and a tree for us to decorate ourselves. While we didn’t experience a fully “White Christmas”, we did have a white December 23rd with a heavy snow magically blanketing the town. It eventually turned to rain which washed away all the snow by Christmas but we made the best of our snow day.
Dresden and the main Striezelmarkt definitely didn’t disappoint either. By the time we got to Dresden we had been to almost a dozen different markets in Berlin and Prague so we weren’t sure if we would be too market fatigued to enjoy it. The Dresden market was in a league of its own with setup and production value. Each booth was very elaborately decorated as if it was a set in a play, and the centerpiece Erzgebirge pyramid was 14 meters tall, the largest we saw and one of the largest in the world. Fun fact: The Dresden Market is also possibly the oldest market in Germany, dating back to the 1430s. This years was the 589th iteration.
Here are some of the amazing treats we indulged in throughout our visits to various Christmas markets:
Glühwein (mulled wine)
Eierpunsch (egg nog)
Apfelpunsch (apple cider)
Stollen (bread/cake)
Bratwurst
Langos (puffed fried bread with sour cream and cheese)
Handbrot (hand pies)
Kartoffelpuffer (potato pancakes)
Flammkuchen (flatbreads)
Champignons (sauteed mushrooms with herb sauce)
Roasted chestnuts
Candied nuts (one of the weirdest flavors we saw was Red Bull candied nuts)
Lebkuchen (Gingerbread)
Quarkbällchen
Kaiserschmarrn (bite sized pancake pieces)
Special shoutout to Prague Ham which is only really found in Prague and was amazing.
Christmas was a beautiful and magical time with family and it was hard to leave when the time came. Not much more to say but the pictures are worth a ton of words.
