These Are Europe’s Best Hidden Gem Christmas Markets

It's the most wonderful time of the year.

The festive season is well underway, and Europe is the absolute place to be to experience the magic of the holidays.

Sprinkled across the continent, travelers will find Christmas markets displaying glittering lights, fanciful foods, and gifts galore to fill the stockings of those you love most. While you may be familiar with a few of the big-name Christmas markets, like the Vienna Christmas market, visited by some three million guests per year, or the Leipzig Christmas market, which is one of the oldest Christmas markets in Europe, HomeToGo wants to help you get more familiar with a few smaller, hidden gems.

This season, the experts at HomeToGo collected internal search data to create a shortlist of smaller European cities and towns to highlight their unique markets. The team explained in its methodology that the cities included had to “not appear on the list of the 100 most-searched destinations for the countries in which they are situated” and could only “have a maximum population of 100,000.”

Once the destination shortlist was complete, the team then viewed internal interest data among winter travelers for each spot and the accommodation cost. It assigned each data point a numerical value and calculated the winners from there.

After crunching the numbers, the team named Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain, the winning market.

“While a Spanish metropolis might not be the first type of location that springs to mind for Christmas market trips, this destination brims with undeniable festive charm in December,” the team shared in the findings, noting the median price per night for a vacation home here over December is $136. “Indulge in Galician culinary delights and browse lovingly crafted gifts under shimmering lights at the Christmas market. Take in the views while wandering the cobbled streets of the incredible Old Town — a UNESCO World Heritage Site with a majestic cathedral, which dates back to the 13th century.”

In second place, HomeToGo named Chimay in the Walloon Region of Belgium, thanks to its median price per night for a vacation home sitting at just $211. Its market, the findings noted, comes with 70 stalls and spectacular views, even for those just window shopping.

Markets in Svendborg, Denmark; Canterbury, England; and Xàbia, Spain; rounded out the top five, proving that sometimes, the best gifts — or at least markets —  can be found in small packages.

See the entire list of hidden gem markets at hometogo.com. 

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