Dresden Striezelmarkt

The Striezelmarkt has been running since 1434, which makes it the oldest Christmas market in Germany and one of the oldest in the world. It takes its name from Striezel, the medieval word for the fruited loaf that the world now knows as Dresden Stollen, and the connection between the market and the cake is not decorative — it is the reason the market exists.

Stollen, properly

Dresden Stollen is a protected designation: only bakers within the Dresden area, belonging to the Stollen Protection Association, may sell it under that name, and each genuine loaf carries a seal. It is dense, heavily fruited, laced with marzipan and buried under icing sugar, and it improves for weeks after baking.

The Stollenfest on the Saturday before the second Sunday of Advent parades a ceremonial cake weighing several tonnes through the streets to the Altmarkt, where it is cut with an oversized silver knife and sold in slices for charity. It is the single best day to visit, and correspondingly the busiest.

The woodcraft

This is what genuinely distinguishes Dresden from every other German market. The Erzgebirge — the Ore Mountains on the Czech border an hour south — is where nutcrackers, smoking men, candle arches and Christmas pyramids actually come from, carved by families who have done it since the silver mines closed. What is sold at the Striezelmarkt is the real article rather than the souvenir version, and the prices reflect that. The market’s own Christmas pyramid, at over fourteen metres, is among the tallest in the world.

Getting there

The Altmarkt is in the middle of the restored Baroque old town, ten minutes on foot from Dresden Hauptbahnhof or a couple of stops on the tram. The Frauenkirche, the Zwinger and the Semperoper are all within a short walk, and there are several smaller markets — in the Neumarkt by the Frauenkirche, at the Frauenkirche itself, and the medieval-themed one in the Stallhof — which are quieter and, for some visitors, more atmospheric than the Striezelmarkt.

When to go

Opening day starts at four in the afternoon rather than the morning. Weekday mornings are calm; Advent weekends are extremely busy, particularly around the Stollenfest. It closes at two on Christmas Eve.