Christmas in Prague
Hello friends! It has been a while. My sincere apologies, turns out life as a junior doctor is rather demanding… who knew?
The last six months have been quite the adjustment. The learning curve was steep, the nights were long and the mornings were way too early. It has been very rewarding but too much of anything is never a good thing so I hope to get back to blogging. Now to the fun stuff – Prague at Christmas Time
The last time I visited Prague was for a friends 21stbirthday weekend. Needless to say it was a little different to family trip at Christmas, but I was happy to have the chance to explore other aspects of what Prague has to offer.
We went from the 23rd to 26th of December and stayed in the Imperial Hotel in the city centre.
The hotel is designed in an art deco style and some of the furniture fittings are just fabulous. The golden taps were my personal favourite.
The rooms themselves were very large and comfortable, with a taste of old school luxury.
The only downside I found was the main restaurant called Café Imperial.
The breakfast buffet itself was a bit chaotic and service was hit and miss.
Obviously the big deal at Christmas in Prague is the Christmas Markets and they were beautiful!
Though in terms of actually buying gifts I am not so sure. Most of the stalls we passed seemed to be serving food or mulled wine. Not that I am against that – I am always down for a glass of mulled wine – but it wasn’t particularly fruitful for that last minute Christmas shopping.
On Christmas Day itself I am a sucker for tradition, I like to go to mass then eat turkey and ham. Yup I said it– call me an uncultured buffoon if you will but I like what I like. I will note that this applies to just me in the family, my parents have much more exotic tastes in terms of Christmas food but they indulged me thankfully.
Finding an English mass was relatively easy, a quick Google search brought us to St Thomas Church near Prague Castle. The church itself was gorgeous but the music really made it a wonderful experience.
Turkey and ham on the other hand was quite the mission to track down for two main reasons. One – Czech’s typically celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve and they have their meal on the evening of the 24th. This meant a number of hotels hosted their Christmas dinners on the 24th not the 25th.
Two – for those hotels / restaurants that were open on the 25th most were serving the traditional Czech Christmas dinner of crape and potatoes. Or goose in certain cases.
Luckily we eventually came across the Grand Mark Hotel, which was serving a four course set menu that included … Turkey! Whoop!
The meal was superb from start to finish. There was such a creative twist on each course that it made you excited to see what was coming next.
The amuse bouche for example was a miniature veal schnitzel in an egg white sauce – yum!
Other Christmas Day activities included – an opera and a Christmas carol concert.
The opera – Hansel and Gretel – was very impressively, child friendly. The theatre was packed with the most well behaved children I had ever come across. I’m pretty sure at the age of 5 I would barely have been able to sit through a pantomime never mind an opera, but these kids were lapping it up – unreal.
Sadly Boxing Day consisted of a back to Ireland in time for work the next day. Overall I enjoyed escaping Dublin for the few days, I find the festive season in Ireland can be a little overwhelming at times and I am not a fan of the huge commercial aspect to Christmas in the west. So if there is anyone else out there who feels the same Christmas 2018 – you know what to do!
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