Looking for all the best things to do in Frankenmuth, Michigan?
You’re in for a festive treat.
This Bavarian-style town in eastern Michigan looks like it was plucked from a German storybook with half-timbered buildings, cozy shops, and the world’s largest Christmas store, Bronner’s.
In just one day, you can soak in the charm, indulge in famous fried chicken, and stroll through twinkling holiday displays, even in summer!
Check out this Frankenmuth one day itinerary for all the highlights.
Frankenmuth Day Trip Itinerary
Frankenmuth has enough shopping and dining options to fill a whole day here.
There are also some entertainment options in town like an escape room, small museum, wine tasting, and more.
You don’t need to get an early start to do everything here since there’s not really anything open before 9 am.
Short on time? Here are the highlights:
Bronner’s Christmas Wonderland
Village Shops
Lunch at Bavarian Inn Restaurant
Wine Tasting
Antique Shopping
Dinner at Prost Wine Bar
Escape Room
Morning: Village Shops
The first part of the day will be spent shopping!
Bronner’s Christmas Wonderland
Bronner’s is the world’s largest Christmas store and it usually opens at 9 am (except at noon on Sundays and they’re closed for a few holidays).
I recommend starting with Bronner’s since it’s the highlight of Frankenmuth, but also because it’s on the edge of town.
Everything else will be in the middle of town, so you’ll be able to park and leave your car for the day.
It’s so easy to spend hours in this store because of how massive it is, but try to keep it under 2 hours so you can get to everything else.
We personally went to look for an ornament since that is what we collect as our souvenirs everywhere we travel.
German Village Shops
After Bronner’s, as you drive into town, the first place you come across are the Frankenmuth River Place Shops.
This is the area that looks just like a Bavarian village.
You can park here for free and browse the shops before making a full loop walking through town.
If you need a little pick me up before lunch, stop at La Crepe Du Jour for a banana and Nutella crepe.
Mid-Day: Wine Tasting
As you’re walking around the village shops, you’ll see a couple wine tasting rooms.
The wines here are not like California wines.
These are mostly Muscadine grape wines which are very fruity and sweet.
Most of these kinds of wines are more like a juice that you’d make a wine slushie with, but they’re very good for a refreshing summer wine.
Modern Craft Wine
The first place we stopped at was Modern Craft Wine.
They have a variety of wine blends that are meant to be mixed into cocktails.
You can get anywhere from 4-6 samples per tasting, starting at just $6.
Their menu is very detailed with ranking the dryness vs sweetness of each wine, plus listing some features of each wine so you can have a better idea of which ones you want to taste.
The Northbound Red was my favorite of the regular wines.
It’s actually one of their best sellers.
They also have a whole menu of fruit infused wines and cocktail mixes you can try.
Cherry Republic
Cherry Republic is another wine tasting room in these same set of shops.
What’s unique about these wines is that some of them are 100% cherry wines (rather than grape) and some are a mixture of both.
These wines are a bit more like regular wines than the Modern Craft Wines.
Some of the cherry wines were surprisingly good (we had never tried cherry wine before).
With their wine flights you can sample 6 different wines.
They also give you some mixed nuts or trail mix that you can enjoy with your tasting!
Lunch: Bavarian Inn Restaurant
After spending a few hours shopping and wine tasting, now is the perfect time to soak up all the wine with some lunch.
The Bavarian Inn Restaurant is a must.
I highly recommend the Frankenmuth Combination plate.
It comes with the Famous Frankenmuth Chicken, Schnitzel, and Sauerbraten, which is basically fried chicken, a breaded pork loin, and roast beef.
The plate also comes with bread, potato cheese puffs, and sauerkraut on the side.
To complete the meal, especially if 2 people are sharing this, add sides of German Potato Salad and Spaetzle.
We were too full for dessert while we were here, but downstairs there’s a bakery where you can grab some treats for later.
Castle Shops Bakery
The Castle Shops Bakery have so many good treats, that it’s hard to narrow it down.
So we actually bought a bunch of different things for only about $20 and ate them over the next couple days.
I recommend getting either the Cherry or Apple Strudel (they are huge).
The Black Forest Brownie is also so good, and also huge.
Afternoon: Antique Shopping
After lunch, there are still a few more shops around town to walk around and explore, like the cheese shop.
But once you’ve made the full loop back to your car, you can drive to a couple nearby antique shops.
About 5-10 minutes down the street (back toward Bronner’s) there are a few antique shops.
- Around the Farm Antiques
- The Iron Gate Emporium
- Thrifty Treasures Antiques and More
They are each on one corner of the intersection of Birch Run Road and Gera Road.
Bonus Activity: Mini Golf
At this corner there is also a mini golf course if you’re looking for another activity to fill your day.
For us, it was only about 2:30 pm, so we still had lots of time to do things before dinner and before things started to close for the evening.
Bonus Activity: Birch Run Premium Outlets
Down the street from mini golf and the antique shops is a large outlet mall.
We went shopping over there and I found a couple dresses from J. Crew that were on a huge clearance sale.
I also found a complete outfit from Loft, one of my faves.
We took everything back to our room at this point before heading back into town for the rest of the evening.
Dinner: Prost Wine Bar
For dinner, we decided on the Prost Wine Bar so that we could have something different from what we had for lunch.
It was pretty busy, even after peak dinner time, so we sat up at the bar for our meal, which was perfectly fine.
We shared a Lobster Roll and Rigatoni alla Vodka.
JP also had an Old Fashioned since that is his go-to drink.
Evening: Great Lakes Escape Game
After dinner, if you’re visiting on a weekend, this is a great time to enjoy the local escape room.
We love to try escape rooms everywhere we go because they’re always so unique.
Themes at this escape room include:
- Lucky Duck Speakeasy
- Black Beard’s Brig
- The Heist
- Immunity Quest
One thing to keep in mind is that this is one of the few escape rooms that still makes you play with others if you don’t book out the entire room.
You might get lucky and not have anyone else book it, but if you want your own room, you’ll have to pay as if you have that many people, which is usually about 8 people.
Just 10 minutes down the road is Hampton Inn Birch Run/Frankenmuth.
They offer free parking, free breakfast, an indoor pool, and they are right across the street from the outlet mall!
Click Here To Book Your Hampton Inn Birch Run/Frankenmuth Stay Today!
Conclusion: Frankenmuth Day Trip Itinerary
Frankenmuth had been on our bucket list for a long time because of the Christmas shop and the look of being a Bavarian village right in the middle of Michigan.
There’s enough to do to fill a whole day, but that’s about it.
We loved the German foods, browsing the shops, and checking out the nearby antique stores.
Hopefully we can visit again in the winter when it’s all done up for Christmas!
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