In Strasbourg, France, throughout the holiday season, Santa-capped teddy bears festoon a restaurant’s facade. Stuffed polar bears adorn another. In a Yuletide arms race, buildings are affixed with giant, gift-wrapped packages, glittering white deer and oversize gingerbread men. Turning the central medieval quarter into a Christmas maze, curtains of lights glow above cobblestone lanes lined with food and gift stalls. And in the central Place Kleber, lights on a nearly 100-foot-tall Christmas tree flash and glow, synchronized to carols.

Across Europe, Christmas markets pop up like fairy-dusted street fairs, with temporary chalet-style shops selling everything from handmade ­ceramics to warmed wine and abundant food. Visitors shuffle among the merry warrens, holding their cellphone cameras high.

“The closer you get to Christmas, Strasbourg really becomes like Times Square,” said Jonathan Frank, a former Broadway videographer who retired to the city two years ago.

A popular way to visit the markets in France, Germany, Switzerland and beyond is to take river cruises on the Rhine, Danube or Main, spending roughly $2,000 to $4,000 a week. Could I replicate such a holiday pilgrimage for less by using trains to get around?

Along the Rhine, through the Alsace region of northeastern France, trains run continuously between Strasbourg in the north and Basel, Switzerland, in the south, allowing access to market cities and towns en route. To test my budget and my tolerance for seasonal cheer, I spent about $300 on trains, splitting six nights between lively Strasbourg and popular Colmar at Airbnbs that averaged $180 a night. In exchange for convenience, I hoped to gain priceless control over when and where to wander.

The capital of Christmas

“If you stay a week in Strasbourg, you will gain three kilos,” said Pierre Feisthauer, a tour guide who runs Discover Strasbourg, during a two-hour market tour that I booked through Airbnb Experiences (about $26).

The tour on my first evening offered a practical lay of the land in the old town on an island in the River Ill, a Rhine tributary where, by Feisthauer’s count, more than a dozen markets cluster in plazas and pedestrian lanes, drawing 2 million to 3 million visitors throughout the season.

Lodged in a half-timbered house dating to around 1600, the Alsatian Museum (7.50 euros) provided more context on the seasonal festivities founded in 1570, after the city embraced the Protestant Reformation. Toys, gingerbread and roasted chestnuts remain from the original fairs, rooted in Germanic traditions, but the museum attributed the modern image of Pere Noel, or Santa Claus, to Coca-Cola ads in 1931.

By day, before darkness cued the elaborate light displays, which included horn-blowing angels framing the view of the cathedral spire, it was easier to shop. Food, ­including a stollen-baking demonstration and 12-euro foie gras sandwiches, distinguished the riverside market Quai des Delices. Stalls mixing traditional casserole pottery, porcelain votives, snow globes and cookie molds were bunched around Notre-Dame Cathedral. Original art and upcycled gifts, such as aprons made from used denim, set the eco-conscious Marche Off apart.

“I love Christmas, and it’s interesting to see how people do things differently,” beamed Denise Jimenez, who was visiting from Los Angeles. “It’s just super, super beautiful.”

Swiss Christmas

An 80-minute train ride from Strasbourg, Basel introduced me to the fondue dog: a half-baguette drilled with a well in the center filled with molten cheese and a frankfurter (10 Swiss francs, or $11.50).

Swiss innovation — including Toblerone-­stuffed doughnuts — met classics like raclette at Basel’s pair of markets on the central Barfusserplatz and Munsterplatz squares. In Munsterplatz, I lunched on fondue (26.50 francs) at the stylish pop-up restaurant Wacker Fonduestubli, with sheepskin-covered stools and chandeliers made of deer antlers.

A terminus for many Rhine River cruises, Basel gets its share of holiday tourists. But its markets felt less commercial, including a Christmas tree-filled Fairy Tale Forest, with crafts like gingerbread decorating (7 francs), and a children’s train (3 francs).

Throughout town, a series of 18 free Magical Courtyards trimmed for the season guided me to hidden respites.

Alsatian fairy tale

About 45 miles south of Strasbourg, Colmar is a popular day-trip destination with six official markets squeezed into a well-­preserved city center you could walk across in less than 15 minutes. But leave a trail of pretzel crumbs in the labyrinth — I stayed there three nights and failed to find my favorite craft beer stand twice.

Between forays to chalets selling three-­dimensional wooden puzzles, handmade ­animal puppets, pine cone wreaths, cured sausages and the region’s renowned Munster cheese, I took timeouts at Colmar’s many museums, including the Bartholdi ­Museum (5 euros), devoted to native son Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi, the sculptor of the Statue of Liberty.

One rainy afternoon, waiting for the magic hour when the lights would transform the city from dreary to Disney, I ducked into the Dominican Library (free). Its artifacts, which explore printing in the Rhine region, include a 15th-century encyclopedia elaborately illustrated with woodcuts, 16th-century maps and books of Gregorian chant in a separate vaulted room with a sound track of the music. The tour ended in a cloister dating to 1300, only steps from the crowds, but far from the frenzy.

The villages of Alsace

Over a few weekends in the heart of the market season, the Navettes de Noel or Christmas buses (15 euros) ply a course from Colmar to a series of villages on the ­Alsace Wine Route.

Among the vineyards surrounding medieval Riquewihr, tour buses created canyons of the main roads. Dropped beside the town walls, I fortified myself with poelee compagnarde (8 euros) — a hearty dish of sausage, onions, potatoes and bacon — and joined the masses moving in wonder along cobblestone lanes to a 13th-century defensive tower trimmed in stuffed hearts.

At the next stop, Kaysersberg, I met Lisa Muller, a ceramic artist based near Strasbourg, who sold delicate glazed bowls, dishes and cups in earthy glazes.

Local trains also reach some of the more remote Christmas-circuit towns. When my train to Obernai was canceled at an intermediate station in Selestat, I discovered its festival over the 50-minute delay, time to have a 1.50-euro pretzel and learn that the oldest written record of the Christmas tree was in Selestat in 1521.

A modern take

For a refreshing dose of modernity, I headed roughly 25 miles south of Colmar to Mulhouse, once an independent country that prospered in textile printing in the 16th-century. In homage to its past, the town selects a new pattern each year as its Christmas print, found in its markets as tablecloths and stretched onto lanterns.

I gleaned the city’s fascinating history — which involved seeing sections of the former republic’s walls and early fabric workshops — from Remy Specker, a native of Mulhouse who works in the chemical industry and volunteers his time as a Mulhouse Greeter guiding free tours.

By the end of our two-hour walk, Mulhouse’s markets were open. I met a painter who decorates wooden ornaments for 10 months of the year to supply her stand, and another whose printed tablecloths seemed to connect back to city history.

I bought from both booths, which is where a Christmas market story jumps the frugal train tracks. From my treasured haul of about $250 in art prints, ceramics, ornaments and gifts, let it be known that Christmas markets are Whovilles on steroids.

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