Prague, Dresden, and Berlin 2023
Now sit back and relax because it’s time to talk about more travel lessons from our first European Christmas! While not an official birthday trip, I have always wanted to experience Christmas in Europe, so as part of our post-pandemic family travel and to celebrate turning 40, we went to Europe with my brother and my parents for two weeks in December.
If you’ve read my entry about our trip with Sergio’s parents and sister to Paris and Rome, this blog is in a similar vein, with travel planning, tips, and reflections. Each trip is a little different, and the lessons are a little different as well — in this case, traveling in winter meant a little extra planning to stay warm and dry.
But let’s get into it! I can smell the mulled wine…
Sergio and I have long been shoulder-season people — a luxury to indulge in if you’re not a parent and thus married to a school holiday schedule — but we tend to split holidays between my family in Washington State and his family in Chihuahua, Mexico. Christmas tends to be family-centered because everyone is together and it’s easier to see everyone at once.
It’s not that I don’t like tradition — but Christmas is a special season, and I’ve wanted to experience it elsewhere (say, Hawai’i) for some time, but it just hadn’t panned out. Christmas in Europe, however, ended up being a (more immediate) family experience and it was fun to travel in the true off-season.
Depending on your family members, you might have a group of eager travel planning beavers or a low-key set of folks who are happy to travel to a variety of places. For my family, I’ve always found it useful to come with some ideas while putting their preferences in mind (eg; clean and quiet accommodations, easy to see sights, etc.). Europe is chock-full of Christmas markets, but Dresden was one that popped to the top of the list in my research, giving one point on the map and making it easier to choose the end-points on either side — Berlin, with which we had some familiarity, and Prague, which my brother knew. That helped us narrow down the list of possibilities and put together the main Prague-Dresden-Berlin itinerary.
I did a lot of the planning with some assumptions (many of the considerations about mobility, walking distances, etc. that I mentioned in my previous post), but I also had the good fortune to learn from our first family trip to Paris and Rome. The biggest difference between the two trips was that we saw virtually no American tourists in any of our cities in December. Really and truly, basically none save a few folks here and there. And maybe this was a pandemic hangover as well, but there weren’t a lot of tourists in general! There were only two sites that required tickets far in advance (more info later in the post) so it was a relief to be in a space that wasn’t nearly as crowded. It makes me curious what other European destinations would be great in the winter!
But back to the planning — I already wrote about creating a shared doc and a Google Map so anyone can participate. The most important thing I’ve learned? Taking a trip together doesn’t mean you have to do every activity together! It was something that I knew before, but to have a harmonious two weeks, it helps to have a lot of flexibility so that people can travel at their own pace as well as see those places that most interest them. Case-in-point: My dad had a minor foot injury that meant walking longer distances on back-to-back days was difficult, so that necessitated putting longer walking activities a day or two apart, or choosing activities that he wasn’t interested in during the afternoons when he was resting.
We chose hotels for our previous trip to Paris and Rome but decided on AirBnbs for this trip. Our options in these December cities were much, much better, and much more affordable, especially when we needed three bedrooms. It’s hard to find rental apartments with 4.98 stars, but we stayed in three of them and it was lovely. This put us in central neighborhoods with good public transit and access to sights, all super-important to reduce walking and increase accessibility. You probably have a preference for hotels or rentals, but I’d encourage you to look at both quickly because in some cities there’s a clear winner.
Now to packing — as much as I prefer to pack light, it’s a little bit more difficult when you’re traveling in December, and we knew we had to prepare for rain, snow, and wind. Another factor that tipped us towards apartments was that we were able to get two with laundry facilities, making it easier to pack fewer pairs of pants and shirts so that we could make room for snow boots (and souvenirs). The most important items were warm, waterproof shoes, wool socks, very warm jackets, warm gloves, hats, and a scarf. One positive about all of these destinations is that they’re not fancy cities (we’re not fancy people!) so a nice sweater or top with dark jeans was enough for any meal out. As a Seattle girl, I must tell you that your winter jacket is likely not warm enough (but if you’re from Minneapolis or Chicago, you’re probably prepared).
