Frankfurt Christmas Markets, Germany

One of the major German airport hubs, a big city and financial center. Getting here by flying, or train, even driving, all very easy.

Frankfurt is a strange one for me. I really like the Frankfurt Christmas Markets and had a lot of fun here, as did my girlfriend. However, looking back and trying to write about it, it's not so easy to pin point what made them so enjoyable for us. And in all honesty, I could fully understand someone telling me they thought Frankfurt Markets were rubbish. It just wasn’t our experience, we liked them.

Frankfurt is a new city, at least in relative appearance. It probably isn’t new, I expect it was left flat after the war, and needed rebuilding from the rubble. When I say new city, rather it is new and modern buildings and not old traditional looking buildings and no, or at least very limited, pretty historic center (that we found).

Wondering around here, we were relaxed and something appealed to us. The markets, the first we went to on a small square, with several others markets as you move more into the town. Frankfurt, as we have often seen with other German markets, are very good on their food and drink offerings, they have interesting selections, multiple options. As a family we love eating and drinking embracing the variety, which could explain our enjoyment here. Being Germany the prices are fair so it's easy to try so many different things without breaking the bank.

The markets are the typically traditional wooden huts, in a modern industrial unattractive city, you won't get the perfect Christmas picture or image here, that said the market at Romer actually does have a nice backdrop. If you want a relaxed weekend sampling food and drinks on offer you will like it.

A bit about Frankfurt. It was odd to me as I always associate Germany with beer and the famous beer halls. But Frankfurt deceives you with having the same looking beer halls, or I should say drink halls, but they are selling ‘apfelwein’ translated apple wine, but actually a kind of cider. Everything is the same as the beer halls, the heavy food, the big jugs, it's just the content in that jug is apfelwein. Look, when in Rome right! Go native, give it a go and enjoy.

We didn’t experience loads outside of the markets, a couple of things we did do. On Saturday at the river bank, it seems the city has a carboot sale, for non-Brits, a carboot sale is a jumble sale, people sell stuff to free up space in their home, so called in British English, due to the sellers parking their cars in a field and opening the back of their car, selling the goods from the car boot. It's a lucky dip, you could find something amazing, you could just be looking at tat. I like looking round these, the excitement and anticipation of what you may find, my partner on the other hand hates them. If you are keen to have a look yourself, the Germans call it a Flomarkt and can be found at Museumsufer. I have heard they alternate the location and it can also be at Osthafen.

The other noteworthy thing we did and I guess you should, as there isn’t that much else to do here. A trip up the Main Tower and the observation deck for panoramic views of the city (if it's not too cloudy and foggy).

We stayed by the train station which was a decent hotel and quite cheap. That end of town is a bit rough though with certain characters not everyone would feel comfortable around. We had no issues and would stay there again, but I could understand others not liking it. From here we always walked into the main areas, but it is quite far, probably 15 / 20 minute walk to the main center. Where it is perfectly safe and friendly.

For a quite unknown reason, my family really enjoyed Frankfurt and the Christmas Markets. For food and drink variety it was pretty good, however, if you were to say, you didn’t enjoy them, I could understand, as we are unable to pin point what exactly made it so fun for us when we were there. Give them a go, and with luck you will like them as much as we did.