Christmas on The Danube
DECEMBER 2 – DECEMBER 9, 2028
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Lu Ann Haygood founded Watercolor Boutique Travel and hosts selectively — a few trips a year, to places she and her husband Dan know well enough to show you properly. Traveling with the founder means the itinerary was built by someone who has walked it, and that there's a familiar face on board when you arrive.
Travel with our Founder
Christmas markets on the Danube, from Budapest to Bavaria.
Eight days and three countries by river — Budapest's illuminated squares, Vienna's lit old town, the Wachau under winter vines, and medieval Regensburg. Learn about Christmas traditions as you cruise to Nuremberg, the thousand-year-old city with its medieval fortifications and gothic churches. The Old Town is illuminated with festive lights and decorations, and the Christmas market has dozens of stalls offering traditional wares, such as Lebkuchen (spicy gingerbread), Glühwein (mulled wine), and unique decorations and ornaments. A unique holiday river cruise vacation which offers the chance to savor the views, smells, and tastes of centuries-old Christmas markets and historical medieval sites…a fantastic way to celebrate the holiday season!
Day 1 - Saturday, December 2
EMBARKATION IN BUDAPEST
Embark your ship and settle into your stateroom. December suits Budapest. In the heart of Pest, Vörösmarty Square holds the city's largest Christmas market, food stalls and handicraft vendors filling it end to end. The market at St. Stephen's Basilica is smaller and warmer, with mulled wine and a light show projected onto the church facade each night. Across the river in Buda, Fő Square runs seasonal events and an outdoor ice rink. Overnight in Budapest.
Day 2 - Sunday, December 3
BUDAPEST, HUNGARY &
SCENIC SAILING, THE DANUBE BEND
Budapest's old town is a medieval patchwork of narrow streets and colored houses. In the Castle District, Matthias Church rises in Gothic stone, and beside it the wall and seven turrets of Fisherman's Bastion look out over the Danube, the Chain Bridge, and Pest on the far bank. Buda Castle anchors the district — built in the 13th century, expanded to its baroque form in the 18th, and home to Hungary's kings for nearly 700 years.
As we leave the city we sail the Danube Bend, a forty-mile stretch through northern Hungary and among the most beautiful on the river. The passage runs between the Börzsöny and Pilis ranges, steep and tree-lined, past farmland, an old castle that once served as royal hunting grounds, and church domes rising out of quiet villages.
Day 3 - Monday, December 4
VIENNA, AUSTRIA
Vienna's squares become Christmas markets in December and the old town stays lit throughout. The Schönbrunn market sets up in front of the baroque Habsburg summer palace; the Freyung market sits in the city center; both are the places to find handmade decorations. Am Hof Square runs seasonal music and choral singing through the evenings. At Belvedere Square the stalls stand against the palace and its lake, which is the one to see after dark.
Day 4 - Tuesday, December 5
VIENNA, AUSTRIA
Day 6 - Thursday, December 7
PASSAU, GERMANY
Passau's Christkindlmarkt gathers in the shadow of St. Stephen's Cathedral, which holds the largest pipe organ in Europe. The stalls run to handmade ornaments, local food, and the kind of small things worth carrying home. Through the season the cathedral hosts yuletide concerts, and on the right evening you'll hear the choirs from the courtyard and the narrow streets around it.
Here's what our itinerary has in store:
The Danube Awaits
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Day 8 - Saturday, December 9
Bid farewell to your fellow guests and journey home — or stay on and explore further.
DISEMBARKATION IN REGENSBURG
A second day in Vienna, and the coffeehouse is where to spend part of it. UNESCO lists Viennese coffeehouse culture as Intangible Cultural Heritage — an institution where you may hold a table as long as you like and the only thing you'll be billed for is the coffee. Order an Einspänner and a pastry, take a newspaper off the rack, and let the afternoon go. It's among the simplest pleasures in the city and among the hardest to reproduce anywhere else.
Regensburg is one of the few German cities whose medieval center came through the war intact — a UNESCO World Heritage Site of narrow passageways, stone towers, and a 12th-century bridge across the river. In December those streets take on a different character. Passageways open into hidden courtyards with stalls laid out in handcrafted wares, dolls and pottery and silk paintings among them, and the air carries spiced gingerbread, cinnamon, and glühwein. The cathedral is home to the Regensburger Domspatzen, a boys' choir founded here in 975 that still tours internationally. If they're singing while we're in port, go.
We sail on through the Wachau itself — eighteen miles of UNESCO-listed river where vineyards climb the hillsides and castle ruins stand above the villages. In winter the vines are dormant and the valley is quieter than you'll ever see it: the legacy of vintners going back to Celtic and Roman times, and of the thirty-odd monasteries that worked these slopes during the Renaissance.
Krems is a small university town at the eastern end of the Wachau Valley, ringed by terraced vineyards. In the 12th century it mattered more than Vienna, trading iron, grain, salt, and wine. The south-facing slopes here take sun all day and produce some of the best Riesling and Grüner Veltliner in the world. Cobblestone streets, wine taverns, and coffeehouses, none of it much changed.
We sail on through the Wachau itself — eighteen miles of UNESCO-listed river where vineyards climb the hillsides and castle ruins stand above the villages. In winter the vines are dormant and the valley is quieter than you'll ever see it: the legacy of vintners going back to Celtic and Roman times, and of the thirty-odd monasteries that worked these slopes during the Renaissance.
Day 5 - Wednesday, December 6
KREMS, AUSTRIA &
SCENIC SAILING, THE WACHAU VALLEY
Day 7 - Friday, December 8
REGENSBURG, GERMANY
