The Best of Munich’s Christmas Markets

It’s hard to believe we’re at the end of Christmas market season already. Time flies when you’re chugging glühwein. I have been hard at work sampling the city’s seasonal markets in order to bring you this post, my awards for the best bits that Munich’s Christmas markets have to offer.

Best Glühwein – Schwabing
Glühwein (hot mulled wine) taste and quality varies greatly from markt to markt and vendor to vendor, but the only glühwein I had this year which made me jump up and say “whoa, that’s tasty!’ was the ginger glühwein we had that the uppermost food stall at the Schwabing market. The white glühwein from the same stand (billed as a ‘Schwabinger’, I believe) is also decent.

Best Feuerzangenbowle – Mittelaltermarkt
Probably the most expensive feuerzangenbowle (another hot wine beverage) out there, but also the most delicious. Rummy and not too sweet, it’s served in a fancy goblet with a sugar cube lit on fire.

Runner up: Rindermarkt. Served in cute clay cups, the Rindermarkt version is yummy but sadly lacking flames of any sort.

Best Live Entertainment – Schwabing
Country line-dancing Germans. Enough said.

Best Setting – Chinesischer Turm
This market in the middle of the English Garden is even more adorable when covered in snow.

Runner up: Marienplatz. I usually avoid this one because of the overwhelming crowds, but I have to admit there’s something gorgeous about a Christmas market nestled into Munich’s picturesque main square.

Best Performance Art – Tollwood
Meet our new igloo-dwelling animal-hoof-wearing friends, Babok.

Best Food – Schwabing
Schwabing is running away with a lot of these awards, isn’t it? The variety and deliciousness of Schwabing’s Christmas market food is hard to argue, though. I had a delicious plate of Eritrean veggies there this year.

Runner up: Tollwood. There’s a tent full of international delights, plus plenty of stalls offering staples such as falafel and crepes.

Best Shopping – um, uh, Tollwood?
I confess I hate shopping, so I rarely if ever do it. The only things I buy at Christmas markets are consumables. Anyone have a recommendation for the best Munich Christmas market to shop at? I named Tollwood because it definitely has the most shopping, but we all know quantity does not necessarily equal quality. I actually wanted to declare Schwabing as the best place to shop, in part because we found this great hanging Jesus (his arms and the donkey’s tail move when the string is pulled) there, but in the end the tent full of terrible, horrible, very bad paintings absolutely cancels out the awesomeness of whatever else you can find at this markt. I believe one of the paintings was entitled ‘Don’t Drop the Soap’. It was a couple paintings away from the giant three-dimensional resin vagina.

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And on that note, I think I’ll wrap it up! (But remind me to tell you a funny vagina story from my trip to London sometime.) Alas, you’ll probably have to wait until next year to actually try out any of my fabulous recommendations, since today was the last day of all of the markets except for Tollwood, part of which is open for another week. Not sure whether the Baboks will still have their igloo parked there.

Happy holidays to all my readers! (Well, except for the angry Swiss dude who reads this just so he can find things wrong with my opinions. Bah humbug to you.) I’m off to pack for my next adventure.