What makes Bavarian Christmas markets different?
Bavaria is really two Christmas regions sharing one state. Up north is Franconia, with Nuremberg, Bamberg, Würzburg and Rothenburg, where Christmas means Lebkuchen, little Nuremberg sausages, smoked beer and wine country. Down south is Old Bavaria and the Alps, with Munich, Berchtesgaden and the lakes, where it means mountain backdrops, brass bands and men in fur and carved wooden masks chasing people down the street.
Both sides share the Christkind, the angel-like Christ Child who brings the presents here instead of Santa. Martin Luther popularised the Christkind in the 1530s to push St Nicholas aside, and it only took over Catholic Bavaria in the early 1900s. So the most famous Christkind in the world lives in Nuremberg, a historically Protestant city, while Coburg hedges its bets and sends the Christkind and Father Christmas out together on Sundays.
The food is half the reason to come. Nürnberger Lebkuchen has protected status and has to be baked in Nuremberg to use the name, and the top grade, Elisenlebkuchen, is at least a quarter nuts with hardly any flour. Drei im Weggla means three finger-sized sausages in a bread roll, and the prune figures called Zwetschgenmännle are sold as lucky charms rather than snacks. In Bamberg, bock beer season runs to the end of December, and Schlenkerla taps its smoked Eiche bock on 29 November.
Is Nuremberg worth it?
Yes, but only if you choose your moment. The Christkindlesmarkt puts 168 red-and-white booths on the Hauptmarkt and the Rathausplatz next to it and pulls around two million people through them in four weeks, and at the wrong hour that's exactly how it feels. Opening night, every Saturday and the Sunday before Christmas are a crush, the kind where you see the stalls only above head height and keep losing whoever you came with.
Come on a weekday morning, though, and it's a different market. The stalls open at 10:00, the booths are some of the best kept in Germany, and you can actually stop and look. Thursday is noticeably calmer than the weekend, and the light at dusk around 16:30 is the moment to be there if you want the photos. If you want the opening itself, the Christkind reads her Prologue from the Frauenkirche balcony at 17:30 on 27 November, and you'll be sharing the square with half of Franconia.
The Christkind appears from 1 December, Tuesday to Friday, at about 14:30 at the Kinderweihnacht on Hans-Sachs-Platz and then on the main market around 15:00. The Markt der Partnerstädte by the Rathaus, where Nuremberg's twin towns run their own stalls, is roomier and more interesting than the main rows, and the four Original Regional booths tucked against St Sebald sell food from Franconian producers. Glühwein was €4.50 last season with a €5 mug deposit, and the same mug works at every stall because the traders share one deposit pool.
If the crowds get to you, Fürth is the escape. It's Nuremberg's next-door neighbour, a short U-Bahn ride away, and its medieval Christmas market is where plenty of locals go instead of their own.
Where else should you go in Bavaria?
Regensburg is my pick for the best all-round market trip in Bavaria. It's a UNESCO old town that came through the war largely intact, and it fits four or five markets into one evening's walk. There's the main market on Neupfarrplatz, the craftspeople's Lucrezia market on Haidplatz, a market in the Spitalgarten with mulled beer and a view of the Stone Bridge, and the candlelit courtyard of Schloss Thurn und Taxis. The palace one charges entry, and the price depends on the day. It's €6.50 on a Monday and €13.50 on a Saturday, children go free on Sundays, and women get in free on Sunday evenings after 19:00. Same market, half the price, so go on a Monday.
Bamberg is the opposite case. The market itself is small, and some people find it a let-down. The town is the draw, with a UNESCO old town of its own, a trail of around 35 nativity scenes in churches and squares, and breweries pouring smoked beer straight from the barrel. Come for Bamberg and treat the market as a bonus. And bring some cash, since not every stall takes cards.
Rothenburg ob der Tauber looks exactly like the Christmas card, which is why coach tours love it. Its Reiterlesmarkt has 61 stalls and closes early in the evening. Stay the night, walk the town wall before 09:00 and after the coaches leave, and you'll have the lanes nearly to yourself. If you'd rather skip the coaches altogether, Dinkelsbühl and Nördlingen give you the same walled-town feeling with a fraction of the people.
Munich has more markets than anywhere else in the state, twenty-odd, all on one U-Bahn map. The big one on Marienplatz has about 140 stalls and draws over three million visitors, and I find it the least interesting of the lot. The medieval market on Wittelsbacherplatz is louder and more fun, the artists' market in Schwabing labels where everything is made, and the little neighbourhood market in Haidhausen is the one locals keep recommending.
A few others are worth knowing. Augsburg turns its town hall into a living Advent calendar, with 23 angels appearing in its windows at 18:00 on Advent Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings, plus 23 November and 23 December. Landshut is a good pick for families, with an ice rink and a free little Bockerlbahn train that shuttles visitors round on Friday to Sunday afternoons. Passau's market sits on the cathedral square, and from Wednesday to Saturday at noon there's a €6 concert on the cathedral organ, which is partly under restoration but still something to hear. And on the Chiemsee, the Fraueninsel market runs on just two long weekends, 26 to 29 November and 3 to 6 December, on an island you can only reach by boat.
