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By Newsweek Editors
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Crowded streets and cookie-cutter gifts can make Christmas shopping less than heartwarming. However, traditional markets in Europe provide a saner setting for gift hunting and authentic, locally crafted treasures. Steeped in history and oozing chocolate-box charm—and glasses of mulled wine—Christmas markets offer a rich retail experience.
The Highland Village Christmas Market, new to Edinburgh's East Princes Street Gardens, sells top-of-the-range items from Scotland, including fair trade food and drink, and Celtic and Pictish silver jewelry (from Nov. 23 to Jan. 2; visitscotland.com/liveit).
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Copenhagen's Tivoli Gardens, the world's oldest amusement park, also hosts a spectacular market. Rides and a skating rink surround the stalls. Dine at the Michelin-starred restaurant The Paul (Tivoli.dk).
For more first-rate cuisine, head to the market in Grand Place, Brussels, and savor the country's famed chocolates and seafood delicacies such as steamed snails (Nov. 30 to Jan. 1; plaisirsdhiver.be).
At Dresden's 15th-century Striezelmarkt, craftsmen sell hand-blown Christmas baubles, hand-fired ceramics and wooden figures carved in the Ore Mountains (Nov. 29 to Dec. 24; dresden.de). When it comes to Christmas revelries, the Germans are unmatched.
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