Leipzig Christmas Market 2022

The third stop on our self-directed 2022 Christmas Market Tour was in Leipzig, Germany, a lovely town in Saxony with a long history, not least of which is the 50+ years spent behind the Iron Curtain under the sadistic thumb of the USSR. Slava Ukraini.

I’d never been outside of the Leipzig train station — passing through many times but my business had never taken me there before so I hadn’t been into the historic Altstadt (Old City Center).

Note: there is a STASI (East German secret police) museum in the unrestored HQ of the feared organization. Sadly we didn’t have time to visit, but when we go back this summer it will be our first stop. And then there is their Zoo, which is famous for its layouts and exhibits. My daughter loves zoos and is dying to visit. (She had a fantastic time at the Berlin Zoo on an absolutely perfect, sunny day this last summer.)

Leipzig was really great, even if the weather wasn’t — cold, foggy, gloomy, pelting sleet and snow — you know, Germany in the winter. I don’t think the sun actually ceased to exist for those four days in Sachsen, but I found no direct evidence supporting its continued existence.

We love Deutschland but the weather is generally crap compared to the 300+ days of sunshine here in our native Colorado Southwest.

The buildings are pretty, and the main market filled the central Marktplatz up to the surrounding arcades. Something I didn’t expect was all the shopping malls — we counted half a dozen on the walk to our hotel at the edge of the town next to the Rathaus (City Hall). One of the malls took up two city blocks.

We stayed at the NH Leipzig Centrum. The people at the desk were super nice and helpful but the room, while clean, was quite plain and a little cold. Decent hotel bar that seemed fairly lively but not loud. Ok, but it wouldn’t be my first choice on a return visit. The location, however, was excellent, connected to one of the many malls and steps from the UBahn (subway) giving a straight shot to the main train station (Hauptbahnhof). The train station was also an easy walk, maybe a quarter+ mile, but with luggage, the UBahn was more convenient.

Note: we almost never go to malls in the US, but my wife likes to go into foreign malls because sometimes (less so as time goes on) they are so different —you don’t see many butcher shops next to our Nordstroms, for example. And she loves to shop in foreign grocery stores for some reason.

The market had lots of food and drink — I think more so than any other goods, especially the offshoot markets on the side streets which each had their own crowd. I get the feeling that most of the people were locals or from the surrounding area, and had their own preferred spots.

We found some great Blaubeerenpunsch — spiced wine and blueberry punch, which is one of my favorites.

Markets are spread through the old center of town, from St Thomas Church up to the outer ring across from the train station.

St Thomas And Johann Sebastian Bach

St Thomas Church is in the center of the Altstadt, a mixture of Romanesque to the Gothic. The Catholic interior was long ago stripped by the Protestants (Saxony was on the Protestant side during the 30 Year’s War) and has the typical white-ribbed austerity of Luther and Calvin’s followers.

Above you can see the inset grave of Johann Sebastian Bach, who served as Kapellmeister / Music Director here in this church.

And while there was much food to be had, we also bought some nice cards at the stand below.

Overall we had a great time and look forward to coming back!

One Mistake We Made

We (I) did make one big mistake. I was trying to get to the Berlin, Dresden, and Leipzig markets, which we technically did. But…

I hate staying just one night in a city because you have to check out early and check in late, and it’s such a hassle. So, instead, I booked us four nights in Leipzig (getting there fairly late the first night, from Stuttgart) and then spent one whole day in the city before taking day trips to Berlin (2Hrs) and Dresden (1Hr — with IC/ICE fast trains)

This was also a pain, and we didn’t get to do any of the city's justice — for example, I missed the Stasi museum which I really wanted to see. The trains often ran late so we always left the cities earlier than we needed to in case of cancellation or delay. (The Deutsche Bahn isn’t what it used to be).

Thus, I don’t recommend making one city a base and using the train to make day trips. It was too stressful. It worked for me in a car before, but the trains are just too unreliable when all your stuff is in another city.

I had been to Berlin and Dresden many, many times but my wife hadn’t, and she missed out — we only saw two markets in Berlin and while we made the Brandenburger Tor and Checkpoint Charlie, she missed the National Gallery (really great, I go there often) and numerous markets. We rushed through the Dresden gallery and didn’t get to the armory or the Palace Rooms, which are kind of cool.

So — if you can’t fit everything in, simply do less, but be more relaxed. Don’t rush the places you do see. From thirty years of travel, I know this, but I got greedy — I wanted to show my wife as much as possible because she hasn’t been able to come with me on most of my work trips. Now that both of our kids are in college I’m trying to make up for the lost time.

TLDR:

We loved Leipzig and its market. 8 out of 10. Not as good for kids — fewer rides, but it's decent. They had two Kathe Wohlfahrt (a great Christmas store) stands. And a Lebkuchen Schmidt shop (fantastic Lebkuchen).

Very historic and quaint. Lots of good food and drink. We had nothing but good experiences here.

Plus many other sites to see — we’re going back in the summer to catch up on what we missed!