Add a crown of snow to Prague Castle, frost the baroque statues of the Charles Bridge with glittering ice crystals, and fill the Old Town's historic squares with fairytale Christmas markets.
Prague (with a climate much like Southern Ontario) does not always have a White Christmas, but the festive season is always beautiful, always magical and always enchanting in the ancient capital of the Czechs.
Prague's unofficial holiday season begins this year on Saturday, Nov. 28, when the city's Christmas markets (Vanocni trhy) open.
The markets, which run until New Year's Day, are charming temporary villages of gaily decorated and lighted wooden huts and stalls. There you can find small Christmas presents like Bohemian crystal and carved wooden toys, handmade lace and ceramics, crafts and Christmas decorations. You can stock up on homemade Czech specialty foods, sausages and cakes. You can even pick up your live carp for Christmas Eve's traditional fried fish dinner.
Be sure to have a mug of hot mulled wine in hand to keep you warm while strolling through the happy throngs of holiday shoppers, soaking in the sights, sounds and smells, and listening to the golden voices of local and international choirs performing outdoors throughout the Christmas season.
The main Prague Christmas markets are set up near each other in Old Town Square and Wenceslas Square. Each market has 75-100 huts and stalls, with several other smaller markets within a 10-minute walk at Havelske Trziste and Namesti Republiky.
The "official" Czech Christmas season starts this year on Saturday, Dec. 5 -- Mikulas (St. Nicholas' Day) -- when old St. Nick wanders abroad accompanied by an angel and a devil, calling on children to entertain him with a song or poem. If a child is good, he or she will get a sweet reward. But a bad child may get a lump of coal -- or even end up in the devil's sack.
In Prague, Nicholas usually makes his appearance in Old Town Square in the late afternoon on Mikulas. As night falls and St. Nick departs, the giant Christmas tree (fresh from the forests of northern Bohemia) in the middle of the square will suddenly blaze to dazzling life as the switch is thrown to turn on thousands of lights garlanding the evergreen.
In the middle of December, the markets will have new additions -- giant tubs of live carp, grown in the centuries-old fish ponds of Trebon in southern Bohemia. It's estimated about 800 tonnes of live carp are sold throughout the Czech Republic in the two weeks before Christmas.
The carp, spiced and fried, will be the centerpiece of most Czech families' big Christmas Eve dinner. Most families choose to have the carp killed and cleaned at the market before taking it home, but some Czechs keep the fish alive in their bathtubs until the actual day of the feast.
After the carp dinner is finished, the best place to close out Christmas Eve is, again, the Old Town Square where thousands of celebrants will gather by candlelight in front of Tyn Cathedral for Christmas carol mass. The carolling usually starts about 9:30 p.m. and continues to midnight mass. Midnight mass is also celebrated at other churches throughout the city. It is a heart-stoppingly beautiful time and place to be.
Christmas Day is quieter, but the festive season ends with a bang the following week on New Year's Eve, when the city's streets and squares again fill with joyous crowds and the skies over Prague Castle, the Vltava River and the Old Town explode with dazzling fireworks.
IF YOU GO
TO THE CZECH REPUBLIC
CHRISTMAS MARKETS
Prague's Christmas Markets are open seven days a week, from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.
MORE INFORMATION
For more information on travelling to Prague, contact Czech Tourism at czechtourism.com.
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