Christmas Holidays in Frankfurt with Kids 2026-27

An evening walk through Frankfurt's botanical garden, lit by about 30 light installations. Giant glowing moons, snowdrops and floating hearts hang over the paths and trees, with music, video projections and a few interactive light pieces along the way.

The route is outdoors and on foot, so it suits kids who can walk a while in the cold. Younger ones tend to like the big, bright shapes most.

A classic circus in a big-top tent that sets up in Frankfurt every Christmas, now in its 13th edition. The 2026 show is headlined by Nomuna, a 14-person teeterboard troupe from Mongolia that won a Silver Clown at this year's Monte-Carlo circus festival.

Around them: the Bello Sisters' hand-balancing act, an aerial ring duo, a fast juggler and a knife-and-crossbow pair. Best for kids who can sit through a long show.

One of Germany's largest mobile ice rinks fills the Bowling Green lawn in front of Wiesbaden's Kurhaus each winter, with skaters looping around the two historic fountains on 100-meter laps.

Rental skates, skating aids for wobbly beginners and lockers are on site, and ice-stock lanes (Bavarian-style curling) sit right in front of the Kurhaus. It suits first-timers and confident skaters alike.

Waiting for the Christkind can feel endless, so Zoo Frankfurt gives kids something to do with their hands. Together with the animal keepers, they craft tasty presents for some of the zoo animals.

Then they stay to watch the animals enjoy their special meal. It suits kids who like animals and making things.

An outdoor ice rink in the Kurpark, set in front of the historic Kaiser-Wilhelms-Bad, with the decorated Brunnenallee and a huge Christmas tree beside it. Kids can take their first wobbly laps or practice spins.

Families can also book a lane for Eisstockschießen, a German curling game played in teams of four or five. A chalet next to the rink sells hot drinks and warm snacks.

A natural history museum built around a dinosaur hall, where a Tyrannosaurus, a Triceratops and a long-necked Diplodocus stand over the floor. Other galleries cover whales and elephants, the deep sea, coral reefs, insects, and 47-million-year-old fossils from the nearby Messel Pit.

In the Aha?! Science Lab, kids handle more than 100 natural objects, look at them under microscopes and help sort samples for real research projects.

Frankfurt Zoo packs more than 450 species into 11 hectares, from gorillas, bonobos and orangutans in the Borgori Forest ape house to seals, Humboldt penguins, giraffes and okapi outside. The Exotarium has a tropical rainforest pool and leafcutter ants, and the Grzimek House holds small animals like mouse lemurs and bats.

Kids can pet dwarf goats and run off steam on the big sand playground.

A 20-hectare botanical garden in the Westend with around 13,000 plant species. Indoors, kids walk through the 1869 Palm House, the Tropicarium's rainforest and desert glasshouses, a carnivorous plant collection with Venus flytraps, and a butterfly house where pupae hatch in view.

Outside are a large playground with a water play area, a shaded playground above the pond, rental boats in summer and a mini golf course.

The city-run ice rink joins a large indoor rink, a smaller beginner rink and a 400-meter outdoor ring around the stadium into one connected sheet of ice, the largest in Germany. Boards line the indoor rinks, so first-timers have something to hold. Skates rent on site in sizes 23 to 50, the shop sells gliders for very young skaters, and the Cool Running bar has snacks.

A hands-on science center with around 200 experiment stations over four floors, covering math, computer science, natural science and technology. Kids stand inside a giant eye, lie on a bed of nails, watch sand jump to sound on Chladni plates and power a light bulb themselves.

A puzzle room tests patience, and one exhibit looks into the black hole at the heart of the Milky Way. Suits curious school-age kids.

The city's children's museum sits inside the Historisches Museum by the river. Its current exhibition, Damals 1410, is a walk-through game: kids time-travel to a medieval town, help a builder raise a castle with AI, work as influencers at the smithy and put out a fire, earning badges for skills like spotting fake news.

Orange family-trail stations in the main museum let kids mint a coin or make a cartoon.

Titus Thermen is a leisure pool run by BäderBetriebe Frankfurt. The adventure pool has a 50m slide, a waterfall and neck showers, and the main leisure pool has a current channel and a water organ, both up to 1.30m deep at 29°C.

Babies and toddlers get the Bambini Welt, a shallow 32°C pool with small animal features. Swimmers have a five-lane 25m pool with a 1m diving platform.

A thermal bath and leisure pool under a domed roof, with two giant slides, water cannons, current pools, a waterfall and whirlpools. Older kids jump from the 1m and 3m boards or swim lengths in the 25m sports pool.

Toddlers have a separate area with its own pool, water toys, a small slide and a changing room, and there is a large outdoor pool area too.