The Best Christmas Markets on a Viking Rhine River Cruise

World's Greatest Cruises filmed on board a Viking "Christmas on the Rhine" river cruise, sailing from Basel, Switzerland, and visiting France and Germany before ending our Rhine river cruise in Amsterdam, the Netherlands
That's four countries in one week - and sometimes, we visited more than one Christmas market a day! In small, medieval towns and urban centers, each with its own regional and national colors, flavors, sounds and scents.
Here are World's Greateast Cruises' host and producer Lynn Elmhirst's favorite Christmas markets from a Viking "Christmas on the Rhine" holiday river cruise.

[@affposter3088]

I wish our cruise on Viking was like this but we were caught by the Rhine floods and only cruised for 3 days and became a bus trip. We missed many Christmas markets. I'm so jealous.

[@lynnelmhirst]

I'm so sorry to hear that! We did get very lucky with the weather - and I was able to visit some markets I hadn't seen before. Fingers crossed for good weather on your next voyage! all my best, Lynn

[@oopik0059]

We went on the same cruise in early December and we missed Strasbourg (well, we went but we left before the markets opened to sailing ahead of the approaching high water levels of the Rhine). Thankfully Mannheim was a lovely stop the next day and made up for not being able to shop in France. We also didn’t need to go by bus, but we were told of other ships not being able to make it North fast enough. I wasn’t expecting high water levels in December.

[@user-lf2nl1km6n]

@@oopik0059 We are spending two days in Colmar prior to our cruise and plan on spending sometime in the evening in Strasbourg.