BEST BUYS IN EUROPE ON CHRISTMAS

In December, Christmas markets across Europe emerge in a colourful array of booths offering ornaments, unique gifts, sweets, sausages, and hot-spiced wine. Often carolers and musicians can be found milling among the crowds and adding to the holiday atmosphere. The countries of Eastern Europe join in this festive tradition, providing their own regional flavor to outdoor Christmas shopping.
Some of the most famous markets have been running since the Middle Ages, and today they can draw upwards of two million visitors during December. Their appeal is simple: stress-free shopping in a traditional, festive environment, with a few mugs of mulled wine to help you along your way.
Town Hall, Vienna The ‘Christkindlmarkt’ on the square in front of the magnificent Town Hall is Vienna's classic Christmas market. It is one of the best-known and most visited in Europe, attracting millions of visitors to its rows of wooden huts leading up to the Hall. The park surrounding the market is one of the highlights, its trees decorated with themed lights, shaped like hearts or gingerbread men.
The market itself has a central row of stalls selling handcrafted decorations and arty bits and pieces, as well as deliciously scented natural beeswax candles. The Vokshalle, within the Town Hall, is home to a daily workshop for kids, where parents can drop them off to make presents and bake Christmas cookies. Wooden figurines in NurembergNuremberg market is lavish with almost two hundred stalls crammed into the cobbled square on the slope beneath the Frauenkirche. It’s popularly called the regional centre for trading handmade wood figurines. It has a rather odd tradition: every two years a new ‘Christ child’ is appointed, a young man or woman who opens the market and rushes around town spreading Christmas cheer, dressed in elaborate gold and white and sporting a large golden crown.
Eccentric traditions aside, the market is best known for its food, which includes several stalls selling steaming Glühwein and grilled Nürnberger Bratwurst, delicious thin and spicy sausages. In the evening, the place is softly lit with hundreds of tiny lights, and bands arrive to entertain the punters – you’ll hear anything from brass bands to live jazz. Glass baubles Dresden
Dresden’s Christmas market is the oldest in Germany. One giant 3,000 kg Stollen cake is paraded around Dresden as part of the festival, presided over by a glamorous ‘Stollenmädchen’ – a ‘Miss Cake’.
The market is pretty and old fashioned, with around 250 stalls selling strictly traditional wares. It has better shopping than elsewhere though, with regional craftsmen flocking to the area to peddle their wares. Some good buys include delicate, hand-blown glass trinkets from the town of Lauscha; hand-thrown and -fired ceramics from Saxony painted in bright blue and white; and local ‘Blaudruck’ – white-and-blue printed cloth. chocolates and wine BrusselsThe Grand-Place, Brussels’ commercial hub, famous for the lavishly carved facades of its guild-houses. Strings of lights cascade down from the centre, over the little chalet-style wooden huts that cluster around the square, each representing a different European country. There are some good food stalls, though – alongside mulled wine are stands dishing out plump French olives, mountains of Belgian chocolates, steaming plates of moules or steamed snails, jars of preserved fruits and ‘speculoos’, hard gingerbread shaped like Father Christmas.
The Fish Market is transformed into a temporary ice rink in December, making it a big attraction for locals. From December 23, many of the stalls switch hands, and the market becomes more of a gastronomic affair. At Marienplatz in Munich
Focal point of Munich is Marienplatz, the heart of the old-centre, flanked by the grand neo-gothic Town Hall that’s filled with hundreds of stalls in the run-up to Christmas. Over thousands gather in the square to watch 30-metre-high Christmas tree light up. Over 140 stalls are set up in the square, selling hand-carved wooden Christmas decorations, glass baubles, jewellery, arts and crafts.
Behind the main market is the Crib Market, where traditional nativity figures from Bavaria and Austria are for sale. Every evening, Alpine choirs and brass bands perform from the Town Hall balcony, while locals stream to the food stalls for an after-work plate of hot potato cakes and a mug of Glühwein. There is a child crèche in the town hall, and the ‘Heavenly Workshop’ is a free area for children to paint, make Christmas cookies and dress up as angels.