Things to Do in Strasbourg in December

December is the only month this exists, and it's the reason to come. A guided loop through the Christkindelsmärik connects the scattered squares: Place Broglie (the original market site), Place de la Cathédrale, Place du Marché-aux-Poissons. It explains the Alsatian traditions behind the bredele cookies, the St Nicholas figures, and the vin chaud. Go on a weekday morning or after 8pm to dodge the worst crush. The lights look best once it's fully dark, which by December is around 5pm.

The Cathédrale Notre-Dame is a sandstone giant whose single spire topped out at 142 metres (466 feet) and made it the world's tallest building for over two centuries. December is ideal because it's a warm refuge from the raw air outside. The famous 16th-century astronomical clock performs its procession of figures at solar noon (12:30pm). The interior glows under low winter light through the rose window. The platform climb of 332 steps gives you the rooftops dusted in frost.

Petite France, the old tanners' and millers' quarter with its steep half-timbered roofs and the covered Ponts Couverts bridges, is at its most cinematic in December, lit up and mirrored in the Ill river canals. The glass-roofed, heated tour boats run year-round and let you see the quarter and the European institutions district without freezing on foot. Bundle it on a clear afternoon for the low-angle winter light.

Half an hour south by train, Colmar runs its own storybook Christmas markets across five themed squares, and it's noticeably less crammed than Strasbourg's. Push on to the Route des Vins villages, Riquewihr and Kaysersberg, for medieval ramparts, Advent-decorated lanes, and the Gewürztraminer and Pinot Gris that warm a cold day. December gives you the festive decorations without the summer tour-bus volume.

December food is hyper-seasonal here. A tasting walk works well now because the streets are full of it, flammekueche crisp from wood ovens, choucroute garnie (sauerkraut with sausages and pork) that's built for winter, manele brioche figures for St Nicholas Day on December 6, and stall after stall of vin chaud. The cold makes every hot bite and steaming cup land harder.

Strasbourg sits right on the Rhine, and Germany's Black Forest is barely 40 km (25 miles) east. December suits this because the spa town of Baden-Baden's thermal baths are a sublime antidote to the cold. The forest's higher villages often get a dusting of snow that the city plain doesn't. It's an easy contrast day: French market in the morning, German thermal soak in the afternoon.