Metz spreads its markets across five squares of the old town, built in the local jaumont limestone that turns the whole city yellow, with a big wheel and an observation tower giving views over the cathedral's enormous expanse of stained glass — the largest in the world, with later windows by Chagall.
Lorraine's Christmas season is governed less by Christmas than by Saint Nicolas, whose feast on 6 December brings a parade and is the day children are given gifts in the regional tradition.
No attendance figure is published, so we record none.
Because the markets are distributed rather than concentrated, the city absorbs the crowd better than a single-square market does, and the circuit between the squares is the pleasure of the visit. Metz is eighty minutes from Paris by TGV and half an hour from Luxembourg, which supplies a steady cross-border weekend crowd.
PlanningA month-long window spread over several squares — a walking circuit rather than one site.