Christkindlmarkts Food

When we made the decision a couple of years ago to visit Vienna's world-famous Christmas markets as the main focus of an eight day-long trip to Austria's capital, we were under no illusion that these things would occupy our time for an entire week. We knew we had to plan on more than just hanging out in front of the city hall or a palace or two or a few churches looking at endless Christmas tree ornament and handicraft stalls. So, plan we did. We ended up with a packed agenda which included day trips out of town; stops at museums; concerts in historical spots in the city on a couple of nights; and more architecture from the last 150 years or so than you could shake a stick at.

But we also knew that we wanted to linger at the Christmas markets beyond the time it took to check out each vendor's stall and pick up some souvenirs here and there. We knew we wanted to take in every possible bit of ambience at as many of the markets as we could. We wanted to revel in the atmosphere of a centuries-old tradition and feel what the people of Vienna get to feel every late November all the way through to the following new year. So, in addition to shopping and people-watching and checking out rides and skating rinks and nativity displays, we knew we'd have to do one more thing in our time at the Christkindlmarkts: eat and drink. Or maybe that's two more things.

After all, shopping is hungry and thirsty work, right?

Christmas market food. Brno, Czechia.

Let's start with the drinking portion, shall we? After all, one of the traditions I was most looking forward to at these markets was mulling around a Christmas market or two with a cup of hot mulled wine in some intimate square in the old city or a grand plaza in front of an enormous church along the Ringstrasse, or maybe even a palace a bit further out of town. And maybe, just maybe, if I got really lucky, I'd find a mug in one of the markets that I loved so I could take it home as the ultimate souvenir of our trip to Vienna at this time of year. 

Before we departed for Vienna, I made it my mission to find a mug. Yes, I know I talked about this in my first Christmas markets post but it bears repeating here. This was a quest! Here's how it works: buy a drink of glühwein or punsch (pronounced puuuuunsch as I was corrected at one stall...) at one of the many, many markets sprinkled all over the city and you are likely to end up paying about 8 Euros or so for a regular sized mug of liquid. Seem like a steep price to pay for about 4 or 5 fluid ounces of hot drink? It is. That's because half the price of the drink is for what you'll imbibe and the other half is a deposit on the mug.

We did this quite a few times both to have something tasty to warm us up and to try to find the perfect mug to take home. We ended up with two mugs. One is what I'd describe as a regular mug-shaped mug decorated with the Karlskirche and caricatures of some of the handmade wares from the Art Advent Christmas Market at the Karlsplatz. The other was the mug below, which was decidedly more delicate and glazed with a shell that was decidedly not resistant to the water pressure in the mug-washing machines at each market (you can perhaps see a large missing piece of glaze on the handle below).

Ultimately, we got what we came for here: a unique mug each, both in pretty good to perfect condition with the name of the market we got it from. I'd consider our mug quest a success.

But this part of this post is not supposed to be about the mug. It's supposed to be about what's inside the mug. And that? Well, a total mixed bag.

So first of all, and I know I already wrote this, I was really, really looking forward to this part of our Christmas market experience. I'd never honestly had hot mulled wine or punch outdoors in about freezing temperatures and they serve this stuff every year so it had to be good, right? Right? It must (with emphasis on MUST) enhance the Christmas market experience, right? Right?

Not so much. I gave it a shot, I swear. I made sure to have two mugs-full of glühwein and one of punsch and I really, really tried to like this stuff. My advice if you absolutely have to try glühwein: stay away from the white and stick to the red. The red was palatable. I believe I could use that term for it. Heck, in a pinch, I'd have some again and I'd probably say the same for the himbeerpunsch I ordered and drank all of. But the white? Never again. I'd describe it as tasting like Theraflu but that really would be doing Theraflu a disservice. It was really pretty disgusting. I ended up pouring out the last quarter or so. Couldn't do it.

Fortunately, they serve beer and wine at most markets so if you can't stand the hot stuff, you can still get something to drink while you wander around the market stalls. My personal wine quest for this trip was to find some grüner veltliner, an Austrian dry white wine which I would (in my very un-worldly wine way) describe as a lighter version of a chardonnay. I found it at the first market we visited. It's fantastic. Last year I found vinho verde in Portugal, this year I found grüner veltliner in Austria. I love both these wines and I did not limit my intake to Christmas markets. You can find this wine everywhere and that's a very, very good thing.

Three last things on the drinks before I move on. (1) I'm not sure how much alcohol any of this glühwein or punsch has in it. (2) Hot drinks don't stay hot long when it's a couple of degrees below freezing. And (3) I ordered himbeerpunsch figuring I had a greater chance of liking that drink because it's beer-based. It isn't and I have no idea why I was so stupid. Beer in German is berry. It was better than the glühwein but the wine and beer was still better. Just my take.

A glass of delicious grüner veltliner next to a mohn (poppy seed) pastry. Melk, Austria.

Now for the food.

I didn't particularly expect to get amazing food at the Christmas markets we visited this month. It's not like we were sitting down at a Michelin starred restaurant for some innovative, ground-breaking cuisine. On some level, in fact, one could argue that the food for sale at outdoor stalls all over Vienna during the holiday season is essentially no better than fair food. 

Indeed, this very thought and maybe something worse was running through my head when I was a couple of bites into what was probably one of the worst pretzels I've ever had in my life at the Altes AKH Christmas Market at the University of Vienna. I should have known it was not going to be so good as soon as they put it into the microwave before serving us.

We did actually plan to eat at some of the Christmas markets we visited. Like a whole meal. I figured we'd grab a table and bring back bite after bite from assorted stalls to eventually comprise a three course or whatever meal, which we'd accompany with some delicious glühwein or punsch. This is before I tasted said glühwein or punsch, remember. Yeah, that plan just didn't work very well at all. Our meals at the markets turned into a whole lot of snacking, sometimes at a table outside a food stall and sometimes food in hand while browsing for some Christmas loot.

