Happy New Year! 🎉 It’s hard to believe we’re only two weeks from the one-year anniversary of our big move to Alicante — I guess time flies when you’re having fun. 2024 was a fantastic year of new friends and new places (and our wedding in Catalonia as well), and I can’t wait to see what 2025 brings. Right now, we’re in Cardiff, Wales, until we head back to Spain for Spanish Christmas. But today, I want to share a bit more about our Eastern Europe Christmas Market trip from last month.
I felt like 10 days (plus one extra day for traveling home) was the perfect amount of time for the three cities we visited: Wroclaw, Poland; Prague, Czechia; and Bratislava, Slovakia. Our trip lasted from December 13-23, which was also a really good time to visit because some of the markets are closed on December 24 and/or 25. So, here’s our exact itinerary if you want to plan your own trip next year!
Day 1: Fly to Wroclaw, Poland
We were lucky enough to get a direct flight from Alicante to Wroclaw, which got us into the Wroclaw airport around 1 p.m. After grabbing the bus to the city center and checking into our hotel, the B&B Wroclaw Hotel Centrum, we were ready for the 8-minute walk to Old Town Square for the Wroclaw Christmas Market. (And yes, sunset was at 3:45 p.m., so it was already dark and the Christmas market lights were in full swing!)
One thing about the market that I was really looking forward to, was seeing the souvenir mugs for mulled wine, a Christmas market staple! And Wroclaw’s mugs didn’t disappoint — they were shaped like little boots, had an illustration of the market, and even had “2024” on them. While normally you pay a deposit for the mug when you get your drink, and then get it back when you return it, we were happy to keep two of the mugs rather than getting our money back.
Day 2: Wroclaw
Day two in Wroclaw was actually my birthday, so we spent a little less time at the Christmas market than we normally might have. Instead of eating all our meals there, Matt booked a special dinner at the best pierogi restaurant in town, and we went to see the lamplighter on Cathedral Island as he made his rounds, lighting 103 lanterns by hand.
We also enjoyed keeping an eye out for all the special gnomes/dwarves hidden all over Wroclaw. While the first one was placed in 2005 as part of an anti-communist movement, there are now more than 800! I feel like we saw about 50 over our three days, and it felt like a lot, so I can’t imagine finding all 800.
Day 3: Wroclaw
For our last day in Wroclaw, we made sure to try all the foods at the Christmas market that we hadn’t tried yet. This included pajda chleba, which was kind of like a Polish open-faced sandwich with lard, sausage, and pickles, and serki góralskie, which is similar to a smoky, salty string cheese.
As we wrapped up our time in Wroclaw, I couldn’t help but feel like Wroclaw had the best Christmas market that I’d ever been to. It was the perfect size, it was bright and colorful and cheerful, it wasn’t too touristy, there were plenty of places to stand with your food and drinks, and the mugs were adorable! While Wroclaw may not be the first place you think of when it comes to Christmas markets, I think it’s earned its place as one of the best in Europe.
Day 4: Bus From Wroclaw to Prague
We scheduled a FlixBus for the trip from Wroclaw to Prague for mid-morning, around 10 a.m. The drive, including a quick rest stop, took about 4 and a half hours and only cost $35 USD per person. I’ve now taken about five or six FlixBuses in Europe and never had a problem, so I guess I’ll keep taking them until they screw me over. 😂
Wroclaw has a great bus station, partially located in a mall somehow, but it’s really easy to figure out where you need to go. Our bus left on time and arrived as scheduled around 2:30 p.m. Just as we’d done on our first day in Wroclaw, we checked into our hotel — the really cool and amazingly located Unitas Hotel — and went to check out the Prague Christmas Market.
Unlike Wroclaw, which only has one Christmas market, Prague has about 10 different ones. The one at Old Town Square, which is probably the most famous, was only about 10 minutes from our hotel, so that was the first one we visited. After a long travel day, we were happy enough to have some food (halušky and ham) and mulled wine at the market and then head back.
Day 5: Prague
Prague is a really big city, so there was a lot more to do than just visit the Christmas markets. We spent our first full day in Prague checking out some of the major sights, like the Charles Bridge and the Lennon Wall. Sadly, spray painting the Lennon Wall is no longer allowed like it was during my first visit in 2013.
Later in the evening, we stopped by the other major Prague Christmas Market at Wenceslas Square before our visit to the Pilsner Urquell Experience. While a lot of Wenceslas Square was under construction, it still had a huge Christmas tree and even an ice skating rink.
Day 6: Prague
After seeing how crowded the Charles Bridge had been in the afternoon on the previous day, we decided to get up early and head to the bridge for sunrise. We got there around 7:30 for the 7:55 a.m. sunrise, and it was definitely worth it to have some time to photograph the somewhat-eerie statues without all the people around. Next, we went over to the Astronomical Clock Tower to climb to the top and look out over the city during the first timeslot of the day, 9 a.m. We were lucky to have a couple of hours of actual sun (I think the only partially sunny day we had during the entire trip).
