December 2022 – Christmas Market Hopping

After handing in my notice, I suddenly had a lot of holiday leave to use up – and I wanted to. Instead of letting it slip away, I set myself something special: I wanted to travel across Germany and visit the most beautiful Christmas markets. The cities of the former East particularly appealed to me, and so I found myself in Leipzig and Dresden for the first time.

At the same time, two close friends of mine had also quit their jobs – with the same "luxury problem". Together we decided to make proper use of the Christmas season and to look beyond the borders too. Our destination: Vienna. We set off for the Austrian capital for two nights.

There we visited, among other things, the impressive Vienna Central Cemetery, marvelled at the old, magnificent buildings and strolled across several smaller Christmas markets. We covered many kilometres on foot in those days – and somewhere between St. Stephen's Cathedral and mulled wine, the idea was born: why not go proper hiking for once?

What began with a few city trips became the starting point of our shared hiking adventures – many of which were still to come. The experiences from these tours form the core of the upcoming blog posts.