I guess that was to be expected. After all, you don't need a table to eat the classic Christmas snack of chestnuts or a crispy, chewy, salty spiral cut potato on a skewer or a packet of potato slices with some garlic aioli. These foods are made for walking around. In fact, if you were to take these three bites back to a table I'm not sure how the table would actually help you. All three of those by the way: good stuff for shopping and eating.

But ultimately, we wanted more. And hunt long enough and you are bound to find some decent Christmas market food that you actually might want to eat over and over. We did.

Potatoes (spiral cut in Vienna and pancake in Brno, Czechia) and the world's least tasty pretzels.

Before we get to my favorite bites, let me say that if I were looking to eat a whole meal at one of the markets we visited, I would probably do it in Brno, Czechia. They had dishes which it looked like you could actually pair with each other to make a fairly nutritious table setting. I'm talking about skewers of braised meats and vegetables on the side (not the greasy potato pancake shown above, necessarily) and some quality desserts. 

Now, admittedly, the key words in the previous paragraph are "looked like" because we didn't actually do much food tasting in Brno on account of what seemed to be our enormous daily breakfast at our hotel in Vienna. But if I were to go back to one market that we didn't eat a meal at to do so, it would have been at Brno. Bring your appetite because the portions are giant. We watched three dudes purchase a skewer of chicken to split between the three of them and it didn't look like any of them would go hungry. 

I can also vouch for the Christmas cake with custard and a brandied cherry you'll find here. I had to sheepishly admit to my mother that I had this dish because I generally pass on her homemade Christmas cake every December. Hers doesn't come with custard and a brandied cherry, though.

Chestnuts in Vienna and Christmas cake in Brno, Czechia.

I'm not sure if it's fate or whatever, but the best food we had at Christmas markets in Vienna (or anywhere else) this month were two of the exact same markets where we found the best overall market experience, namely the Karlsplatz Christmas Market and the Christmas Market at Schönbrunn Palace. These two markets had some of the best atmosphere, the best backdrops to the market and for sure the best food. If I only had time to visit two markets in Vienna, it would have to be these two, with a shoutout to the Old Viennese Christmas Market on Freyung, which served us some pretty good spiralkartoffel (shown above), which was also the cheapest we found by a lot.

I guess in a perfect world, I would not have left Vienna without downing some local sauerkraut as part of a meal, but on the second to last day in town, I don't think I'd even seen any in a restaurant or a market stall or anywhere else. Until we stopped at the Schönbrunn Palace, that is. We had made it about three quarters of the way around the market and it was about sunset time when we found a stall with food we hadn't seen at any other market we'd visited: potato dumplings filled with meat or veg and served with a side of sauerkraut. 

These things were amazing. The dish was warm and comforting and it stayed that way until we polished the whole thing off which gave us a little fuel to make it around the rest of the market. They were also topped with some crispy bits which gave it texture and spice and they went perfectly with a cold beer. Plus they checked the box on the "perfect world" checklist for Vienna.

Dumplings with beer at the Schönbrunn Palace (top) and authentic French crepes at the Karlsplatz (bottom).

The Market at Schönbrunn Palace was actually my number one market overall of the 14 that we visited in our eight days in and around Vienna. But food-wise, the Art Advent Christmas Market on the Karlsplatz took the cake (so to speak). The Market on the Karlsplatz strives to be a cut above some of the other markets. Securing a stall selling Christmas wares in the market requires a juried approval and all of the food and drink is organic. 

Now, I recognize that sometimes labeling something as organic often amounts to nothing more than a gimmick to sell you food or drink at a marked-up price (that's the very rarely seen cynical side of me coming out) but the food we ate on the Karlsplatz was honestly the best market food of the trip. The chestnuts were good, the potato slices with garlic aioli were satisfying and they had a killer authentically French (OK, so they were just speaking French and maybe not actually from France...) stand that served up some very good chocolate and hazelnut crepes.

They also had raclette. 

I guess I had sort of a loose form of a checklist of what I wanted to eat in Vienna. Schnitzel, Sachertorte, bergkäse and maybe a few others. But raclette was probably the only thing that I specifically wanted to eat at a Christmas market. If raclette doesn't ring any bells, it's an alpine cheese that melts easily and smoothly which is served heated as a side to other foods or just simply by itself over something like a slice of bread. It comes in big wheels (doesn't all the best cheese come in big wheels?) and is heated over a flame until the top of the cheese is melty and just scooped right off. This was my Christmas market food quest.

And sure enough, when we first arrived at the Karlsplatz, we saw a stall selling raclette on bread with or without ham. I made a beeline and ordered a slice of bread with cheese, no ham. I wanted my raclette experience to be unsullied by other flavors. 

Raclette. Bread. That's all I needed. Well, maybe some toppings...

Part of the charm of this particular dish is watching the assembly. The stall had five cheese melters (not sure what else to call these machines) each capable of producing the required gooey, delicious raclette for a slice of bread or so. You order, your slice of bread gets placed on a bread-sized, cardboard tray and popped on top of a melter waiting for the cheese to get to the right consistency before it's ready to be scraped onto your slice and handed over. The wait is mouth-watering. There were a couple of orders ahead of mine and I wanted to grab each one as it was delivered to the counter.

There are a series of condiments on the counter. When my order was ready, I added some diced raw onions, salt and pepper. I passed on the paprika and everything else. What could be better than raw onions, salt and pepper on top of melted cheese? Let's find a spot to eat.

Raclette is difficult to eat by hand standing up off a cardboard tray, did you know that? 

It's so good though. Just that mild but clearly cheesy and totally smooth cheese with the salt and pepper and the raw onions. This is what I came all the way to Vienna to find. OK, maybe not JUST that but this was the Christmas market food experience I wanted. I have never had cheese on bread quite this way before and with the possible exception of eating a hunk of blue cheese on baguette while seated on a street corner in Paris, this was the best cheese and bread experience of my life. It was perfect.

