Our family had the chance to experience the Liverpool Christmas Market. It was our very first European Christmas Market ever! And what a great way to start.
The lights, the sounds, and the smells completely draw you in. It’s set up in a U-shape around St. George’s Hall which makes for an easy and visually stunning walk.
As you enter you are greeted by twinkling lights, a few craft vendors, food stalls, and drink booths. It was cold, so our first stop was the hot cocoa booth. One kid’s hot chocolate, and an amaretto hot cocoa for mom and dad please! It was strong, delicious, and priced pretty fair. For a fair.
Continue walking and you will come upon rides for kids, where you either pay at a booth or pay the ride attendant. Mostly everyone accepts cards, but we did have to pay cash for one ride. The closest ATM/cash machine is across the street inside the shopping mall. Luckily we made it over there minutes before it closed.
There are plenty of carnival style games, and a few where you win a prize no matter what. We chose that option for our daughter. She was so excited that she won a pink elephant!
The food options here are the best part. The bratwurst stand smelled the best by far! You can literally smell it from the streets. There are a lot of Greek options such as gyros, souvlaki, and Halloumi cheese, along with noodles, salt & pepper chicken, and yorkshire pudding wraps (which I will definitely be trying next time!) We opted for something a little different, a booth called The Crispy Pig. We ordered the roast ham bap with all the trimmings, which was steaming hot and delicious. *If you don’t know, a Bap is basically a sandwich in the UK.
There were some tables around, but everything was quite busy, so we opted to eat our food while standing..and having a dance party with security.
There are also a few different beer tents, or teepees, where you can keep warm while you eat and drink.
There are plenty of carnival style rides here for kids of all ages. We stuck to smaller rides with our 4 year old, who had fun on every single carousel they had to offer. The rides looked pretty dated, but well taken care of, and expect carnival style pricing on everything!
The Windmill Bar is a really cool feature. Definitely stop and have a drink here! And of course the carousel and ferris wheel are stunning. There aren’t too many stalls here which makes it easy to get from one end to the other, but there are also plenty of options.
We spent about 2 hours here, and that was enough time to walk the whole thing, eat, drink, ride some rides and play some games! We spent about 20-30 pounds each.
While this was a visually stunning Christmas Market, not everything gave us warm fuzzy holiday feelings. Some of the staff, but mostly the ride attendants, were rude, and most things grossly overpriced. If you happen to be in the area, then yes you should definitely check it out. But I don’t think you should go out of your way to visit.
What other Christmas Markets in the UK should we visit next time?
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