And of course, we had to go visit Prague Castle while we were in town. Back in 2013, the prince of Czechia, William Lobkowicz (Jr.) gave my college group a guided tour of the castle! (This doesn’t seem to be an option today, but you can visit the Lobkowicz Palace and Prague Castle together.) While we didn’t go inside, we wandered around the grounds, marveling at the architecture and enjoying the views from such a high point in the city.
Day 7: Prague
For our last full day in Prague, we visited Vyšehrad — a historic fort on the banks of the Vltava River. I remembered from my first visit the cathedral and the massive cemetery, jam-packed with interesting headstones. It was nice to get out of the city center for a bit and see some green space.
We also came across many of Prague’s smaller Christmas markets on this day — the ones at Na Kampě, Marian Square, and Peace Square, just to name a few. While they weren’t nearly as big as Old Town or Wenceslas Square’s markets, they were very cute and usually much cheaper than the big ones.
Of the three cities we visited on this trip, Prague had our least favorite Christmas markets because they were generally so much more crowded than those in Wroclaw and Bratislava. But Prague as as a city also had the most going on, so it definitely warranted a visit. (Matt says Prague also had his favorite food of the three cities — lots of duck and red sauerkraut.)
Day 8: Bus from Prague to Bratislava
Just as we’d done when we left Wroclaw, we planned for a late-morning departure from Prague to head to our last city — Bratislava. With our FlixBus tickets in hand for an 11 a.m. departure, we made our way to the Prague bus station… only to find out that apparently there are two bus stations in Prague. And we were at the wrong one.
Our original tickets had cost only $23 USD per person, but we had to buy new tickets — luckily, there was a 12:30 p.m. bus that was scheduled to take only half an hour longer than our original journey was scheduled for. (But the last-minute tickets cost about $50 each. Oops.)
With a few random delays along the way, mostly thanks to traffic and construction — as well as a pit stop — we arrived in Bratislava around 5:45 p.m. Of course, the first stop was our hotel, the Ibis Bratislava Centrum. Just like the other two hotels on this trip, it was in a fantastic location close to the old city and the Christmas market.
Day 9: Bratislava
Breakfast on our first day in Slovakia’s capital — at a cute little cafe on Židovská street — pretty much marked the last time we ate somewhere other than at the Christmas Markets in Bratislava.
Surprisingly, Bratislava also had more than one Christmas market! Though you could probably hardly count them as separate ones, as the two were only a 2-minutes’ walk away from each other. The more central one, is at Main Square, which is Bratislava’s central plaza. On one end of the square is the city’s town hall, with a big decorated Christmas tree stands in front. The other market, which is known as the Old Town Christmas Market, is more like a promenade with market stalls on both sides.
We really enjoyed the Bratislava Christmas Markets! More than the other two we’d been to on this trip, it was much more food and wine focused — only about 5% of the stalls were selling crafts or trinkets. Which meant it was the perfect place to eat all our meals.
Day 10: Bratislava
Besides eating and drinking our way through the Christmas markets, we also took some time to explore Bratislava. It’s definitely a small city (though bigger than we expected), but there are a few things you can’t miss. The Bratislava Castle offers views of the city, and apparently it has a Christmas market of its own through December 15, though it was a medieval market instead by the time we got there. There’s also the Blue Church, which kind of looks like a blue gingerbread house and is one of the most unique churches I’ve ever seen! And you have to get a picture with Čumil, the “Man at Work,” a bronze statue of a worker peeping out of a manhole.
But of course, we always found our way back to the Christmas markets and surrounding areas for more delicious mulled wine, langoš, and bryndza halušky.
Day 11: Fly home from Bratislava or Vienna
While Bratislava has an airport, you’ll likely find more direct flights to your destination from Vienna — only an hours’ train ride away. Of course, Vienna is super famous for its Christmas markets in its own right. We personally chose not to visit Vienna’s Christmas markets and instead simply fly out of the Vienna airport, not wanting to pack too much in. Plus, it looks like the Vienna Christmas markets were super busy, and we didn’t feel like dealing with the crowds.
So we actually left Bratislava the night before, took the train to Vienna, and got about 4 hours of sleep before heading to the airport for our 5:45 a.m. flight home. 🙂
Trip Overview
- Day 1: Fly to Wroclaw, Poland
- Day 2: Wroclaw
- Day 3: Wroclaw
- Day 4: Bus From Wroclaw to Prague
- Day 5: Prague
- Day 6: Prague
- Day 7: Prague
- Day 8: Bus from Prague to Bratislava
- Day 9: Bratislava
- Day 10: Bratislava
- Day 11: Fly home from Bratislava or Vienna
I hope this Eastern Europe Christmas market itinerary helps give you some ideas for planning your very own trip through Wroclaw, Prague, and Bratislava!
Let me know your thoughts, and feel free to leave me a comment below.
-Cathy
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