I think we got exactly what we wanted and expected out of our 14 Christmas market visits over eight days. Maybe not the specifics of how and when and where but the overall effect was what we wanted and needed out of this trip. The shopping, the atmosphere, the tradition, the mugs (!!!), the history, the gorgeous backdrops formed by famous buildings and places, and yes...the food. I can't imagine we'll take another trip this focused on Christmas markets ever and that's truly OK with me. Not to say that we'll never find ourselves here at home or abroad visiting a market before the holidays but how could another trip top Vienna?

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How We Did It

My comments here are largely the same as those I posted at the end of my Christkindlmarkts post. 

Visit Vienna from late November to early January and you are going to be hard pressed to NOT visit a Christmas market, even if you don't want to. These things are literally everywhere, especially between the Ringstrasse (or maybe just outside the Ringstrasse) and the Danube River. Based on our experience this month, the same is true of markets in the towns and cities around Vienna. 

We spent a lot of time planning our visits to the markets in Vienna. I found the site Visiting Vienna to be an essential guide for most things planning relative to Vienna, but especially for Christmas market visiting. Click on the link in the previous sentence for that site's 2022 Christmas markets post. I should note most markets have their own website. Rather than listing all those here in this post, I'd suggest you just start with Visiting Vienna. There's a list of markets on the right side of post linked in this paragraph. We visited the first 11 on the list.

It is difficult to get a sense of the food quality in these markets from their websites and it's a little different going to eat than it is going to shop. Presumably, if you are going to eat it's because you are hungry and don't want to NOT eat. Generally speaking, I'd say that the internet buzz about the stalls in a particular market matched their food quality. I'm not sure this is an all-pervasive observation but we found the best quality food at the markets described as having higher quality goods for sale. 

Finally and maybe most importantly: browsing is free and most of the food we ate was relatively low cost. I think you will struggle to spend more than 10 Euros at a time here. 

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Christkindlmarkts

In late 2020, we decided we HAD to take a December trip to Vienna. HAD to. Someday. One day. Somehow. Some way. We honestly tried our best last year, but a late November decision by the city of Vienna to pretty much shut down the entire city due to a surging COVID outbreak changed our mind. We didn't go. Why would we risk sitting around in a hotel in Austria's capital city for a week when we could be somewhere (New Mexico, as it turned out) actually having fun? So, we punted last year's trip to this year. December in Vienna...here we come!!!!

Vienna had been on my list for years. It is (or was, I guess, now) pretty much the last un-visited (by me) city of major importance to the Art Nouveau movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Brussels, Paris, Helsinki, Glasgow, Barcelona...all visited. In 2022, it was Vienna's turn. I knew one day I would make it there and see works by Wagner, Klimt and Olbrich firsthand. 2022 turned out to be the year.

But Vienna's Jugendstil Art Nouveau movement was not the impetus for this trip. Oh no...the reason we went to Vienna right before Christmas this year was The Hallmark Channel. There's no other explanation, reasonable or unreasonable, for this trip.

I'm not joking. Towards the end of 2020, before COVID vaccines were available to the general public, nightly viewing in our household involved The Hallmark Channel's incomparable run of formulaic Christmas specials, including the masterpiece, Christmas In Vienna. Did you know that there were a ton of Christmas markets (or Christkindlmarkts) in Vienna where you can find the spirit of the season along with maybe true love and eternal happiness? We didn't. Not before December 2020. 

Fortunately for us, true love and eternal happiness are already taken care of in our lives, but we still had to go check out this whole Vienna Christmas scene. What other choice did we really have?

Hallmark Channel...I'm telling you.

Christmas Village Stephansplatz (top) and on Maria Theresien Square (bottom).

Now, if you know anything about me, you know I rarely do things halfway. If we were traveling all the way across the Atlantic Ocean and most of the way across Europe to go Christmas shopping outdoors, we would not be stopping at just one or two Vienna Christmas markets. We made a list; we checked it twice (or maybe three or four or eighteen or so times); and ended up with an itinerary that got us to two Christmas markets on our very first day in Vienna. We added two more (and different) Vienna Christmas markets on day two and two more (and yes, different) ones on day three.

All told, we put 11 Christmas markets in Vienna on our itinerary. And yes, we made it to all 11. And to three others outside of Vienna in Melk (Austria), Bratislava (Slovakia) and Brno (Czechia). We actually found out when we checked into our hotel that there were at least two MORE Christmas markets in Vienna that we didn't even know about before we arrived. We could have pushed the total visited to at least 16 between Vienna and daytrips out of town. We figured 14 was enough. You have to draw the line somewhere. We probably actually missed more than just two in Vienna.

Before you conclude we are absolutely nuts for making this sort of thing the focus of a trip across an ocean, these markets are a huge deal (and not just in Vienna but in Europe in general). Before we departed Dulles Airport at the end of the first week of December, our hotel emailed us a cheat sheet of Christmas markets to visit. When we checked in, they handed us a completely different booklet containing a guide to six or seven more. Gigantic deal!

Ornament stall at the Christmas Dream Market (top); Belvedere Christmas Market (bottom).

So why would I do this? Why would I travel eight plus hours on an airplane (in economy) just so I could go shopping for stuff that I probably don't need and which will probably break on the trip home anyway? And aren't there plenty of perfectly good and fine Christmas markets right here in the USA where I could do just the same thing but for a lot less money and in a whole lot less time?

The answer to all that (other than just stating that I don't think I could realistically find 14 Christmas markets in and around any American city) is that this isn't just shopping. This is an experience. It's a part of European winter ritual that stretches back centuries in some locations. Sure, there are a lot of trinkets for sale and yes, we bought our fair share of these (all of which arrived home totally intact and unbroken) but the real value in these markets is lingering and taking in everything that there is to take in for as long as you can. Or at least until it gets too cold to be outside anymore. There's some magic here. That's reason enough to go!