How do you get around in 2026?
By train, but with one big warning for this year. The high-speed line between Munich and Nuremberg is being worked on from 30 October to 12 December. Until then there are at most two trains an hour and journeys take about 30 minutes longer than the usual 1 hour 2 minutes. Trains between Regensburg and Passau are replaced by buses until 12 December too.
So pick one rail spine and stay on it. From Nuremberg, Bamberg is 35 minutes away with about 60 direct trains a day, Würzburg is 51 minutes, and Rothenburg takes around 1 hour 10 to 1 hour 50 with two changes. From Munich, Augsburg is 26 minutes and Regensburg 1 hour 23. Salzburg is just under two hours on the regional train, the one the Bayern-Ticket covers.
The Bayern-Ticket costs €34 for one person and €10 for each extra traveller up to five, and covers every regional train in the state, plus almost all its city transport and buses, for a day, from 09:00 on weekdays. The Deutschlandticket is €63 for a calendar month and covers the same trains across the whole country. If you're travelling solo for two days or more, the Deutschlandticket wins. A couple needs three travel days for it to pay off, and a group of five is better off with Bayern-Tickets for up to four days. Neither covers ICE or IC trains, and the Deutschlandticket goes up to €66.80 in January 2027. It's a monthly subscription, so check the cancellation date or you may end up paying for January too.
For a base, I'd choose Nuremberg if the markets are the point. Bamberg, Würzburg, Rothenburg and Fürth are all easy day trips, and a typical December hotel night costs about the same as in Munich, around €127 against €131. Choose Munich if you want the Alps, Salzburg and the most places open after Christmas.
How many days do you need?
Five to seven days with two bases works best. Something like three nights in Nuremberg with day trips to Bamberg and Rothenburg, then three in Munich, gives you big markets, small towns and a bit of the Alps without living out of a suitcase.
Don't try to do a new market every evening. The big city markets sell a lot of the same ceramic houses, candles and paper stars, and after the third one they start to blur. Mix one or two of the famous markets with the towns themselves, a castle, a brewery, a thermal bath, and you'll come home wanting more instead of never wanting to see a wooden hut again. And don't believe anyone who tells you Christmas week is quieter. It isn't.
What does a Glühwein cost in Bavaria?
Bavaria has both the dearest and some of the cheapest Glühwein in Germany. Würzburg topped the whole country last season at €6 a cup, and Munich's Marienplatz charged €5 to €6. Head to Augsburg or Kempten and it drops to €3.50 to €4. Nuremberg sits in the middle at €4.50, and the Bavarian average came out at €4.27.
Berchtesgaden does it differently. There's no deposit at all, you buy the year's collector mug outright and bring last year's back for a refill if you have one.
Vienna's punsch costs about the same as Würzburg's Glühwein, €5.50 to €5.80, but you hand over a €5 mug deposit on top. Strasbourg, at €5 plus a €1 deposit, is about Munich money.
When can you see Krampus?
Early December is when the wild men come out. The biggest show is in Munich on Sunday 13 December, when 300-plus Krampus figures in carved masks run through the old town from 15:00 and up to 50,000 people turn out to watch. It's a spectacle, and maybe not one for toddlers.
In Berchtesgaden, the Buttnmandl, men wrapped in straw with cowbells round their waists, march through town on 5 December, and Bad Tölz has its Krampus run on the evening of the 12th. Then every afternoon at 15:00 from 17 to 24 December, Berchtesgaden's Christmas shooters fire their hand mortars, a racket that's been on Bavaria's cultural heritage list since 2018.
What's open after Christmas Eve?
More than you'd expect. Most Bavarian markets close on 23 December or at 14:00 on the 24th (and most also close for Totensonntag, Sunday 22 November, though Berchtesgaden stays open), and from the afternoon of Christmas Eve to the 26th even the supermarkets are shut, so book Christmas Day dinner well ahead. But a few keep going.
In Nuremberg, the giant Feuerzangenbowle at the Fleischbrücke, a kettle of rum-soaked flaming sugar over mulled wine, pours from 15:00 to 23:00 on 25 and 26 December. The Kinderweihnacht reopens on 26 December and runs to the 30th. Munich's Feuerzangenbowle is back at the Isartor this year and runs right through to 6 January. Bad Kissingen's market is open on Christmas Day itself, Berchtesgaden reopens on the 26th and runs to 3 January under the Watzmann, and Garmisch-Partenkirchen's Winter im Park keeps its lights on until 5 January.
Will there be snow?
Probably not in the towns. Munich's chance of a white Christmas has fallen from about one in three to about one in seven over the last few decades, and a mild spell around Christmas turns up in roughly seven years out of ten. December in Nuremberg and Regensburg is more likely to be grey and damp than snowy.
If snow is the dream, go south. Berchtesgaden, Garmisch and Mittenwald are your best bets, and the mountains around them usually have snow even when the lowlands don't. Wherever you end up, the sun sets at about 16:20 in December, so plan the towns for daylight and the markets for after dark.
