Four markets. One of them is yours.
Zurich, Basel, Lucerne or Montreux, chosen for the people you are travelling with.
Four towns within reach of a Zurich hotel put up Christmas markets, and they suit four different parties. Zurich is the short evening on foot, Basel the full afternoon, Lucerne the quiet hour by the lake, Montreux the day the children remember. We settle which one before the date is fixed, drive you there in a private car and collect you at the same door.
- Duration
- An evening in Zurich or Lucerne runs four to five hours. Basel takes most of a day and Montreux takes a whole one.
- Pickup
- Your Zurich hotel, at the door, with the drop-off at the same address.
- Group size
- Your party alone, with a private driver who guides. No group, and no departure hour you did not choose.
- Season
- Late November until Christmas. Each town sets its own opening and closing dates every year, so we confirm them for your travel days rather than promise them.
By the second week of December the photographs from all four towns look identical. The evenings are not. What separates them is who is standing in the square with you, and how long that person is willing to be outdoors in the cold.
Nothing at a market is worth looking at in daylight, so the day is built backwards from the hour the lights begin to matter. That single decision sets the pickup time, where lunch goes, and whether there is room for anything else before the stalls are worth walking.
WHICH MARKET
Zurich, for a short evening
The Wienachtsdorf stands at Bellevue with the lake behind it, and the Singing Christmas Tree at Werdmuhleplatz is a tiered stand of children singing carols, which is either the best thing in the city in December or exactly what you would rather avoid. The lanes of the Niederdorf are the walk between the two. No drive at all, about four hours, and a table held somewhere warm in the middle so the evening is not spent standing.
Basel, for a first Christmas in Switzerland
The market spreads across Barfusserplatz and Munsterplatz and takes the old town along with it. It rewards a whole afternoon and a proper appetite, and the walk between the two squares, past the lit windows and up the slope to the cathedral, is the reason to make the drive at all. Arrive while there is still light on the Munster and let the stalls fill up around you rather than pushing into them at seven.
Lucerne, for a quiet evening
Small, held on the Franciscan square, finished inside an hour, with the lake a few streets away and the covered bridge lit behind it. One glass of something hot, a walk at the pace of a conversation, and no crowd to speak of. It is the easiest of the four to cross with a wheelchair or a pushchair, which counts for more in December than people expect it to.
Montreux, for children
The longest drive of the four and the only one that fills a whole day. The market runs the length of the lakeshore with the mountains standing across the water, and above the town a cog railway climbs to a house where Father Christmas receives visitors. With children under ten it is worth every hour in the car. Without them, Basel has the same stalls at the end of a shorter road, and we will say so.
WHAT THE PRIVATE DAY REMOVES
Parking, first. You do not look for it, you do not pay for it and you do not walk from it in the dark. The driver sets you down at the edge of the square and is at the same place when you have finished, holding whatever has been bought.
Queues, second, in the narrow sense that matters. Nobody skips the line for a hot drink and nobody should. What is held in advance is the table partway through, so the evening includes sitting down, and the railway tickets on the Montreux day, so no hour goes at a ticket window with tired children.
Then the cold hour between things. It is never in anybody’s plan and it is always in the day: the wait before the lights are worth it, the walk back to wherever the car ended up, the twenty minutes outside a restaurant with no free table. Taking that hour out is most of what a private December day is for.
PRACTICALLY
A private driver who guides, from your hotel door and back to it. The market chosen with you before the date is fixed, a table held partway through the evening, and cog railway tickets held in advance on the Montreux day. Snow does not close a market and the stalls are covered, so bring a warm coat, gloves, shoes with grip for wet cobbles and some Swiss francs in cash.
WHAT TO EXPECT
Which market suits us?
Zurich for a short evening on foot, Basel for the fullest afternoon and the widest choice, Lucerne for quiet, Montreux for children and the railway above the town. We ask who is coming before we answer, because the answer moves with the party.
When do the markets open?
From the end of November until Christmas, with every town setting its own opening and closing dates each year. We confirm them against your travel days before the day is booked, rather than print a calendar here that would be wrong by next season.
Is one market enough, or should we see two?
One. Two in a day means reaching the second one tired, at the hour the crowds arrive, and buying nothing at either. If there are two free evenings, take Zurich on the first and Basel or Lucerne on the second, and let the day between belong to something else.
The same lake in a warmer month, taken from the water, is Lake Lucerne by private boat. If the drive should go north instead, the Rhine Falls and the Black Forest is the day that crosses a border. Every other day out of Zurich is on the private tours page.