Christmas 2014 special:The best markets for Christmas shopping

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We all love a Christmas market preferably somewhere snowy and crisp with steaming gluhwein, men in funny hats and a fuggy but cosy local hostelry to go back to. The best of them are in Germany and Austria─but we've listed Christmas Markets and Christmas holidays all over the world.

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Norsk Folkemuseum Christmas Fair

For many of us Christmas is a time to be with family and reminisce about old times and old friends. Some of us are helped along memory lane by the reappearance of the same Christmas decorations year after year, but in the case of many buildings that make up Oslo’s Norsk Folke museum that historical ornamentation.

Munster Christmas Market

The real magic of the traditional German Christmas markets is in the air or in the atmosphere to be precise. The contrast of the short, grey days with the nights lit up by the warm golden glow of festive lights and trimmings, the cold air heavy with scents of gingerbread, mulled wine and punch, roasting chestnuts

Berlin Christmas Market

The cosiest, most colourful and traditional Christmas that you dreamed about as a small child really does exists. Berlin’s Kaiser Wilhelm Gedachtniskirche Christmas Market is a compact network of festive pathways, which glows like some seasonal mirage in the centre of Berlin’s stark modernity.

Baden-Baden Christmas Market

The horns of heralding angles are replaced by hunting horns in Baden-Baden’s Christmas Market nativity, but the animals baying in the manger are real and pet-able. Baby Jesus and Santa make an appearance in a horse rather than a sleigh or cart─ hunting horns and a children’s’ choir heralding his arrival.

GERMANY Hamelin Christmas Market

If this German town’s name sounds familiar, here’s a hint─think wind instruments. Hamelin is the town Pied Piper cleared first of mice and rats and then of children, and you can’t get much more fairy tale than actually being in a fairy tale. The Brother’s Grimm set a lot of their tales in this picturesque corner

Salzburg Christmas Market

The cathedral and Hohensalzburg fortress make this market’s charming backdrop. Idling between the eighty or so stalls, breath showing as you sip from your cup of hot mulled wine or hot chocolate, you’ll be presented with an array of traditional delights to help you cross people off your Christmas list – carved wooden.

Graz Hauptplatz Christmas Market

A covered market makes more sense at this time of year and in Graz a pavilion is put up over the main square to allow comfortable shopping or strolling whatever is the weather. Performers keep market visitors entertained, in weather fair or foul, with music and dance and Graz is always coming up with new ways.

HAMBURG Hamburg Weihnachts market

During the advent period, hundred new merchants move to Hamburg’s main square in front of the Town Hall where a tree is set up and lit by 1000 candles─just in case you forgot what time of the year it is. Bakers from Aachen lay their printen cookies out beside gingerbread from Nuremberg, and Tyrolean woodcarvers set up.

COLOGNE Cologne Christmas Markets

With the cathedral towering behind it, this market gets bonus points for setting and atmosphere. The Christmas market essentials are all taken care of including mulled wine in themed, collectable mugs. Around 150 stalls set up in red roofed wooden pavilions underneath a huge Christmas tree─supposedly each year

GERMANY Nuremberg Christkindles markt

Since sixteenth century, Christkindlesmarkt has taken place in the main square of the old town in Nuremberg. At 5:30 pm on the Friday before the first Advent Sunday, a ‘Christmas Angel’ (a young girl chosen from citizens of Nuremberg) opens the market and gates to over 200 stalls. This market is famous for its spiced.