We woke up before the sun rose on St. Nicholas Day to catch our 5:45am train in Salzburg. Our flight home to the United States was leaving from Paris the next morning. Paris was an 8.5-hour train ride away, so it would have been logical to head straight to Paris, get dinner, show my mom the Eiffel Tower, and get a good night of sleep before our flight. I had a room booked for us in Paris so we could do that exact plan. But as our departure day got closer, I’d realized there was a stop that felt entirely necessary for us to make. I would have loved for my mom to get a quick glimpse of Paris, but I wouldn’t be devastated for her to miss it and see it next time. What felt far more important was showing my mom Strasbourg at Christmastime.
I’d visited Strasbourg back in July near the beginning of my trip. It was my first time in France, and I’d just spent 4 days in Paris. Paris had been lovely, but it had also felt like the kind of place that I’d need a lot of time to love. I’d wanted to visit a second city in France, and Strasbourg made sense for my route. I hadn’t known that I’d fall completely in love with it. I’d spent 3 days wandering around Strasbourg, captivated by the beauty of it despite the 100-degree (Fahrenheit) weather. When I was there, I learned that it’s known for its Christmas markets and that the entire city transforms into a Christmas village for all of December. I couldn’t stop thinking about how much I wished I could fit it into my winter itinerary, but it just didn’t make sense with our time constraints. A few weeks away from our departure date, I decided that I didn’t care if it made sense—it was important enough to me to make it work if it were possible. So I booked a last-minute Airbnb in Strasbourg and made sure there were high-speed trains leaving early enough from Strasbourg to get us to the airport in Paris the next morning. On our last full-day in Europe, we took a train to Stuttgart, changed to a high-speed train, and arrived in Strasbourg that afternoon. And this was one of the best decisions I made for my mom’s segment of the journey.
We dropped off our luggage in our Airbnb and headed out to find the markets right away. At $160, I believe it was the most expensive Airbnb of my entire trip, but for a last-minute reservation in Old Town, it was a steal. We only had 6 or 7 hours in the city before the markets closed for the night, so we had to make the most of every second. As we ventured closer to the center of Old Town, we found the first market stalls. And the stalls went on and on and on. And on. Technically, I think Strasbourg has a dozen Christmas markets. In reality though, they all bleed into one another, and you can’t tell where one market ended and another began. It’s like the entire city is one giant Christmas market full of the most elaborate and beautiful Christmas decorations you’ve ever seen. Every store, restaurant, and business joins in the celebration whole-heartedly. It feels like the kind of all-consuming and perfectly crafted holiday experience that Disney World would emulate, but somehow it felt authentic instead of commercialized, like the local people just genuinely think this is the most fun and want to share it as exuberantly as possible.
I caught my mom’s first glimpse of the Strasbourg Cathedral on video, and it’s one of my favorite moments of her trip. I remembered my first time seeing the Cathedral back in the summer and being entirely unprepared for it. It’s over 1,000 years old and one of the tallest churches in the world. (It was the tallest building in the world until the late 19th century.) It’s so massive that your neck hurts when you try to lean back far enough to see the top. It might be my favorite of all the churches I’ve visited in Europe (and I really, really love visiting churches in Europe). We explored the gothic interior and then the market stalls surrounding the square in front of the church. There was a beautiful carousel next to the market, and we decided immediately that we both had to ride it. Strasbourg at Christmas is a place that makes people of all ages feel that it is imperative to ride carousels and laugh until their ribs ache.
In another part of town, we found the giant Christmas tree and waited with the small crowd for the nightly tree-lighting. I assumed there would be a Christmas tune played over a speaker and then the lights would come on and everyone would cheer, Rockefeller tree-style. Instead, the music came on, and for like 10 minutes, there was a full light-show on the tree coordinated to the music.
We bought ornaments and gifts and stuffed animals and cookies to bring back home. It was our last chance to do any Christmas shopping, so we were no longer worried about the weight we’d have to carry or how we’d maneuver our growing luggage. We ate traditional Alsatian food for dinner while tucked into a corner of a cozy bistro. We only went back to our room once the markets were closing for the night.
After a little over 5 months of travel, my trip was finally ending, and I wasn’t ready for it to be over. But if I had to pick the best way to conclude my European journey and my mom’s first trip out of the US, it’s hard to think of a more perfect way to do it than seeing the Christmas markets in Strasbourg.