The 11 markets we had on our list for Vienna offered a great variety in terms of location, size and scale. Some appeared to be local spots tucked into small city squares or tight alleys whereas others were clearly way more grand than that. We felt it was important to visit a number of different markets that would get us more than one kind of perspective on the city just before Christmas. But we also saw the Christmas Dream Market in the main square in front of the Rathaus (or city hall) as THE Christmas market in town and so we felt it was important to make an early visit to that one in case we needed to come back time and time again. 

We did, by the way. Three total visits to that one.

Christmas Dream Market: the Rathaus with Christmas tree (top) and skating (bottom).

The Christmas Dream Market is gigantic. It was way bigger in every way than every other market we visited either in Vienna or on our three daytrips. It covered a greater area; it appeared to have more stalls to buy Christmas swag than any other market; it had more lights; and on a Saturday night when we first visited, it had easily way, way more people milling around it and shopping and drinking and eating than any other place we went to. If there is an alpha dog Christmas market in the city of Vienna, this is it. 

And it ain't all about the shopping at the Rathaus. 

There were many markets that we visited in our week plus in Vienna that offered attractions other than shopping and eating. The Christmas Dream Market definitely had more of those than any other market we stopped at. The east side of the square in front of the Rathaus is devoted to a giant skating area consisting of a reasonably sized rink connected to a series of one way, sloping and climbing iced runs filled with packs of Austrian children racing around the place on their skates. Or at least there were when we first arrived here on Saturday night. Skating here is honestly a bit of a challenge. I'd never skated on sloped surfaces before and while it's pretty easy to coast downhill, there's the whole stopping thing to consider which would definitely be more challenging when faced with packs of Austrian kids whizzing around you. 

We did skate, by the way. We had to. It seemed like the romantic thing to do and it was truly awesome. We just didn't do it at night on a Saturday when we first visited (just way, way too chaotic). We picked 10 a.m. on a Friday morning which in the daylight is not quite so magical as doing it under the twinkling Christmas lights. But look, staying upright on a sheet of ice is just about all the magic I need sometimes when abroad and Friday morning worked just fine.

If you are not a huge fan of crowds, the Christmas Dream Market is maybe not the place to be on a Saturday night. Just saying. We went one other night and the market was way more digestable with a lot fewer people at it.

Besides the skating area, the Christmas Dream Market offered rides, including a Ferris wheel and a carousel, as well as a walking path taking you by lighted trees (one filled with red, lighted hearts), oversized reindeer sculptures (also lighted) and a giant advent calendar that seemed to be just an enormous advertisement for the adjacent Vienna Lottery ticket booth (we passed on the lottery). There's also a nativity display pathway which on first impression seemed to be showing various scenes from the life of Jesus Christ by different artisans but which really ended up to be just different manifestations of the same famous nativity scene plus one display where Jesus, Mary and Joseph were either fishing or swimming or both. Didn't quite understand that last one but that's what it was.

Ferris wheel and tree at the Christmas Dream Market (top) and artisan stalls at the Am Hof Market (bottom).

We would end up spending more time at the Christmas Dream Market than any other market in Vienna or any other place we visited this month. We also probably bought more Christmas loot there than any other market. If you only have time to make it to one market in your visit to Vienna, this is probably the one to prioritize. It really is a special experience. You'll get a great overview of the European Christmas market experience for sure.

But the beauty of being in town for a bit more than a week meant that we didn't have to settle for just one. We got the chance to explore. And when we did that, we found that there were places we preferred to the main market in front of city hall. Each of these markets has a vibe, a feel, a sense of character that is unique. And honestly, we liked some better than others. Given all that is out there, why would you realistically visit just one?

I should mention that there is a very small sameness about some of these places. You will likely find one or two vendors who show up at every market (we see you, Original Vienna Snowglobe Factory...). But they are by no means all the same. I don't think I could reasonably equate the feel of one market we visited to any one other market. They are all different just like we humans are all different so it's natural some are going to appeal to some people more than others.

Having written all that, and understanding it's probably not productive to give a detailed rundown of EVERY market we visited, here are my top three, in the order we visited.

Old Viennese Christmas Market on Freyung

The Freyung is a triangular square (is that possible?) in the middle of the historic center of Vienna. It was first established in the 1300s when it was created as an open space in front of a monastery with Scottish roots (of all things). The monastery is still there today, defining the majority of the north side of the square. So a good portion of the fabric surrounding the plaza is seven hundred or so years old. Places with this kind of history are inherently very cool for me.

Over the centuries, the square became a favored spot for the Austrian aristocracy due to its proximity to the Hofburg Palace, where the emperor maintained his summer residence in the city. Because of that, the buildings on the perimeter of the square which are not the monastery are of a certain well-designed character. Historical fabric is all around you when you are in the Freyung. 

The name of the square, by the way, stems from the fact that the monastery was free (or "frey") from taxation by the local ruler of Vienna when the building was first erected.

The Freyung. The old monastery is in the background in the center of the photograph.

What we found at the Freyung Market was a manageable number of high-quality vendor stalls arranged around the perimeter of the plaza with a couple of beverage vendors in the center of the square bookending a small open space with tables for gathering, talking and drinking. Drinking and eating are very definitely central to the Vienna Christmas Market experience and the sense of togetherness and community in some of these markets comes across loud and clear. They appear to be frequented by locals and not just tourists which for sure adds a different character to the interactions between market-goers. We got a great sense of this at the Freyung.

Part of what made the Freyung so special for us was that it was the first market we visited. It was the closest market to our hotel and a mere ten minute or so walk from our front door. The act of grabbing a glass of wine (grüner veltliner, if you must know) and walking from stall to stall got us right into the spirit of these markets in the most ideal way, especially since the glass lasted the entire walk around the square.