With everything packed it was just a manner of days before we boarded a plane in Seattle for our SEA-LHR-PRG journey! I tend to feel a little anxious before a big trip, but we had planned very well so sometimes you just have to let the butterflies flutter a bit and just do the damn thing.
So let’s start with our first stop, which was Prague! There’s something about Prague that makes it a perfect jet-lag city: The main attractions are in a rather compact area, there aren’t that many of them, and public transit links most of them togther. We chose a longer layover in LHR to allow for enough time to move throughout Terminal 5 with my parents (the right choice) so we landed in the Czech Republic in darkness, tried to stay awake in the cab for the ride to our apartment, and passed out as soon as heads hit pillows.
The castle complex was a perfect first-day activity — whether it was the tomb of Saint Wenceslaus (a duke, not a king as the song suggests) or the Old Royal Palace, we were greeted with beautiful views of the city and kept moving so as not to fall asleep. The views of the old city are beautiful, and depiste the cold there was a festive atmosphere.
For me, the highlight of the city was taking a Christmas Market walking tour with Jiří (George in English). He took us by tram to some local Christmas markets with a bunch of quirky stops along the way, including sparklers, writing wishes on dove-shaped papers in a cathedral, and drinking some sort of homemade Czech liquor. The introvert in me doesn’t gravitate towards these sorts of activities, but my biggest travel insight of 2023 was that these local experiences can really make a trip more memorable. Again, a huge benefit of traveling with different people is that you try activites that you otherwise might skip, and for some people those personal connections make the city come alive!
Prague isn’t a very heavy museum town — and I’m past the point of taking photos in most museums — but I can wholeheartedly recommend the Mucha Museum as well as the Museum of Communism. I could spend hours upon hours in a museum (see visiting four Smithsonians in two days in January), but smaller museums are more manageable and allow you to get a taste of something while balancing everyone’s interests.
Prague really was a short stop, but I felt like it was a city that was doable in a few days. We ended our last day with an incredible walk across the Charles Bridge with the castle shining on the hill above us. It was one wild train ride from Prague to our next stop — Dresden!
Dresden was the city I was most excited about for this trip, and it didn’t disappoint! Are you ready for the Christmas Market to end all Christmas markets? Well, we went to the main market in Dresden which was started in 1434 and it was it’s 589th year when we visited. It also has the world’s tallest Weihnachtspyramide (Christmas pyramid, fondly called “The Twirly” in our house)! But beyond this, Dresden is a friendly and walkable city with easy-to-navigate public transit, and wind aplenty.
So let’s talk a minute about how to get around as an American — or non-German speaker. As with most places in Europe these days, English fluency is as high as it has ever been, and this is especially true in Germany. Like our trip to France, I was the only person who had any German language skills to use, but there were only a few situations where English alone wouldn’t suffice. The trickiest items tend to be ticket machines or menus, but with Google Translate you’ll get there. As always, hello, thank you, and please are good to know wherever you go (that’s Guten Tag, danke, and bitte, if you are wondering).
Dresden was firebombed at the end of the Second World War by the British and the Americans, destroying its inner city and burning alive about 25,000 inhabitants. The city center was largely recontructed in a traditional style (compared to a city like Frankfurt that re-built itself as a modern city), but the beautiful Parade of Nobles (below) survived because they were fired at a higher temperature than the incendiary bombs. It is a procession of famous local nobles from the twelfth to the first years of the twentieth centuries.
Unfortunately not all of the landmarks were so lucky, and because Dresden was part of the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (East Germany, to Americans), many historical buildings remained ruins until German reunification in 1990. What was particularly inspiring was that the town’s citizens donated 92% of the funds needed to reconstruct the church in the style of the one that was destroyed.
