• Jen Ritchey
  • Jen Ritchey

Christmas Market Trip 2025!

Ein 31-Tage Abenteuer von Jen Weiterlesen
  • Weimar

    12. Dezember 2025 in Deutschland ⋅ ☁️ 6 °C

    After Jena we headed on to our last stop - Weimar. I had read that it was a really nice town and it is very close to Erfurt (basically halfway better Erfurt and Jena) so I added it to the list for this year. We got in and got situated and then headed out to spy in the Christmas markets.

    So far I am really enjoying Weimar! Their Christmas lights are pretty good and you can follow them to go from market to market. They also have a lot of these people cutouts with signs pointing the way to each one (my photo looks like 2 bright squares that are the signs, but with the lights you can’t see it in the photo). They are each decorated differently which is fun. And it was just really nice wandering around town.

    We got some Korean food for dinner - ramen (since we were unable to get it yesterday!) and some avocado bibimbap. I forgot to take a photo before I split it up, but it was pretty good!

    Overall today was a pretty great day! Cold again, but sunny and not too bad. We will wander more tomorrow and see what we see!
    Weiterlesen

  • Weimar Day 2.1

    13. Dezember 2025 in Deutschland ⋅ ☁️ 6 °C

    Today we had a wander around Weimar! It is a really nice city to wander through. Most of the buildings are fancy old ones with decor which is always fun to spy on. We went by a cafe that had vegan cakes so we tried one of the cinnamon swirl ones and it was so good! Raymond was like this is one of the best cinnamon things we have had! It actually has enough cinnamon in it! Which yes! Lots of cinnamon! Delicious!

    While walking through town we found lots of wooden animals which was interesting (the elephant slide does not look happy…he looked resigned to his life of children sliding down his trunk), and Schiller and Goethe are both from here so lots of signs on where they lived in what years which was kind of funny. We saw a lot for Schiller so I guess he moved around! And I realized those people cutouts directing you to the markets were Goethe and Schiller! Bach also lived here for a bit, Shakespeare as well, lots of famous people!

    We walked out to the cemetery where Goethe and Schiller are buried (they are in a not very fancy building that was attached to the Russian Orthodox Church), but it was closed. We did see the Goethe family plot though.
    Weiterlesen

  • Weimar Day 2.2

    13. Dezember 2025 in Deutschland ⋅ ⛅ 7 °C

    After wandering the cemetery we headed back through town, got a baumstriezel for a snack (it was giant! Like twice the size of normal! But also thinner dough so maybe not twice as much to eat!). As we sat and ate it there was nice music playing (Raymond said Vivaldi the four seasons) and I thought it was the market or a store or something playing it on a speaker, but then I looked over and it was these two people playing it! A lady with a violin and a guy with what looked like a normal accordion, but he also blew into tubes at the top sometimes. I don’t know what that was, but they were so so so good! I was shocked it was actually people playing because it sounded so professional! So I had to give them a few euros.

    The yellow house in the photos was Schiller’s birth house. Then the ones after that are all from the park an der Ilm which was really nice to wander through! Lots of the statues were covered up for winter, but there was still plenty to see!

    The place after the ruins was the summer home of duke Carl August and the top part had those columns, then you could walk down and around to the bottom part with a walkway that was pretty fancy! The Pegasus was the ceiling of that part and it was up on a hill so nice views over there park. There is also an oval building with tree bark on the outside - apparently he has confidential meetings in there.
    Weiterlesen

  • Weimar Day 2.3

    13. Dezember 2025 in Deutschland ⋅ ☁️ 7 °C

    So much to see in the park an der Ilm! The first photo is Goethe’s garden house. Then I found out today that there was an old modern architecture movement here - the bauhaus movement - and lots of bauhaus building around. Just outside the park is the first model home, built in 1923 and looks very modern today! It reminded me of a house we saw in Brno, Vila Tugendhat, that when I was looking at things to do there I was like why is everyone suggesting going to this modern house?? Then I saw it was built in 1929 and was like oh! It is really interesting because it doesn’t look so old.

    In the one photo it can see the Duke’s summer home from across the river, then we wandered down to the spring and the big pedestrian bridge you can get up to by some stairs in the middle. Then we headed back to our place as it was a lot of wandering and getting later! But a lot of fun!

    After dinner we had a quick walk through town again. It is so nice! Though it has been pretty empty wandering around. It is odd as I can watch a steady stream of people walk by our place, but I have no idea where they are going! Before we got here I thought the markets are going to be crazy busy as it is Fri night/Sat we are here, it is a small town, and it seems popular online, but last night they weren’t that busy so I thought okay today will be. Only when we were out earlier the Christmas markets were empty. Barely any people - it was so strange! Still saw people walking towards them and then…I have no idea where they were going. Everywhere we walked was pretty empty. People, but not very many. It was very strange. In our after dinner walk the markets were busier, but still plenty of room to walk around and buy something if you want. It is good for us as I hate the crowded markets, but so odd! One of the least busy ones we have been to!

    Tomorrow we head for home, but will see if we stop somewhere else along the way :)
    Weiterlesen

  • Magdeburg

    14. Dezember 2025 in Deutschland ⋅ ☁️ 4 °C

    Today we got up and headed on to our last stop - Magdeburg. I did consider stopping at the concentration camp memorial instead, but Raymond was like it is not going to be a fun stop so…which sure maybe not for our last stop of the trip. I do want to go back at some point because it really was so large and looming over the whole area.

    I have had Magdeburg Christmas market on my list for a few years because I thought I went to this town with a friend many years ago and it was really cute and so it should be really nice with the Christmas market…only this wasn’t the town we went to! I finally figured out where we did go (the name is nothing like Magdeburg so I have no idea why I thought this was it), but this market was fine. Not the best, wouldn’t make a special trip to come back, but it was a fine lunch stop to have a short walk around. We did find vegan apple krapfen (like a doughnut but with apples wrapped up in it ). This was really good, but huge!! Definitely couldn’t eat one myself!

    The town itself wasn’t amazing. Raymond said it reminded him of Berlin with all the old Soviet buildings that are very grey. They did have fun walk/don’t want lights though!

    And then it was off to home! We got home pretty quickly which was surprising. Normally there is lots of traffic, but not today which was great for us!

    Overall this was a great trip! I had thought we might get Christmas marketed out, but we didn’t! Raymond was even like maybe we should go to a Berlin one tonight. We had so much fun and explored a lot of great new to us places! Plus all the Krampus fun! Plus we got pretty lucky with the weather! Super cold at times, but almost no rain and even a bunch of sunny days! Really really great trip. Now to start planning the next adventure ;)
    Weiterlesen

    Ende der Reise
    14. Dezember 2025