But it wasn't JUST the fact that it was the first. The historic character; the backdrop of the buildings around the square; and the closeness and intimacy shone through in a way here at the Freyung that we didn't get in any other place. It was the perfect place to start. And sure, the first one is always special in some way.

Karlsplatz Christmas Market

Three days and eight Christmas markets later, we wandered into the Karlsplatz in front of the massive Karlskirche (or St. Charles Church, if you must have the English translation) for a quick shop and some dinner before our trip to the Vienna Opera. On a scale level, the Art Advent Christmas Market on the Karlsplatz dwarfs the tiny collection of booths on the Freyung and comes pretty close to the size of that on the plaza in front of the Rathaus. It is also set in a vast open square in front of one of the city's most important churches and not in a tight urban setting. Completely different environment.

The jewel of this market is clearly the Karlskirche itself. It is the singular object that provides focus for all the market stalls. Everything revolves around the Karlskirche in the Karlsplatz, and the installation of a few dozen or so wooden huts selling Christmas loot and all sorts of market snacks does not change that in any way.

What makes the Karlsplatz Christmas Market unique is the fact that the application process for selling in the market involves a juried review, meaning what's being sold there needs to be local and handmade (or organic in the case of food and beverages). The stalls offered different goods than we found elsewhere, particularly a higher quality (and price) of what was being sold. We didn't buy anything here (well, I did buy one thing...), but we did see some different vendors. Except for the Original Vienna Snowglobe Factory, that is.

The Karlsplatz Christmas Market was also where I found my Vienna Christmas market mug.

Perhaps THE essential Vienna Christmas market souvenir is the mug. When you buy a drink at the markets, it is served in a ceramic mug which is usually unique to both the market and the year. The price of the drink includes a deposit for the mug of a few Euros. If you return the mug, you get your deposit back. But if you like the mug and want to take it home, you can do that also. You just trade your deposit for a souvenir which is both site and time specific. I needed a mug from this trip.

I thought the mug at the Karlsplatz Christmas Market was the best of the trip so the one I got filled with a hot himbeerpunsch is now sitting in the mug cabinet in our kitchen. It's a matte black mug with purple line drawings of the Karlskirche and some of the handcrafted wares available for purchase at the market along with (of course) the year 2022. It appropriately represents the zeitgeist (if we are using German words) of that market and it could absolutely not be passed up.

Great architecture, high quality crafts, organic food (we'll get to that part...) and THE essential souvenir of a Vienna pre-Christmas trip? Yep, the Karlsplatz Market was definitely one of the best. Maybe not quite as good as the Freyung, but there's not much in it.

Christmas Market at Schönbrunn Palace

I didn't expect to have the Schönbrunn Palace on my list of favorite Christmas markets in Vienna. Maybe it's my generally anti-royal stance but we deliberately didn't visit either royal place in the city of Vienna on this trip. We just didn't think we needed to. After all, we'd been to Versailles. How much different could it be?

The Schönbrunn was the last Christmas market we visited. It was also my favorite. And it wasn't even close. I mean this place blew all the other ones away. It lacked the Freyung's intimacy, but it overcame that easily.

So first of all, I thought the vendors here were the best. Yes, the Original Vienna Snowglobe Factory was here like it was at the Freyung and the Karlsplatz (and others...), but we saw some stuff for sale here that we hadn't seen at any of the prior 13 we'd visited. We could have bought a lot here, but ultimately, we restrained ourselves. After all, there's only so much stuff we could buy before we got into "do you really need that?" territory.

But it was the dramatic stage set that separated the Schönbrunn from the rest of the markets.

We visited a number of Christmas markets in and around Vienna that had some incredible backdrops. Certainly the Karlsplatz fits into this category with the ornate Karlskirche as the focal point for an incredible experience that happens at each end of the year. I could also say something similar about the markets at the Belvedere Museum, the Maria Thereisen Square and the Rathaus. These are clearly important historical buildings which anchor their respective markets (the building being the statue of Maria Theresa in the case of Maria Thereisen Square) and which glow impressively under the lights at night.

Schönbrunn blew them all away. I think it's the vastness, the spread and the golden color that do it when you are standing or walking in the market, either with or without food, a mug of something warm or a bag or two of Christmas loot. But it's also the approach. I imagine that most visitors to the market take the U to the Palace which forces a path frontally towards the entire width of the palace. It is literally like this giant expansive glowing golden curtain that backs up an intimate and wonderful Christmas market. The view just blows you away and you get it from the instant you see the market from afar to all the way until you leave. I wrote earlier in this post that there is magic here and I meant it. I felt it the most at the Schönbrunn.

A stall at the Maria Theresien Square (top) and Melk (bottom).

You might have noticed most of the pictures on this post are taken at night. It's deliberate. That magic I felt at Schönbrunn and the Karlsplatz and the Freyung and every other market we visited was turned up to 11 at night. In the light of day, you can see all the warts on the markets. Sometimes the wood used to make the stalls is a little ragged; or the square or plaza or grassy areas that make up the market are dirty or muddy; or there is trash or whatever else on the ground. Nighttime erases all that. Once the sun goes down it's all twinkling lights and wonderlust. It's a totally different world. 

If you need convincing of this fact, just check out the two pictures below of the Altes AKH Christmas Market at the University of Vienna, which we found a quick couple of tram rides from our hotel. The daytime photograph to me looks grey and beige and dull. I see a large grey path and dark gray tree trunks and a Christmas tree made out of beige sleds which looks like it's ready to be lit on fire or something like that. The scene looks like something waiting to happen.

Contrast that with the second photograph. All I see is lights. I see a red Christmas tree made of sleighs and twinkling lights overhead that guide you through the market and a green glow on the market stalls. Even the dark grey trees are transformed through the red lights. The dark and the lights completely transform the scene. The magic is turned on.