Lastly, Dresden is also a museum city, but one that is still under construction. The Green Vault (no photos inside, sorry) was one of the two attractions this trip that needed an advanced reservation, and security was particularly tight because of a 2019 theft. But its jewelry, porcelain, and decorative collections were amazing — but, as in other museums, few benches are available, so consider your companions and give plenty of time for rest. The Zwinger complex (also under construction — it was a mud mess!) included one of the quirkier museums of the trip — a museum of math and physical instruments. How fantastic to see the evolution of the globe and microscope!
Before we go to Berlin, let’s take a short break to talk about one of my favorite parts of the trip — the food! I look forward to any trip to Germany to eat delicious bread and dumplings and any sort of meat I can imagine. But Berlin in particular is a fantastic food city — we had incredible vegan pastries, Persian food, a wide variety of pastries, and fantastic Thai food.
The food at the markets was just as good as I thought it would be. Since I’m currently not drinking to keep my autoimmune hepatitis in remission, I only partook in a few sips of Glühwein (literally “glow wine,” or mulled wine), but you can collect little mugs from each market to take home (or return it and get your Pfand — deposit — back). There was ample Wurst (sausage) and Knödel (dumplings), and a variety of sweet pastries, hot doughnuts, and desserts. Our last Christmas Market in Berlin had indoor tent seating — how lovely to sit on faux furs and eat dessert while the wind whips outside!
So the biggest oops! of this trip was renting the Mega Van in Dresden. If you know Sergio at all, you’ll know that he’s a fantastically-skilled driver, even when we visited England and he drove a mega-van on the opposite side of the car/road and parallel-parked in one go (might I say that I live my life very impressed at his skill in all things and sometimes very jealous because how can he do all this stuff so well?).
Barry and Sergio went to the airport in Dresden to pick up the Mega Van from Hertz — and as they left I felt really positive about it. I’m a big fan of train travel, but our ride from Prague to Dresden was pretty chaotic on the Prague side, and with larger bags and extra space, a car seemed like a great idea. We would have the car — with free street parking in Dresden and a garage space in Berlin — to enable some day trips and also make it easier to cart luggage. It felt like a great way to ensure more comfort and mobility for my parents too.
But.
… As soon as I saw the Mega Van I knew this wasn’t the right decision. First of all, Dresden was so easy to get around that we didn’t need the car. We did have a reserved garage space in Berlin, but after measuring the van dimensions and the garage dimensions there was no way it was going to fit. We agreed to eat the cost of it and return it so we wouldn’t have to move it around every eight hours on the street. But this albatross didn’t go easily! Navigating the van return to the nearby train station was the most stressful part of the whole trip — and when we got to the rental car return garage, I was literally outside of the Mega Van running alongside it to make sure that we didn’t burst a pipe or get stuck on the ceiling (it didn’t), but after that experience we agreed never again. Never. ever. again.
That being said, if we didn’t get the Mega Van, we wouldn’t have had our random drive from Dresden to Berlin with a stop at what we thought was a beautiful castle but was actually an exhibit on a very niche East German film called Three Hazelnuts for Cinderella — and if you think it’s weird, I can’t even start to convey how bizarre it is to be in an experience where everyone around you knows and loves a thing and it’s completely lost on you.
Well, at least the outside looked nice.
Did you know that this part of Germany is Luther country? It is — and Luther is a complicated guy (I‘d recommend Martin Luther, Renegade and Prophet to learn more about him) but despite the bitter cold Sergio and I decided to stick it out and take a train to Wittenberg (since the mega-van had been returned), so our first day in Berlin was actually spent in Wittenberg. Sergio and I started going to church just a few weeks earlier (worthy of another blog post, but not today) so it was also an opportunity for him to learn a bit more about Lutheranism, as he was raised Catholic.
