From Lucerne Magical Christmas Markets of Colmar and Strasbourg

Your private Mercedes and your own English-speaking driver collect you at your hotel in Lucerne in the morning. You cross the Swiss border into Alsace and by late morning you are standing in Strasbourg — no train changes, no timetables, no carrying shopping bags across platforms. Strasbourg is the official Capital of Christmas, and it has held the title honestly: the Christkindelsmärik dates from 1570 and is the oldest Christmas market in France. More than 300 wooden chalets fill eleven squares of the Grande Île, under the Great Christmas Tree of Place Kléber and the illuminated Gothic cathedral. You explore it at your own pace, with time for mulled wine, bredele biscuits, Alsatian crafts and a proper lunch. In the afternoon your driver takes you 70 km south to Colmar — six separate markets, coloured timber-framed houses, and the lamplit canals of Petite Venise, the quarter that inspired the village in Disney's Beauty and the Beast.