Best Christmas Markets for Kids in Germany’s Black Forest

December is a magical time of year in Germany, when almost every city and town has at least one square filled with a Christmas market. Aglow with sparkling lights, each of these markets creates its own holiday wonderland certain to delight kids. Some have entire sections devoted to children’s rides and activities. While you can find these all over Germany, some of the best are in the southwest corner, in the fairytale villages of the Black Forest. These are our kids’ favorites.

© Stillman Rogers

Stuttgart

The biggest market (one of the biggest in all Germany, in fact) is in the modern city of Stuttgart, where several hundred wooden cabins decked in fragrant greens line its streets and squares. On the rooftop of each is a holiday scene — elves making toys, woodland animals, Santa in his sleigh, giant wooden toys, even a traditional Christmas pyramid of brightly painted moving figures. One entire square is devoted to children, where a Christmas tree towers over a Ferris wheel whose cars are giant Christmas tree balls. Younger tots can ride on a miniature train through an entire village of pint-sized houses. There are workshops where kids can make their own candles or bake cookies, and in the center is a skating rink where beginning skaters can balance on chubby penguins or cartoon figures.

Esslingen

Even without its Christmas finery, Esslingen seems like stepping into a fairytale village, with its Medieval center of tall half-timbered houses. In December it becomes two villages, one filled with a modern Christmas market, the other transformed into its Medieval counterpart, the Mittelaltermarkt. Lit by torches and lanterns and serving foods cooked over wood fires, an entire section of town steps back seven centuries. Costumes, crafts, entertainment, even the foods are authentic to the Middle Ages, and your kids can watch jugglers and flame-walkers, listen to minstrels and watch a blacksmith forge hooks and tools from glowing iron. Basket makers, wood carvers, coopers, silversmiths, herbalists, leather workers and spinners are all at work and kids can ride an original hand-operated Ferris wheel that’s centuries old, eat bread made on a stick and learn to play medieval games.

© Stillman Rogers

Burg Hohenzollern

From a fairytale village to a fairytale castle, the Black Forest has them all. At the top of a steep crag, one of Europe’s best-preserved castles towers above the countryside, the ancestral home of the Prussian Royal family. They open Burg Hohenzollern in December for the Royal Christmas Market, where juried craftspeople show high-quality local crafts and art. Booths begin outdoors in the forecourt, where you can warm your hands around steaming mugs of gluhwein (hot mulled wine) or hot chocolate and eat cinnamon waffles before entering the Great Hall to see original designs and one-of-a-kind works in wool, leather, glass, silk and wood. Kids will want to see more of the castle, especially the treasury.

Gengenbach

Although some other towns turn the town hall into a giant Advent calendar, nobody does it better than the well-preserved Black Forest town of Gengenbach, where it’s the backdrop for the Christmas Market. Each December evening at 6 p.m. locals come to watch another window open on the town hall’s 200-year-old façade, revealing a scene or artwork. Each year these follow a theme, which might be based on the works of a great artist or scenes from children’s stories.

© Ekaterina Pokrovsky | Dreamstime

Freiburg

During December the streets of the old center are hung with curtains of tiny twinkling lights for the Freiburg Christmas Market. Along with the rows of cabins filled with spicy gingerbread, crunchy nut cookies, loaves of fruit-filled stollen, candied fruits and jelly-filled doughnuts, there are some designed just for kids. In the Christmas bakery they can bake their own cookies, and they can create candles in a candle workshop. They will be fascinated, too, watching the glassblower turn blobs of glowing glass into beautiful goblets and vases.