Wittenberg was a perfect day trip! I imagine December had something to do with it, but we felt like we had the entire town to ourselves! The two main things to see in the town are the two churches — the Schlosskirche (Castle Church) and the Stadtkirche (Town Church) of Saint Mary’s. The former was attached to the university and both the location of the doors where the 99 theses were (supposedly) posted as well as the tomb of Martin Luther himself. Rick Steves had a fantastic walking tour for the city — he’s also Lutheran — that helped us to understand the meaning what started in this humble university town.
There isn’t that much else to do in the winter in Wittenberg, so we had a long, lazy lunch, perused the Christmas Market (which included an accordion choir concert!) and a nearby shopping mall, and then took a long walk back to the train station… for a train that was almost two hours delayed!
As I always say, never go anywhere without a book…
So despite all of the travel that we’ve done, I’m not sure that I’ve ever visited a place that I’d like to live in more than Berlin. And as I researched for this trip I was thrilled to discover that many sites and museums are open over the holiday, even on Christmas Day itself, making Berlin a wonderful place for Christmas.
It’s easy to be attached to your American view of Christmas — everything bedecked in lights and tinsel — but that might just be the United States being (yet again) a little extra. For example, Christmas trees are trimmed on Christmas Eve and there were no mall Santas to be found — though the Cathedral had a beautiful tree and manger scene. So if you can set aside Christmas expectations, December was a fantastic time to travel with many fewer tourists and attractions to oneself!
My favorite site this trip was the Reichstag Dome climb. The Reichstag is the home of the German Federal Parliament — the Bundestag — and the building it self is rich in history. It was burned to the ground in the 1930s and not reconstructed until the Berlin Wall fell. The modern dome sits atop a classical building, and within the dome itself you can see all the way to the parliament’s floor, symbolizing the belief that the people of Germany should know what’s happening in the government. A wide, gently-sloped ramp circles up and then down the outside of the dome, providing a sweeping view of the city… that would’ve been better in the daytime.
Since Berlin has so much history and character, it was hard to narrow down all of the sites to visit, but we really enjoyed the DDR Museum (compact and full of daily-life exhibits), the Berlin Wall Memorial (outside and included real parts of the Wall that were still standing), and, of course, Museum Island. While the Pergamon Museum is still closed for renovation (sob!), the Old and New National Galleries are spectactular.
We love you, Berlin. You make any trip a little bit sweeter!
Things are delayed even in Germany — in fact, during one train delay on our day trip to Wittenberg, the Germans were saying to one another, “This wouldn’t be happening if we were in Switzerland!” and for the two of you that think that’s funny, I hope we’re already friends.
We packed everything up, double-checked that we had our passports ready, set some early alarms, and made it out of the apartment by 7am… to find out that our flight from Berlin to London was cancelled en route. Poor Sergio was on the phone with British Airways and the calls kept dropping, so it took four or five calls before we were rebooked for the following day. There were a few hotels at the airport and we were able to get some rooms to make our airport experience the following day much easier.
I think everyone else was pretty tired by this point, which was a reminder that two weeks is a long trip from home when you’re not in your best travel shape. As a maximizer I want to fit the maximum days into a trip if I’ve flown to another continent, but two two-week trips showed me that perhaps it would be better to aim for 10–12 days abroad so we’re finishing on a high note!
Me being me I looked up some attractions that didn’t involve returning into Berlin proper, which included a WWII museum that focused on the Soviet experience (something you learn little about as an American ) — and then Sergio and I decided to get another long day of walking in at Tierpark Berlin, their “safari” park outside of the city center. We went to bed tired and happy, and the homeward journey went off without a hitch.
Well, we’re at the tail end of this post, so it’s time to wrap things up on this trip! Whether in this post or my previous entry about traveling with the Ricos, I hope you enjoyed tagging along with us and perhaps came away with a few travel ideas for yourself.
So what’s next? Let’s say I’m an antsy lady unless I’m dreaming of another trip. Since we’ve had some great road trip energy lately, we’re gearing up for potential road trips in Norway and France this year! No definite plans, but a lot of planning and excitement about our next trips to the Continent!
Auf Wiedersehen, S
