If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you’ll know that I usually take a trip around Christmas time each year. If it’s not an extended city break to Copenhagen then it’s a Christmas market hop around Europe.
This year, it was the latter, made all the easier with an Interrail pass (that’s the same as a Eurail pass for my US readers). We spent a whirlwind two weeks hitting up some lesser-visited locales in Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic and Germany, but one of the standout destinations of the trip was – surprisingly – our time in Prague.
I’ve only ever visited Prague once before when I was around 8 or 9. It was my first (ever!) flight and I had visited for a day trip with my family, again at Christmas time. It was a great, albeit absolutely freezing day of fun, but honestly, I’ve never had any desire to return to the city that I now tend to associate with stag parties and Airbnbs. (To be fair, I associate many major European cities with those things, so it’s not just about Prague.)
However, considering Scott and I had never visited the Czech Republic together before, coupled with the fact that I was interested in how they ‘do’ Christmas markets in Prague, we incorporated the city into our itinerary. And I’m so glad we did.
Where We Stayed
Firstly, we really needed to drop our bags for a few days after all of the train-hopping we’d been doing, so we extended our stay at Miss Sophie’s hotel to three nights. The hotel was so cosy, in a perfect location close to shops and a subway line in the Vinohrady neighbourhood and served up a really tasty breakfast in the mornings, too.
Tip: Miss Sophie’s runs a hostel across the road from the hotel, and you can opt to pay extra for the breakfast there, too. If you can stretch the budget to the full ‘brunch’ breakfast, it’s definitely worth it, as they fill you up with a whole gamut of continental options, plus your choice of eggs, pancakes, sausages, bacon and cooked veggies. It was just as good as any cooked breakfast I’ve had at larger hotels, so for hungry hostel guests, it’s a great value.
Seeking Out Cool Coffee Shops
Despite filling up on caffeine and carbs at the hotel breakfast, we always like to seek out cool third-wave coffee shops when we travel and Prague certainly wasn’t short of them. We had delicious flat whites and smooth filter coffees at Monolok and Cafe Letka during our time in the city, to name just two.
A Real Foodie Treat
Something that impressed me the most about Prague was the quality of the food we ate during our stay. I don’t mean that in a condescending way; I’m fully aware that Prague is a thriving European city and therefore has no shortage of great places to eat.
What delighted me the most was the quality not only of the local Czech food but also of the international dishes we ate while we were there.
From the Neapolitan-style pizza at San Carlo (as good as any I’ve eaten in top UK restaurants) to the ‘fish and chips’ (actually fried trout with French fries and kale) at the hip Parlament restaurant, I wasn’t disappointed by a single meal.
One of our favourite examples of local Czech cuisine came at a beer pub we had headed to for drinks alone. We were cold and hungry, so decided on a whim to order dinner off the food menu and were presented with some hearty spinach soup, chicken and potatoes, followed by the most delicious fruit dumplings slathered in butter and sour cream for dessert.
My only regret was that we didn’t have time to really do a deep-dive into the local food scene. We feasted on a few dishes and pints of frothy beer, but as we were there to also experience the Christmas markets, we didn’t have time to really seek out many new places. A good idea to get the most out the Czech gastronomy is to find a local to take you on a personalized food tour. It can be a great way to discover dishes you never would have stumbled upon yourself, as well as a way to pinpoint local haunts that you often find yourself returning to at least once during your trip.
Christmas Markets
I’m sad to say that when it came to the Christmas markets in Prague, I definitely wasn’t as impressed as I had been by the city’s cuisine.
To be fair, the Czech people don’t really celebrate Christmas as we would in the UK, USA or Germany, where it is turned into a big multi-day affair. Instead, we were told by a local, that they prefer to keep it low-key, with a family meal and perhaps a few presents on Christmas Eve. In that sense, they’ve never really had a need for ‘Christmas markets’ (which are basically just an idea stolen from the Germans anyway….) But Prague, like so many major international cities these days, has decided to jump on the Christmas markets bandwagon with its own offering.
In Old Town Square, you will find the main one, sporting a huge Christmas tree that produces a light and music display each hour, as well as the usual collection of stalls selling fried foods and mainly overpriced gifts. Although the chalets here were very pretty and the tree display certainly was festive, I really didn’t like this market at all. It felt too ‘over-engineered’ and was selling no real local food or crafts. It was full of tourists armed with iPads, phones and tripods, all trying to film the Christmas tree and pose for their next profile picture and had no authenticity to it whatsoever.
Luckily for us, as we were staying in the Vinohrady neighbourhood, there was a small Christmas market in front of the St. Ludmila church just up the street from our hotel. This market didn’t have many stalls and most of them were selling ornaments, clothing or crafts, but there were handful serving hot wine (
This market was where the locals would come to gather after work for a couple of mulled wines and because of that, it had a much nicer atmosphere than the big one at Old Town Square.
Overall, I would advise people not to visit Prague for its Christmas markets alone. Sure, if you’re planning a trip to the city during Christmas time anyway and want to check them out, then it’s still a nice way to pass a couple of hours. But don’t make a special trip for them. Go for the city itself – its beautiful buildings, its tasty food and its fresh pints of beer.
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