You can experience Germany’s most spectacular Christmas market in Dortmund, featuring the world’s largest Christmas tree at 45 metres tall. Beyond festive shopping, unique attractions include football museums and industrial heritage sites that help make this Ruhr Valley city a solid bet for a winter break.
Germany’s ultimate Christmas decoration showdown
We all get a little over-competitive on Christmas decorations, but in Germany, one city takes this to ridiculous extremes. Dortmund has one of the biggest Christmas markets on earth.
Stalls spread all the way through the pedestrianised streets of the city centre, selling trinkets, sausages and mulled wine. But the centrepiece of all this festive merriment is the world’s largest Christmas tree.
The engineering marvel of Dortmund’s giant Christmas tree
This gigantic showstopper is 45 metres tall, and made up of 1,700 separate fir trees cleverly stacked together to make it look like one. You’ll need an impressive camera lens to fit it all in shot.
But if you’re heading to Dortmund for a spot of last minute Christmas shopping, what else is there to do there? Well, it’s a city packed with some rather unusual attractions, including…
The DASA Working World Exhibition: Making workplace safety fun
This has the potential to be the most boring museum on earth. It’s essentially about workplace health and safety – and yes, that does include a section on how to lift boxes properly.
But somehow, the DASA Working World Exhibition manages to be really good fun. That’s largely because there are a lot of toys to play with.
You can drive a lorry simulator, get behind the controls of a helicopter, and pretend you’re in command of air traffic control. There are also plenty of cool, high-tech robots to gawp at.
The German Football Museum: World champions’ perspective
If you want to learn about the beautiful game from the perspective of the annoyingly regular world champions, this reasonably new addition to the Dortmund cultural scene is a winner. There’s plenty on the history of football in Germany – and lots of memorabilia on display.
But the German Football Museum is at its best when letting you loose on the interactive touch screens. One allows you to play ref, blowing the whistle when you think you’ve spotted an infringement.
Another lets you play video replays of Geoff Hurst’s controversial goal in the 1966 World Cup Final. Did the ball cross the line? Not that they’re bitter about it or anything.
Signal Iduna Park: Germany’s biggest football stadium
Football fans can extend the theme by visiting Signal Iduna Park, home of Borussia Dortmund. It holds 81,000 fans – making it the biggest football stadium in Germany.
Tickets for matches are hard to come by, but there are English language stadium tours available for €12.
Zollern: Industrial heritage transformed into culture
The whole Ruhrgebeit region, which Dortmund is a part of, has done an extraordinary job with its industrial heritage sites. The most impressive of these is in neighbouring city Essen, where the Zollverein complex has repurposed what was once the world’s largest coal mining facility.
There’s a design museum in the old boiler house, plus an ice skating ring and ferris wheel in the coking plant. But Dortmund has its own version.
The Zollern was designed to be the most beautiful coal mine in the world. It has now been transformed into a huge cultural centre, with exhibitions on the industries that made the region one of the world’s great industrial powerhouses.
What to expect at Dortmund Christmas market
Traditional offerings include:
- German Christmas decorations and handcrafted gifts
- Bratwurst and traditional German sausages
- Glühwein (mulled wine) and seasonal beverages
- Live entertainment and festive performances
- Children’s activities around the giant Christmas tree
More Germany travel
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