We visited Vienna in December to see these markets. When we got back home we discussed what we liked best about this trip and far and away the best thing for both of us was spending time at the various Christmas markets we visited. It is really rewarding when the star attraction of the trip measures up to expectations. In this case, I think the markets cleared that bar with flying colors.

We spent time at a Christmas market every day we were actively sightseeing on this trip. Most days, we were at two or more. We passed through or past or were exploring one every night. I don't think I've ever done something that so comprehensively permeated every day and night of a vacation. It was all so worth it.

I have tried to include pictures of as many Christmas markets as I could in this post while also prioritizing the photos which I feel are most spectacular, which inevitably are the night shots. For almost all of the 11 markets we visited within the city of Vienna, we were able to coordinate our schedule to put us at each market at night (the exception being the Michaelerplatz Christmas Market). For daytrips to Melk, Bratislava and Brno, though, we had to make do with daytime visits. I am confident these three markets would be every bit as magical as their counterparts in Vienna had we been there at night.

There are Christmas markets all over Europe. Some are older and more famous than those in Vienna but I can't imagine a pre-Christmas trip anywhere in the world that would get us a better market experience than our eight days in Austria. I'm not sure we are ever going to seek out Christmas markets in December quite the way we did on this trip ever again. There are too many places to go in this world to take two Christmas market obsessed trips. But no regrets on this trip. I think we got what we wanted and way, way more based on our Christmas In Vienna Hallmark Channel impulse. This will last a lifetime.

Brno (top) and the Michaelerplatz Christmas Market in Vienna (bottom). Night time is better.

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How We Did It

Visit Vienna from late November to early January and you are going to be hard pressed to NOT visit a Christmas market, even if you don't want to. These things are literally everywhere, especially between the Ringstrasse (or maybe just outside the Ringstrasse) and the Danube River. Based on our experience this month, the same is true of markets in the towns and cities around Vienna. 

We spent a lot of time planning our visits to the markets in Vienna. I found the site Visiting Vienna to be an essential guide for most things planning relative to Vienna, but especially for Christmas market visiting. Click on the link in the previous sentence for that site's 2022 Christmas markets post. I should note most markets have their own website. Rather than listing all those here in this post, I'd suggest you just start with Visiting Vienna. There's a list of markets on the right side of post linked in this paragraph. We visited the first 11 on the list.

We spent zero time planning our visits to the markets in Melk, Bratislava and Brno and found all three very easily. I'm not sure if there's a real lesson in there or not but my takeaway is that if you visit a smaller town or city in December, you are pretty much destined to find a Christmas market pretty easily. 

Finally and maybe most importantly: admission is free. That's not to say that you get to skate in front of the Rathaus for free or get free drinks or food but getting into these places doesn't cost a penny and there is so much to take in at every stop. This is for sure a low cost attraction, even if you elect to get some food or a drink or two. 

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Carara

When we originally planned to visit Costa Rica in March of 2020, we decided to make it a five-day, four-night affair. That trip had us landing in San Jose on day one; traveling to Tortuguero National Park on day two; coming back to San Jose on day four; and going home on day five. Since it took us two and a half years after that time to finally make it to the land of Pura Vida, we decided to reward ourselves with an extra day. I know...we are absolutely wild and crazy sometimes with our vacations.

Finding something to do for a day in Costa Rica seemed like a simple proposition. When we started planning that extra day, maybe it wasn't so simple. You know how much stuff there is to do in Costa Rica? Plenty. And that's way understating the situation and all of it seems to be absolutely incredible. We looked pretty much everywhere in the country and any of it probably would have been a great extra day to the trip. 

But there were issues with some of our ideas. Arenal? Already been to volcanoes elsewhere. Braulio Carillo? Looking for something other than just birds. Manuel Antonio? Way too far. Monteverde? Also too far. Not way too far but too far, especially considering we just came back from Tortuguero. Stay in San Jose? Not exciting enough. Sure, we needed something close to San Jose but also clearly different than Tortuguero.

After a lot of looking (and I do mean a LOT), we settled on Carara National Park, an area of primary and second growth rainforest about 30 miles west and south of San Jose towards the Pacific Ocean that was established as a national park in the late 1970s. There are pockets of Costa Rica with just unbelievable biodiversity and Carara is certainly one of those. It's a relatively small place (it's about 1/6th the size of Tortuguero National Park) but holds over 400 different species of birds, including its star resident, the scarlet macaw. And truthfully, we really, really wanted to see some scarlet macaws.

The big scarlet macaw in the cover photo of this post doesn't count. We wanted the real thing.

Welcome to the jungle. The Carara National Park rainforest.

In addition to its potential as a major birding destination, Carara National Park is bordered on the north side by the Tarcoles River, a body of water that runs from the capital city of San Jose all the way to the Pacific. Around Carara, the Tarcoles is notable as the home of the greatest collection of crocodiles in Costa Rica. We figured a walk in the rainforest followed by a trip down the Tarcoles to spot some crocs seemed like a pretty good day out.

Close to San Jose? More than birds? Walking and getting on a boat? Costa Rican lunch after the tour? Check. Check. Check. And check. Carara was the place.

We sometimes have some crazy expectations for our days on vacation, especially when it comes to wildlife. I know, I know...we should know better. But surprisingly (and admittedly I'd read ahead about Carara and knew there was a possibility of the toucan sighting that had to this point eluded me on this trip), we did actually keep our sights within the range of reasonable possibility on this trip. I thought I'd be OK with scarlet macaws and some crocodiles. It seemed like a rational and perfectly attainable expectation.

Golden orb spider (top) and some sort of millipede (bottom). Carara National Park.

