2022.12 German Christmas Markets (Part 7)

2022.12 German Christmas Markets (Part 7) – Five Markets in Berlin

Berlin is a large city, much more spread out than you’d imagine. It’s home to many Christmas markets, so which markets to visit? After using the city of Berlin’s tourism website, I narrowed down ours to visit to five. Reasonable? Sure, if we had a couple days, but instead we went to all of them in a single day.

Alexanderplatz

We started with the market the furthest from our hotel, located at Alexanderplatz. This former east Berlin square is quite large. With it being a large square, the size of the market felt odd, because with lots of space between stalls the place felt really open. Unlike other markets this one felt like tens of thousands people could easily fit before it felt busy at all.

After visiting the market we stopped in a few stores surrounding the square. Given the early hour (it was probably lunch hour), we didn’t stop for a drink, but certainly explored all of the shops in the hunt for any unique items for gifts.

Rotes Rathaus (Red City Hall)

Just a few subway (U-bahn) stops away at the Red City Hall stop. It’s a gorgeous building, and across the street is another square with stalls. This market had converted space around a fountain with a small ice rink for skating.

We grabbed something to drink to take in the view.

Here this market had a selection of artists selling items. We liked this as it was a break from the food and Christmas ornament stalls that are well represented in every market we had previously visited. We didn’t go on the Ferris wheel, another fixture in many markets, like Dusseldorf, or Cologne from 2021’s trip.

From here it was another short U-bahn ride to our next stop.

Babelplatz (Gendarmenmarket)

This market located at Babelplatz is it’s temporary location. It’s usual location is Gendarmenmarket, however that was not possible as there was construction works occurring at that location. This was the only market that charged admission. Entry fee is 2 euro and quickly it was obvious as to why — almost half of it was enclosed with heating! As we had been outside for several hours by this time, having the opportunity to complain about the heat of the enclosed area, was a treat.

A lot of the space inside were filled with local artists. From a people watching view, I found it amusing that some of the artists appeared to be a scale from “just woke up at 4pm” to “why did I sign up to be at this Christmas market for 6 weeks straight, 7 days a week?”

Regardless, the items for sale was impressive enough that Little Miss wanted to start calculating how much she could purchase before our luggage limit would be at capacity. After a few moments of thought, logic returned, and she declined purchasing TILES (handmade, gorgeous tiles). Jewelry, and paintings, were the most popular items artists had available for sale. I recommend visiting this one if you want to seek out one-of-a-kind items.

Outside, the target audience of mulled win was replaced with Champagne. Several stations with umbrellas were setup trying to suggest to market goers that there was an option beyond mulled wine.

This stall had a massive display of sweets available. After talking with the vendor we tried a sample, and that resulted in us leaving their stall with some delicious sweets.

During this day filled with visiting markets, I realized something — attending a market during daylight just isn’t right. Somehow, the combination of the lights from the stalls, and smells from all the food stands in the night, along with a crowd that has predominately finished work for the day, seems like the jovial atmosphere of the market. Maybe that is why Alexanderplatz felt different, given we visited during the lunch hour.

Before leaving this market, we learned the importance of this square — an underground memorial marked where the infamous book burning from the 1930s took place. The memorial itself was a view of empty bookshelves.

From here, we took the U-bahn to deliver us to our next stop.

Nollendorfplatz – LBGTIQA Market

We’re not accustomed to standing and walking around for hours on end. While sitting on the subway to this market, both of us realized we were tired, and our enjoy was was fading. Directly underneath the above ground U-bahn station is this tiny market.

Although it was dark, it was definitely early in the evening for other visitors. We arrived to find just a handful of other visitors. This gave us the chance to talk to some of the vendors — they informed us Thursdays through Saturdays are the most popular evenings where the space would be so full, but morphed into a nightclub as security has to meter the quantity of people in the market!

This market was unique for a couple things, first it had a roof from the tracks above, and that allowed more lighting options, and the sheltered configuration of the space allowed this market to have something like mulch on the ground. The market in the countryside didn’t have mulch (brick pathways).

Before our final market, we stopped for dinner giving us a chance to sit down. That was a mistake as sitting for more than a few minutes had us contemplate how to be magically transported to the hotel without having to walk. We were exhausted. After we got some energy from dinner, we soldiered on to our final market, solely because it was on our walking route back to the hotel. 😉

Breitscheidplatz (Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church)

While writing this, I learned that the square around the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church has a different name from the square. This market is just around the corner from Zoo station held at Breitscheidplatz. Walking up to this market, it appeared to have the most lights. Every tree on Kurfuerstendamm had lights on them, and there were additional displays on the island separating traffic.

We arrived at the proper time for this market as it was busy! Compared to the last one, where we felt it was open just for us, this one felt like it was the weekend given the quantity of people at the market.

I liked the overhead lighting at this market.

More clothing vendors, and,

Wooden crafts were available from some of the vendors here. We grabbed a snack from one and continued our slow walk to the hotel.

It was a busy day, with a lot of walking. To me, it was worth it, however I think as a result I may have made this day to be Christmas market overload for Little Miss.

Explore other parts of this trip:

Part 1 – Air Canada Signature Class Lounge & Flight Toronto to Amsterdam

Part 2 – Doubletree Hotel by Hilton Amsterdam Centraal Station

Part 3 – DB ICE Train Amsterdam to Dusseldorf

Part 4 – A Christmas market in the countryside

Part 5 – Hampton Inn by Hilton, Berlin West (Zoo Station)

Part 6 – Lego Berlin and other stores

Part 7 – Berlin Christmas Markets (this post!)

Part 8 – Hilton Dresden

Part 9 – Dresden Christmas Market

Part 10 – Nuremberg Christmas Market

Part 11 – Nuremberg Hampton by Hilton