Christmas is such a magical time of year all over the world but I must say that Europe does it best. My absolute favorite thing   (that I have become a bit obsessed with I must admit) is the Christmas Markets. They are just such a joy and really put you in the Christmas spirit.

When you see pictures like this, you can understand why the markets are so amazing. This is the market in Heidelberg, Germany. Some of my friends and I have started a little mission to see as many different markets as possible before our time overseas is up. We have managed to see almost all the local markets so we have started setting our eyes on the most famous markets in Europe. And that is how our little road trip to Prague started.

Prague is about a 5 ½ hour drive from us and has a very famous and popular Christmas market. We dropped the kids off at school Friday morning, said “Good Luck” to our husbands, and we were off. The halfway mark between here and Prague is Nuremberg, Germany. Nuremberg is home to another very famous Christmas market so we stopped off here to get this Christmas party started.

The Nuremberg market is HUGE.

This is the only market I have been to so far that has a separate international section and a kids’ section. All of this is set up in front of Nuremberg’s Cathedral.

Most of the Christmas markets in Germany are known for the glühwein that is sold, which is a warm spiced wine. The Nuremberg market is actually known for serving a warm beer (glühbier). When I think of warm beer, it is not usually happy thoughts. However, this is a citrus flavored beer with Christmas spices and it was actually really good. I may even like it better than glühwein!

You pay a fee for the mug when you get a drink. You can choose to return the mug and get your deposit back or keep the mug. I have quite the collection of Christmas mugs. We had our drink, ate some yummy food and got back in the car to finish the trip to Prague.

We spent the next day exploring the city of Prague. We came to the Christmas market just as it began to snow. It was that beautiful snow where you can see the actual snowflake pattern when it lands. It was magical.

The largest market was in the Old Town Square so of course we also checked out the famous Astronomical Clock.

It had just been renovated and repainted over the last year and was looking in excellent condition. On the hour, the clock rings and a parade of Apostles come spinning out and staring down at you, judging your worthiness apparently. Also, Death rings the bell ….. so yeah….. that’s comforting.

The Christmas Market was the big draw for us to Prague but we couldn’t come to Prague without seeing the other major sites. So we headed over to the Charles Bridge.

There were so many great views from the walk along the river and over the bridge.

On the other side of the river is where you can find Lennon Wall.

Apparently, the day after the murder of John Lennon, someone painted a picture of Lennon on the wall. The graffiti took off from there. The wall and its art are supposed to be symbols of peace and love, but it also became a symbol of rebellion during the communist days. The art on the wall is always evolving so every time you visit it will look different.

We enjoyed our short little girls’ trip. On the way home, we swung by the Bamberg market, which was excellent (another mug for the collection). We also saw a car explode in front of us on the Autobahn (no one was hurt) but that is a story for another day.