I know I have said this before but I'll say it again. Never, ever, ever expect nature to be predictable or behave the way you expect. Dying to see a specific type of bird or reptile or animal in a particular place? Keep your expectations very, very low. Wild creatures are not here for your amusement. They are living their lives likely in constant peril from some sorts of danger every day. If we expected to see crocodiles or macaws, there was absolutely no guarantee of success here.

We got to Carara at about 8:30 in the morning. Maybe a touch before that time. Our boat trip on the Tarcoles was a 10:30 departure or something like that. That meant (complicated math here, I know...) that we had two hours to see what we had to see in Carara and make it to the river.

Now 8:30 may seem early, particularly because it's a two hour drive from San Jose, but by 8:30, the odds are most species of birds are probably already inactive. The best time to see birds, whether it's at home where we live or anywhere else in the world, is first thing in the morning. Like sunrise. Or maybe even a bit before. Our 8:30 arrival time was late. For birds. We hoped it wouldn't be too late.

Poison dart frog (different than the ones we saw in Tortuguero) and leaf cutter ants (difficult to see, I realize).

Let me say this: the life we saw in Carara was just incredible. Whether it was the vines wrapped around trees climbing to the forest canopy or spiders or poison dart frogs, there was something to look at everywhere. We were right there in the middle of a jungle with living things all around us. 

Many of these things that made up the life were really pretty small or really, really massive. Insects. Amphibians. Arachnids. Giant trees with enormous leaves to suck up every bit of sun (read: life) that can penetrate down to the floor of the forest. There wasn't a lot in between these two extremes. And honestly, we were sort of looking for the in between.

Although there was certainly a lot of joy in at least one of the tiniest forest residents.

I wrote in my Tortuguero post that I didn't come to Costa Rica with a species wish list, but if I had, leaf cutter ants would surely have been on this list. And they were everywhere in Carara, walking down trees or across the path we were walking with pieces of leaf representing many times the body weight of the ant itself on their backs. We had seen a leaf cutter ant nest in Tortuguero and witnessed a troop of ants transporting leaf fragments on our night excursion to see turtles, but this was the first time we managed to stop and watch worker ants obediently transport leaves back to the queen under the watchful eyes of massive soldier ants. I feel really fortunate that we got to see this. I'm sure it's common in Costa Rica but not so much for me in everyday life.

But about 90 minutes into our visit to Carara National Park, the lack of birdlife was getting to be a little concerning.

So sure, there were clearly birds in Carara. We heard them everywhere, including those scarlet macaws. But after an hour and a half of walking and with my clothes now soaked from sweat (I sweat heavily in hot, humid environments, what can I say?), the best bird looks we had were a single cinnamon becard (above, top) and three buff-rumped warblers (above, bottom). I love birds and I'd never seen either of these things before, but we did not come to Carara to see little brown or brown-and-yellow birds, even if the warblers were perpetually engaged in some butt-shaking mating dance with their buff-colored rumps.

If there was anything to exacerbate this concern (and there was, by the way) it was the enthusiasm coming from our naturalist guide, Rigo, about what we had seen so far. I was a bit concerned that he'd be OK settling for the looks at the small birds we had in the Park before moving onto the river. Rigo, to his credit, was enthusiastic about seeing pretty much everything.

And that's when it happened.

If my memory is correct, I believe we were looking at some monkeys in the canopy which we hoped were something other than spider monkeys (we'd already seen plenty of these...) when we looked up into the trees in front of us and spotted a pair of scarlet macaws. This is what we came to see. Forget whatever else was around, these two birds became our sole focus. 

I used the word "we" a couple of sentences ago but it was really my eagle-eyed wife who has a knack for spotting wildlife who came through again in Carara.

Yes, these two photographs are incredibly similar. And yes, they are both washed out with the light shining through the leaves of the trees. Neither is the best bird photograph I have ever taken in my life. But this is why we came to Carara. We had actually seen two scarlet macaws earlier in the day at a stop near a bridge where people typically watch for crocodiles. But this sighting far exceeded the quality and duration of that one earlier in the day.

It is pretty astonishing to me that there can be any bird out there with the outrageous colored plumage that these macaws sport. We saw great green macaws in Tortuguero earlier in the week and those birds are spectacular but they also blend in with the almond trees they feed in. Not so with the scarlet macaws. They are absolutely so brilliantly colored. It's like someone has just used the brightest colored paints to invent a species of large parrot without any regard for species survival or anything like that. There's no camouflage here. They are absolutely amazing creatures. Carara was no longer any sort of candidate for being a disappointment as soon as we saw this pair. I was good with just the two. They made our day trip worth it, no matter what we might see or not see on the Tarcoles.

We did make it to our crocodile-focused boat ride on time by the way. Well, maybe a couple of minutes late. They waited, since we were three of the five total booked on the tour that day.

I have been on many wildlife tours in my life, particularly over the last nine or so years, and I have just one way to start the summary of our boat ride that day. I can't think of too many tours that were better than the couple of hours or maybe a bit less that we spent on the Tarcoles River. In fact, for its length, it may be one of the best two or three ever. I know, that's high praise, but it was well deserved.

Three things about this tour (Jungle Crocodile Safari was the company, if you must know right now). First, the variety of wildlife we saw was fantastic. Second, the guide who was with us, Hansel, was awesome; that dude knew everything that was out there and he engaged in what I thought was absolutely the right detail without dumbing things down. Third, they gave us each a bird and reptile spotting brochure to help us identify what we saw. For years, we have been carrying with us on trips a series of laminated wildlife spotting pamphlets and they have been so useful. Well done, here.

This brochure, by the way, has 58 different kinds of birds and three reptiles on it (Hansel seemed to know them all by heart) and most of the bird species depicted are super colorful and distinctive. I mean just the kind of things we can't see at home easily the way you can see in Costa Rica. All the species except the last that is, the clay colored thrush, which is literally just a small, all-muddy brown bird. It's also the national bird of Costa Rica. Yep, with scarlet macaws and toucans and all sorts of herons to pick from, Costa Rica chose the clay colored thrush. Apparently, it occurs everywhere in the country, and other birds do not.

