There are plenty of small Christmas-themed markets in central Hamburg with lots of trinkets for sale. Food options didn’t have much variety, but seemed like a good place to hang out after hours with friends.

View other posts in this series:

• Trip Introduction: A Birthday at the German Christmas Market
• Review: The Thompson Central Park NYC
• Exploring New York City with Kids
• Review: American Express Centurion Lounge – JFK
• Review: Singapore Airlines A380 Business Class JFK-FRA
• Taking the Train in Germany with Kids
• Review: Park Hyatt Hamburg
• Exploring Hamburg with a Family
• Enjoying the Hamburg Christmas Market (this post)
• Review: Radisson Blu Hotel Hamburg Airport
• Review: British Airways A320 Club Europe Business Class
• Review: British Airways Galleries North
• Review: British Airways 777-300 Club World Business Class
• Bonus: Video Review

I’ve always had aspirations of going to Europe to spend time at a Christmas market. I’ve heard some good things about them and now that I’ve been, I can say there are some pros and cons, but overall I’d say it’s worth it to stop by but I wouldn’t necessarily make a trip solely to go to one. We went during Thanksgiving week in the US, which is generally as early as the Christmas markets tend to start for the season.

Der Hamburger Weihnachtsmarkt

There were several Christmas markets scattered all over the city center. The one we spent the most time at was the one next to Rathaus City Hall, but we did stop by a couple of others. While all of them seemed to attract crowds, the one by Rathaus seemed to be the busiest but it also had a couple of attractions the others did not. If you want to avoid the crowds, you could attend the Christmas market earlier in the day–stores seemed to be open by lunchtime–but the lighted decorations and live music didn’t start until the evening.

Food

If you’re looking to eat a full meal here, like we did, your options are going to be fairly limited. It seemed like all the markets had the same options–sausages or crepes. I don’t think the intent is to eat a full meal here, rather I think it’s meant more for snacking while you’re enjoying the ambience with friends and family. Prices were reasonable and made for a cheap meal. We tend to eat a lot of bratwurst at home so Alex was quite familiar with the food, minus the sauces. Char, on the other hand, appreciated the cheese crepes. There were both savory and sweet crepes available, but we decided on savory as we weren’t yet ready for desserts.

As you might expect, there are lots of desserts and treats to choose from. The kids loved some chocolate-covered strawberries but turned down the many beautifully-decorated candy apples. We also ended up eating a bag or two of some freshly-made schmalzkuchen (little donuts).

Drinks

I’d say most of the crowds lingered around the pop-up bars scattered around the markets. It seemed quite popular to hang out and spend the night drinking. Many of the stands offered glühwein (mulled wine) but we actually didn’t end up drinking alcohol while we were here. Instead, we enjoyed some heiße schokolade (hot chocolate) and apfelpunsch (warm apple cider). Based on the menu below, I thought I was going to only spend eight euro on the two drinks, but it ended up being 14 euro. At the bottom of the sign is a note that mentions it costs three euro to purchase or borrow each cup. We ended up keeping our cups as a small souvenir of the time we spent here. Only 20 cl of drink isn’t that much, so if I came here to drink alcohol, I can see myself running up quite the bill. But we were perfectly satisfied with our choices of beverage, so no regrets here.

Trinkets to Purchase and Other Entertainment

Many stalls sold scarves or other clothing. However, a few stores stood out to us. The first was a lovely small building that had a long line to get inside. It turned out to be a store dedicated to ornaments, many of them handcrafted and of ornate design. To commemorate the trip, we let the kids each choose their own ornament to take back home. I find souvenirs help younger kids recall memories of the vacations we take.

Another souvenir we saw many other people purchase was a small good luck horseshoe made right in front of us. It was exciting for the kids to watch the blacksmith at work and we ended up staying here a good 15 minutes just watching him craft horseshoe after horseshoe.

For the kids at the Christmas markets, they also had set up carousels and ferris wheels. The prices to go on a ride seemed a little on the expensive side but there was a modest discount if buying tickets in bulk. We ended up not going on the rides since it was pretty cold at night.

Closing Comments

We had fun here, but found it wasn’t something that we could do every night given the relative lack of variety in foods. Perhaps in our younger years, it might have appealed to us more to go drinking after dinner, but that didn’t seem like a realistic option with kids in tow. I will say that it does help if you speak German when ordering. The menus generally aren’t positioned well to get away with pointing at what you want and English seemed to be a bit limited from the shopkeepers. Thankfully, I did practice enough to get by when ordering (and meanwhile Jenn had a bit of a tougher time when she tried to order something without me present). I wouldn’t mind taking another trip to visit a Christmas market in a different city, but again, I wouldn’t make a dedicated trip out of it.

Have you been to a German Christmas market before? How was your experience?