Christmas Markets & Festive Breaks by Coach
Christmas travels well by coach. Someone else drives through the dark afternoons, the hotel is already dressed for the season, and the market is a short walk from where you are dropped. Our festive holidays run from late November through to the days between Christmas and New Year, with stately homes lit for the season, cathedral-square markets and evening entertainment back at the hotel.
Britain and the near Continent both feature. York's St Nicholas Fair, Chatsworth and Sudeley dressed for December, or Cologne, Rudesheim and the Advent markets around Lake Constance. Many departures include single rooms with no supplement.
Frequently Asked Questions About Our Festive Tours
The market season on both sides of the Channel runs from around the last week of November to shortly before Christmas Eve, and our festive departures sit inside that window, with a few in the days between Christmas and New Year. Individual dates change each year and the popular ones go early. The grid above shows what is currently available; ask us if you want a specific week.
Not always. A number of our festive tours include a set allocation of single rooms with no supplement, and the tour pages state how many. Once those are taken, a supplement applies, and the amount varies by tour and hotel. Booking early is the practical answer if you are travelling on your own. Ask us which departures still have no-supplement singles left.
More than people expect. Continental markets spread across several squares and the ground is often cobbled and uneven, sometimes wet. British house visits mean gravel drives, gardens and staircases. You should be comfortable on your feet for an hour or two at a time. The coach parks as close as local restrictions allow, and there is always the option of sitting out an excursion.
All excursions listed on the itinerary are included in the price. Where a property belongs to the National Trust, several of our tours state that entrance is covered for members, so non-members may need to pay on the day. The inclusions box on each tour spells out exactly what is covered. If anything is unclear, ask us before you book.
A market tour is built around the markets and seasonal house openings, with excursions most days and a fair amount of time on your feet. A turkey and tinsel break is hotel-centred: festive meals, evening entertainment, decorations throughout, and gentler daytime outings from a single base. Some of our tours combine the two, pairing a market visit with a hotel that puts on entertainment.
Joining points vary by tour and departure, and several of our holidays pick up from local points along the route rather than one central departure. Because this differs from tour to tour, we would rather tell you accurately than generalise, so ask us with your postcode and we will confirm the nearest pick-up for the departure you are considering.
British houses and castles dressed for Christmas
The great houses do December properly. Chatsworth mounts a themed display through the state rooms every year and sets out a market of well over a hundred stalls in the grounds. Castle Howard fills its long enfilade of rooms with a story-led installation and lights the gardens for the evening. Blenheim Palace runs an illuminated trail through the park as well as decorating the palace itself.
Our shorter breaks pair one of these with a market town or city nearby. Sudeley Castle in the Cotswolds sits within easy reach of the Bristol and Bath markets. Holkham Hall in Norfolk goes with the Ickworth estate. Kent gives you Hever and Leeds Castle in the same holiday, and Warwick Castle comes with Stratford-upon-Avon and Charlecote Park.
Where a property is National Trust, entrance is included for members on the relevant tours; check the individual itinerary, as the arrangements differ.
Continental Christmas markets without the driving
German-speaking Europe invented this and still does it best. Cologne's largest market sits directly beneath the cathedral on Roncalliplatz, and the city has several more within walking distance of one another. Rudesheim, on the Rhine, combines a well-known Advent market with the wine trade it has lived by for centuries; our tour there breaks the journey in Bruges and takes in Frankfurt and Heidelberg.
Lake Constance is a good choice for anyone who likes markets in threes. Konstanz, Lindau and Bregenz are all on or near the water, with an Advent ship crossing between them and the winter gardens on Mainau Island.
- Cologne, by Eurotunnel or ferry and coach
- Rudesheim and the Rhine, with Bruges and Heidelberg
- Lake Constance by air, taking in three countries
- Amsterdam by Eurostar, with the Rijksmuseum and the Light Festival
- Malaga, for lights rather than snow, and the Alhambra
Turkey and tinsel and the days after Christmas
The classic British festive break is a hotel-based one: four or five nights at the coast, decorations up, a full Christmas dinner mid-week, entertainment in the evenings and gentle outings by day. Weston-super-Mare, Torquay, Eastbourne, Newquay and Tenby all appear in our programme at one time or another, chosen because their hotels take the season seriously and the promenades are pleasant on a bright winter morning.
The gap between Christmas and New Year is its own small holiday. Our Isle of Wight break fills it with a music quiz, bingo and an ABBA tribute night, which is either exactly your idea of fun or firmly not.
Availability of individual coastal breaks varies year to year, so use the grid above for what is currently on sale and ask us if you have a particular resort in mind.
Private group festive tours for clubs and societies
A good many of our Christmas tours are built for groups: a WI, a U3A branch, a church congregation, a coach club or simply thirty friends. Prices on this page are generally based on a group of around thirty passengers travelling together, priced per person sharing.
For a private group we can shift the shape of the tour. A different departure point, an extra afternoon in the market rather than a second house, a later start for people who do not enjoy early mornings. If your members mostly travel alone, note that many of our festive tours carry a set number of single rooms with no supplement, which matters more at Christmas than at any other time of year.
Tell us roughly when you want to travel and how many you expect, and we will cost it properly rather than guessing.