The Tarcoles river was populated with a lot of crocodiles. There was absolutely no doubt you will see crocs on this tour if our couple of hours was any sort of typical excursion. You will also see some massive examples of these predators and can get super up close. They are the apex predator on the river and they (at least in adult form) are not really concerned by the presence of a boat full of humans. That's pretty much all I'm going to say about the crocs. They are amazing, but not super exciting. All they are doing is lying there.

Unfortunately, the Tarcoles River was also populated with a lot of trash (it will show up randomly in some of the pictures below). The story here is that for a while, the River was seen as some residents of San Jose as an easy way to get trash transported from their city to the Pacific Ocean. How this is any sort of logic that makes sense is beyond me. I mean, I can't imagine anyone thinking that trash belongs in the Ocean rather than a city. But that's what happened. Over the years or decades, there has been a ton of human-generated garbage in and around the environment that our boat took us that afternoon.

It sounded like the situation we witnessed was actually a vast improvement over years past. The trash was noticeable to us, but not everywhere we looked necessarily. Apparently, there has been and is an ongoing effort to clean up the River and get it back to being safe and habitable for the wildlife, although the need for this effort to continue suggests that there is still some pollution going on, even now. When will we ever learn?

So what was so great about the Jungle Crocodile Safari if it wasn't the crocodiles? Come on, you know the answer already and yes, I know I'm fixated a bit (or a lot) here but it was unquestionably the birds. 

Tarcoles birds (top to bottom): snowy egret, brown pelicans and black-necked stilt.

The variety and quantity of birdlife along the banks of the Tarcoles was amazing. I'm speculating a bit here when I write this but the spot where we were was probably close enough to the Pacific to draw in ocean-going birds while still clearly being a river to provide habitat for those species more comfortable in the mangrove roots inland.

Because of this, we got to see the only pelicans of the trip and the only magnificent frigatebirds close up that we saw in Costa Rica (we did see frigatebirds in the distance near Tortuguero). There were flocks of both of these birds just perched in the trees by the sides of the River.

Magnificent frigatebirds (top two) and black hawk (bottom), Tarcoles River.

We also managed sightings of egrets, spoonbills and tons and tons of herons. More types of herons than we had seen previously in the week for sure, including the night-hunting black-crested and yellow-crested night herons. I had never seen either of these last species anywhere before (although we had heard their calls when turtle-watching on the beach just a couple of days prior), nor had I seen the boat-billed herons we found by the side of the Tarcoles.

There is an inevitable thrill in finding a new species. All three types of herons we found for the first time this day were just that, as were the superior looks we got at some of the little blue herons this day. We'd seen some little blue herons along the side of the Rio Suerte on our way to Tortuguero, but we didn't really stop long enough to look much. In all, we saw five different species of heron this day one after the other. All five are shown in the photographs below: black-crested night heron, little blue heron, boat-billed heron, tiger heron and yellow-crested night heron.

We also saw a new predator: the black hawk. And not just one. If I'm remembering right we saw three of these birds. The best look we got is above, standing on one leg while the other is tucked against its body (apparently it saves energy to do this). It's always special to find birds of prey because (and I guess vultures are not applicable to this logic) there are so few of them around.

One last comment about the birds: just check out the eyes on the two night herons, especially the yellow-crested one in the bottom pic.

We spent the last part of this tour getting close to some crocodiles. Like maybe 10 feet away or something like that. The size of these big males is just immense and the jaws look incredibly powerful (the crocodiles with their mouths open in the pictures above are not males). I also appreciated the complete lack of other boat traffic on the River that day. It allowed us to linger where we wanted and how we wanted. I know I wouldn't want to meet one of these crocs out of the safety of our boat.

On our first day in Costa Rica, we were told by the guy driving us from the airport to our hotel in San Jose that it starts raining in Costa Rica at about noon or 1 in the afternoon on pretty much a daily basis. This is exactly what we had encountered in San Jose like clockwork. I took my last picture of a crocodile along the Tarcoles (it's below) at seven minutes before noon. By the time we got to our lunch place, it was probably a bit before 12:30. A few minutes later the heavens opened. Like clockwork, I'm telling you. Going to Costa Rica in the rainy season? Do what you got to do before lunch.

That's it for Costa Rica for this year. I could definitely go back, if not to Costa Rica then to central America in general. Panama, Belize and Guatemala definitely await.

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How We Did It

With no car and no plans to drive ourselves around a place like Costa Rica, we found a tour operator to take us to Carara National Park and along the Tarcoles River. We found Oropopo Experience by doing some searching on Viator and then reaching out directly to Oropopo to inquire about their specific tours. While we didn't know it at the time, they are a company founded by and led by naturalists, which was a great bonus when looking for animals in the jungle. I'd definitely consider these guys for future trips in Costa Rica. Everything went about as smoothly as it could. The stop for coconuts and fruit along the way was a great bonus. We paid $100 each for this tour for three of us. It was not necessarily a private tour but it ended up being just that.

The Tarcoles River portion of our tour was provided by Jungle Crocodile Safari. I was serious when I wrote this is one of the best tours I have ever been on. Money definitely well spent for the 90 minutes or so along the River. You will see so much. Hopefully that comes through loud and clear when looking through the pictures on this post. They actually have two more tours they offer other than the one we took. Both are 3 hours long and focus on bird spotting and photography. I'm not sure how what we took wasn't about birds and photographs but I'd certainly give these guys another shot for double the time. The cost of our boat ride was included in the $100 we paid Oropopo but it looks like as of this writing that the cost of the boat trip we went on is $35. Bargain!!!

One last Costa Rica sentence before signing off for this trip: tip your guides. It's the best way to flow your money right down to the people doing the real work in a tourist-based economy. Pura vida!

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