We both love Christmas. When we first met, we truly connected over our shared love of the holiday.
When we lived in Philadelphia, we hosted a Christmas open house for several years. We had four uniquely decorated trees, including one retro silver tree with blue ornaments that became our “Hannukkah Tree.”
We have also started a tradition of collecting Christmas ornaments from each place we visit. We enjoy decorating our tree and reminiscing about the ornaments and our trips to those locations.
Christmas Markets
We’ve watched YouTube videos of Christmas Markets all across Europe and decided to visit some known for their food, hot wine, and beautiful decorations.
However, we’re not fans of the cold, especially since retiring in the Yucatan, where anything below 70°F feels chilly!
So, we considered river cruises since you unpack only once, explore multiple destinations, and in many cases, dock near a city’s Christmas Markets.
Gate 1 Travel River Cruises
Having traveled with Gate 1 Travel, we explored their river cruises because it was something we hadn’t really experienced before.
We read great reviews of many of their ships. This option included some guided tours of historic sites, and with most meals included, we could enjoy snacks in the markets or eat off the boat if we wanted to.
Random Weird Stuff
We actually went on a three-day river cruise during our trip to China in 2018. The journey included a short ride on the Yangtze River. And, luckily, European river cruises are a bit nicer than the one we experienced in Asia.
German Christmas Market River Cruise
We chose the Gate 1 Travel 11-day German Christmas Markets with Prague. This way, we would not only explore the German Christmas Markets from Regensburg to Frankfurt, but also add the Czech Republic to our list of new countries to visit.
Exploring Regensburg, Nuremberg, Bamberg, Würzburg, Wertheim, and Frankfurt gave us an amazing glimpse into German Christmas traditions, history, and culture.
So, we packed the limited cold-weather clothes we had, planned to layer a lot, and set out to start our winter adventure.
More Random Weird Stuff
When we left Philadelphia, we packed a small storage container with two polar fleece ski caps, two scarves, two pairs of gloves, and two midweight winter coats with zip-out liners—just in case we did some cold-weather traveling. This was the first time in nearly ten years that we would have used them.
Next, exploring Prague!
Love reading this. We so loved our Christmas river cruise last year! Can’t wait to relive yours with you!
We really enjoyed it, despite what for us was fairly cold damp weather. The one disappointment, as you’ll see in later posts was that too many of the Chrismas decorations being sold were mass produced Chinese ornaments. We really wanted local crafts.