Mirecourt Christmas Market

Mirecourt owes its fame to its violin makers and lacemakers, and it is this craft heritage that gives its character to Mirecourt Christmas market, held every year around the Halles, the covered market in the town centre. The small Vosges town, on the Madon, about thirty kilometres from Épinal, opens its streets to local exhibitors for a few days in December, with wooden chalets, mulled wine and Christmas shop windows.

The 17th-century Halles, the market’s backdrop

The market occupies the historic centre of Mirecourt, around the listed Halles, built in 1617 to house the town’s trade. This stone and timber architecture dates from the early 17th century and serves as a landmark for visitors walking up from the neighbouring square to the shopkeepers’ decorated windows. Strings of lights dress the façades of the town centre, where several half-timbered houses survive.

The town’s history as a market town goes back much further than its Halles: mentioned as early as 960 in a deed of donation, Mirecourt became over the centuries the seat of the bailiwick of Vôge, a trading crossroads for the whole Xaintois area. The Christmas market carries on this commercial vocation in its own way, across a few streets of the historic centre, run by the town hall and local shopkeepers.

Mirecourt Christmas market remains a local event, designed for residents of the Xaintois and families from the surrounding villages rather than for mass tourism. The town-centre windows add to the atmosphere with their own decorations, and the permanent shops join in the festive spirit for a weekend or two.

Violin making, lace and Vosges crafts

Mirecourt’s craft identity naturally flows into the market stalls. From the 16th to the 20th century, the town trained generations of violin makers and bow makers whose reputation spread well beyond Lorraine: the luthier Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, born in Mirecourt, remains its best-known figure. This tradition lives on at the violin-making school and the Musée de la Lutherie et de l’Archèterie françaises (museum of French violin and bow making), located in the town centre and devoted to this craft history.

The violin-making school still trains young craftspeople, following on from the workshops that have made the town’s reputation since the 16th century, when the Dukes of Lorraine brought in the know-how of Italian masters for violin making. This history gives the Christmas market a solid common thread, rooted in the town’s daily life long before the first wooden chalets arrive in December.

Lace holds an equally long-standing place in Mirecourt’s economy, with the craft preserved at the Maison de la Musique Mécanique et de la Dentelle (house of mechanical music and lace). At the market, local designers readily show handmade pieces, earrings, collars or tree decorations, alongside the more classic crafts of the festive season: candles, wooden toys, pottery and objects turned from the woods of the Vosges forest.

The scents of mulled wine and gingerbread go with you from one stall to the next. The homemade mulled wine recipe lets you recreate these aromas at home, with spices and wine that are easy to find at the grocer’s.

Mirecourt Christmas market: opening hours, access and prices

The 2026 dates for Mirecourt Christmas market have not yet been published, a usual timetable for an event of this size: the town hall and the organising shopkeepers generally announce their programme in the weeks before Advent. Opening hours, like the dates, are still to be confirmed for 2026; in 2025, the town’s events committee held its Christmas Village on Sunday 14 December, on Place de Gaulle, with more than forty exhibitors and a temporary ice rink. The table below sums up the information available to date.

Mirecourt has lost its passenger station: the nearest rail services leave from Charmes or Épinal, with a connecting Fluo Grand Est coach to the town centre. By car, the town is reached via the D166 from the A31, about twenty minutes from the motorway exit. The town centre is easy to walk from the municipal car parks, with no noticeable slopes, and access to the market itself is free.

For spa guests in Vittel and Contrexéville, the trip makes a good afternoon out between two treatments, with a journey of about twenty minutes by car. Families from Épinal or Nancy often take advantage of a wider trip around Lorraine, taking in several of the region’s Christmas markets, to fit Mirecourt into a weekend programme.

• The Musée de la Lutherie et de l’Archèterie traces the history of Mirecourt’s workshops, not far from the Halles.
• The Maison de la Musique Mécanique et de la Dentelle rounds off the visit with the town’s textile skills.
• About thirty kilometres away, Épinal Christmas market offers a larger format, to extend your outing.
• Vittel and Contrexéville, neighbouring spa towns, each hold their own market, Vittel Christmas market and Contrexéville Christmas market, less than half an hour’s drive away.
• The listed Notre-Dame church and its restored organ complete a winter stop in the old centre.

Around Mirecourt: heritage and winter stops

The town itself deserves a closer look outside the market dates. Notre-Dame church, a listed historic monument, houses an organ restored in 1986 and 1987, and the Halles of 1617 are still the landmark of the old centre. The historic quarter is easy to explore on foot, between half-timbered houses and façades from the town’s successive rebuilds.

For visitors from further afield, Mirecourt pairs well with a spa stay in Vittel or Contrexéville, less than half an hour’s drive away, or with a stop in Épinal for a larger Christmas market. A walk through the Halles goes nicely with a visit to the violin-making museum, open on Wednesdays and weekends in December.

The format remains modest compared with the big markets of Alsace or Metz, and that is what gives Mirecourt Christmas market its feel of a local get-together: a moment for the people of the Xaintois, open to anyone who wants to discover the town of violin makers in December, with no calendar pressure and no crowds to deal with.

Across the department, December sees several Christmas markets open, from the spa towns of the Xaintois to the High Vosges around Gérardmer, by way of the more urban format of Épinal. Mirecourt fits into this landscape with its own colour, that of a musical and textile craft tradition that the end-of-year shop windows proudly display.