Traben-Trarbach - the wine paradise

The best trips are the ones that are recommended to you by locals. On our way back to Switzerland we stopped at our favorite hotel in Germany for dinner. As it was getting late, we decided to stay there for one night. It was Friday and we had the weekend ahead of us, so why would we want to drive for almost 600 km at night if we could get a good night sleep and continue the next day? And we could have some booze too!

It didn't take us long to decide and we checked in before meeting the hotel owner who we know for several years. He told us that there were many tourists around because of the Christmas markets. As my husband hadn't seen any Christmas markets this year yet we asked the hotel owner to recommend us the best one which wouldn't be that far away from the hotel. He told us that we should go to Traben-Trarbach.

The Christmas markets there are special because they are held in the wine cellars underground! The system of cellars is built across the old town and it changes into popular Christmas markets in December. We were excited to experience such a special event!

We arrived to Traben-Trarbach before lunch and we could tell that it's going to be crowded because it took us 15 minutes to find a parking slot. At the end we managed to find a slot far away from the old town, but it gave us an opportunity to enjoy the views of this beautiful town on the way to the Christmas markets.

Traben-Trarbach is one of the most beautiful places on the river Moselle. It's settled in the valley surrounded by vineyards and forests. In the second half of the 19th century the town was the second-biggest wine-trading place in Europe, right after French Bordeaux. This was mainly because of their high quality Riesling wines that were exported abroad.

The system of wine cellars in Traben-Trarbach is unique as it's the only system on the river Moselle which is built in the large areas of the old town. There are guided tours in the cellars, and you can learn about history of traditional viticulture and also understand the techniques that are used here to produce world-known wines.

In addition to the popular wines, it is known for the ruins of the castle Grevenburg that are overlooking the town as well. You can see them on the left.

Traben-Trarbach is kind of a twin city. It consists of two cities - Traben and Trarbach. They are connected by this bridge.

We are now slowly approaching the first cellars. What I really like about these Christmas markets is that they are all located inside. It doesn't matter if it rains or snow, you go inside and it's nice and warm there.

Let's enter the first one!

This cellar was more educational with some Christmas decoration. There were no stalls but many pictures and explanations about the region, wine producing and various techniques that are used here.

It starts with the map of Traben-Trarbach.

We could see various machines and tools that are used by the farmers. There are more than 100 various vineyards in this municipality.

This was a cool idea! I like her dress...

And a Christmas tree made out of the empty wine bottles! The lights were turning on and off every few seconds.

I enjoyed being in the room with these old barrels. It smelled like wood and made me feel nostalgic.

Let's go to the next cellar. The ambience was a little bit spooky but once we crossed this entrance it changed into a colorful system of tunnels with Christmas songs and positive atmosphere.

This cellar is dating back to the 19th century. It's humid and I was feeling like I was in a cave.

Look at how many people there were! Not my favorite part but I have to accept that other people want to see it too 😊

The most important part of the market - wine stalls! There were many of them and I think that they were one of the biggest stalls at the market. You could also do a wine tasting but we couldn't as we had to drive back home the same day.

You can see that the stall with wine was much more popular than the one with sweets 😊

One of a few Christmas trees. There were not as many as I saw in The Netherlands. The decoration was more subtle and the focus of the market was on the stalls.

People were gathering outside as it was where they could get some food.

And here we are on the way to our last cellar. There were many more in the city but we didn't have time to visit them all.

And here we are! We could even miss the entrance if there wouldn't be the number on its door. Yes, we didn't really follow the order but we visited the ones that we found interesting.

This one was the most spacious one. I could finally breath there as I'm not handling narrow places with many people very well.

Do you know sweets called amaretti cookies? We found a stall that was selling about 30 various flavors of this desert and around 1/3 of them was vegan. We got more than one kilo in total 😊 Of course, we're not going to eat them alone. We will bring them to our family for Christmas, so that they can enjoy them too.

Thank you for visiting!

Cheers!