Christmas Markets in Regensburg: Three Very Different Ones

Regensburg is not big, but its old town is one of the most complete medieval centres in Germany and a UNESCO World Heritage site. It escaped the bombing that flattened most German cities, so the lanes, towers and merchant houses are the real thing rather than reconstructions.

Put a Christmas market into streets like that and you get something no purpose-built market square can match. There are several markets here, and the useful thing to know is that they are genuinely different from one another, so doing two or three in a day is not repetition.

This is the main city market and the busiest: wooden huts around the square, Glühwein, Bratwurst, roasted nuts, candles and decorations. It is the one to start with because it is free, central and open from late morning, and because everything else is a short walk from it.

Come on a weekday if you can. December weekends fill the narrow streets around the square completely.

This is the one people travel for. It is held in the courtyard of the St Emmeram palace, home of the Thurn und Taxis family who once ran the imperial postal service, and it charges admission. What you get for the ticket is a market that commits: open fires and torches, staff in historical dress, craftspeople working at their stalls rather than only selling, and a setting that no market on a public square can imitate.

Go after dark, because the whole thing is built around firelight. Check opening days and book ahead if you can, since it does not run every day of the week and it sells out on peak evenings.

The smallest of the three and the one for actual presents. The Lucrezia market leans towards handmade goods, ceramics, textiles and design rather than mass-produced decorations, and the square it occupies is quieter than the Neupfarrplatz.

If you are shopping for something you would not be embarrassed to give, start here rather than at the big market.

Beyond the standard Glühwein and Bratwurst, Regensburg has one thing you should not skip. The Wurstkuchl by the stone bridge is a tiny sausage kitchen that has been feeding people beside the Danube for centuries, and it is often described as one of the oldest continuously operating restaurants anywhere. You get small grilled sausages with sauerkraut and sweet mustard, eaten at a cramped table with the river outside. In December there is usually a queue, and it moves.

Bavarian markets also serve Feuerzangenbowle and, if you find it, hot apple punch, which is the better option if you are on your third stop.

Do not treat the walk between markets as dead time.

The Steinerne Brücke, the stone bridge over the Danube, dates from the twelfth century and was an engineering marvel of its age; crusaders crossed it heading east. Stand on it for the classic view back at the cathedral and the towers.

Regensburg Cathedral is high Gothic with twin spires, and its boys' choir has sung here for a very long time. Around the old town, look up and count the patrician towers, tall square family towers built by merchant families competing for status, an Italian habit that arrived with the trade route.

And the Porta Praetoria is a surviving gate of the Roman fort founded here in the second century, embedded now in a later wall.

The old town is a maze, which is exactly what makes it fun to explore properly. A city game takes you through the lanes solving clues, so you find the Roman gate and the towers rather than walking a straight line between markets. It keeps children moving in the cold, and it works well as the daylight half of a market trip.

If you want the UNESCO old town as well as the Glühwein, walk it with a playing route. Here is how it works, and for team outings and larger groups we have formats on this page. Questions about dates, group sizes or routes? Get in touch. An hour away and famous for its own market: Nuremberg.