We landed in Frankfurt from Qatar on Dec 12 and spent 1 night in Frankfurt before picking up a rental car to drive down to Colmar so we could explore Alsace and the Christmas markets in the region using Colmar as a home base for the week. We haven’t done rental cars too often on this trip because public transit has been so easy but for this first couple weeks it gave us some flexibility to stop in smaller towns. Incidentally picking up and dropping off a rental car in different countries – even with the EU (such as picking up in Germany and dropping off in the Czech Republic, etc) – can be insanely expensive. But picking and dropping off in different cities within the same country was pretty reasonable so we picked it up in Frankfurt and dropped it off in Munich 2 weeks later.
On the way to Colmar, we stopped in Heidelberg for a few hours to check out our first Christmas market of the trip. This was actually the first place we stopped on this entire trip that Chris has been to but I have not (we stopped in several places new to both of us though). He had a chance to go for a day trip from Landstuhl when I was there for a week for work back in 2023. So he was excited to show it to me!
What was new to him was Christmas markets – and I was very excited for him to experience them! I went to my first one in Hamburg in 2010 over Thanksgiving weekend in my first winter stationed in England. Then I went to Berlin the Thanksgiving after that. Many of these cities have more than one market so we even got to see a couple different ones just in Hiedelberg (https://www.heidelberg-marketing.de/en/event/heidelberg-christmas-market).
The first one we came across was at Universitätsplatz (University Square – near Heidelberg University). Most of the markets (at least in Germany and definitely in parts of France, including the Alsace region) have a Christmas Pyramid (weihnachtspyramiden). I had actually never really looked at why though – I found this informative article about the origins of them: https://frenchmoments.eu/christmas-pyramid/.
One of my favorites parts of the Christmas markets is of course the Glüwein (mulled wine – served warm which is great to keep you warm on these cold winter days!). This was Chris’ first experience with it so he got a sip of mine (only a sip until we got to Colmar because he was driving!). The markets in many cities have mugs specific to their market (and often for that specific year) – like the blue mug that Chris is holding.
We also spent some time walking around the town. One thing to keep in mind if you ever do a trip to see these Christmas markets is that they can all start to run together. So we wanted to make sure to see the actual towns too. It was a pretty overcast and foggy day but I was glad we could still see the castle up on the hill (more to come on that!).
We came across this cool church – the Jesuitenkirche (kirche = church so basically a jesuit church; https://www.heidelberg-marketing.de/en/poi/jesuit-church). It’s quite “new” by European standards – it’s from the 18th century. We popped inside to check it out and it was really different inside – all white, even the organ.
We also stumbled upon the much older Heiliggeistkirche (Church of the Holy Spirit; https://www.heidelberg-marketing.de/en/poi/holy-spirit-church) from the late 14th/early 15th century.
But back to Christmas markets! Next up was the market in Marktplatz (Market Square) right by the Church of the Holy Spirit. This market’s highlight is the Heidelberg barrel – a large wooden barrel with a capacity of 120,000 liters!
And then of course Karlsplatz – the market with the castle looming up on the hill over it. It was so beautiful!
Before we headed out of town, we wandered the streets a bit more to take in the ambience and architecture.
We headed over to the Neckar River to check out the Old Bridge – it was built in the late 18th century (after several prior wooden ones kept washing away) and the gate was preserved from the old city walls (https://www.heidelberg-marketing.de/en/poi/old-bridge). While Heidelberg survived WWII intact, the Germans destroyed all of the bridges across the Neckar river, including part of the Old Bridge, in the last days of WWII to hinder the Allied advance. It was reconstructed – I found this article from Heidelberg University that has some pictures (and description of that history)(https://www.uni-heidelberg.de/en/kriegsende-1945/1945-heidelberg-all-and-everything-lost/supplies-3-of-3).
A couple final views of the majestic castle before we left for Colmar. Schloss Heidelberg was first mentioned 1225 and over the years had damage from various wars and then repairs/reconstruction (https://www.schloss-heidelberg.de/en/castle). We didn’t have time to visit the castle itself but the ruins are pretty cool to see even from the town.
Stayed tuned for a lot more Christmas Markets (and a bunch of other sites along the way)!
