Rebecca Engel
Prague was built for this. Gothic spires, cobbles, a river with a castle over it, and then somebody switches the Christmas lights on and the whole place stops looking real. It’s one of the few cities where the postcard version and the actual version are the same thing.
It’s also small. You can walk between all four Christmas markets in under an hour, which means you’re never far from a cup of something hot. These are the best things to do in Prague at Christmas, including the traditions locals actually keep and the corners where the crowds thin out.
1. Stand Under The Tree In Old Town Square
This is the one on all the postcards. A huge tree in the middle of Old Town Square, wooden huts packed around it, and the Gothic towers of Tyn Church going up behind the whole thing.
The tree gets lit every evening with a short show, and there’s a stage where school choirs and local bands play through December. It’s free and it runs most nights.
The stalls here lean toward gifts rather than food. Wooden toys, glass ornaments, puppets, and a lot of things you’ll look at for a while and not buy.
Come after dark. It’s a completely different square with the lights on, and the crowd thins out noticeably after about eight.
2. Eat Your Way Through The Wenceslas Square Market
Wenceslas Square is the food one. It’s less pretty than Old Town, being a long boulevard rather than a medieval square, and the eating is much better for it.
Grilled sausages, ham carved off the bone, potato pancakes, langos, and cheese fried in breadcrumbs. Prices are lower here than in the Old Town too.
It runs the length of the square up toward the National Museum, so it’s an easy walk end to end with something in your hand.
This is also the market that stays busy latest, because it sits in the middle of the city’s nightlife rather than the tourist core.
3. Climb Up To The Prague Castle Market
The smallest of the four markets sits inside the castle walls, and it’s the one most people skip.
It’s a handful of stalls rather than a proper market, but the setting does the work. St Vitus Cathedral is right there, and the views back over the red roofs of the city are the best in Prague.
Going up in the late afternoon means you get the view in daylight and the market lit up on the way back down.
Take the tram to Prazsky hrad if the hill looks like too much. Walking back down through Mala Strana is the nicer direction anyway.
4. Shop The Craft Stalls At Namesti Republiky
Republic Square sits just outside the Old Town, next to the Municipal House, and its market is the craft one.
More of the stalls here sell things actually made in the country. Blown glass, wooden toys, beeswax candles, honey products and mead.
It’s noticeably calmer than Old Town Square because it’s a working part of the city, with a shopping centre on one side and trams going past.
The Municipal House itself is worth a look while you’re there. It’s one of the great art nouveau buildings in Europe and there’s a cafe inside.
5. Warm Up With A Cup Of Svarak
Svarak is Czech mulled wine and it’s the fuel the whole season runs on. Every stall has it, it’s cheap, and it comes hot enough to hurt.
There’s usually a deposit on the mug that you get back when you return it. Plenty of people keep the mug instead, which is effectively how you buy a souvenir here.
Try medovina too, which is hot honey wine and sweeter than it sounds like it should be. Grog is the third option, rum and hot water and lemon, and it’s stronger than either.
Prices go up the closer you get to the Astronomical Clock, so drink one street back and it costs noticeably less.
6. Watch The Astronomical Clock Strike The Hour
The clock on the Old Town Hall has been running since 1410, which makes it the oldest one of its kind still working anywhere.
On the hour, the windows open, the twelve apostles go past, a skeleton pulls a bell rope and a rooster crows. The whole thing lasts about forty five seconds.
Everyone who watches it says the same thing afterwards, which is that it was shorter than expected. Watch it once, enjoy the crowd’s reaction, and then go and look at the actual clock face, which is the genuinely remarkable part.
You can climb the tower for a view straight down over the market and the square. There’s a lift if the stairs aren’t appealing.
7. Cross Charles Bridge At Sunrise
Charles Bridge in the middle of the day in December is a slow moving crowd of people taking the same photograph. Go at sunrise and you might have it to yourself.
In winter that means about half past seven, which is a civilised hour for a sunrise. Mist off the river is common and it makes the thirty statues along the bridge look like something out of a film.
The bridge tower at the Old Town end opens later in the morning, and the climb up gives you the view along the whole bridge to the castle.
Coming back across at night works too. It’s busy but the lighting is beautiful, and the buskers are out until late.
8. Get Up Petrin Hill For The View
Petrin is the big wooded hill on the west bank, and the lookout tower at the top of it is a small iron thing that looks a lot like the Eiffel Tower on purpose.
A funicular runs up from Ujezd when it’s operating, and it takes about four minutes. Walking up through the orchards takes twenty and is pleasant enough in the cold.
The view from the top takes in the whole city, the river, and the castle from above rather than below, which is the angle nobody expects.
There’s a mirror maze up there too, which is exactly as silly as it sounds and worth the few minutes.
9. Find The Carp Tubs On The Street
In the last few days before Christmas, big plastic tubs full of live carp appear on street corners all over the city.
Fried carp with potato salad is the traditional Czech Christmas Eve dinner, and buying the fish off the street is how a lot of families still do it. Some take it home alive in a bag of water and keep it in the bathtub until the day.
It’s one of those traditions you can read about and not really believe until you turn a corner and there’s a man in waders with a tank of fish and a queue.
The tubs turn up around the 22nd and are gone by Christmas Eve, so it’s a narrow window.
10. Go Out On Mikulas Night
On the evening of December 5th, groups of three walk the streets of Prague. One dressed as St Nicholas, one as an angel, one as a devil.
They stop children and ask whether they’ve been good. The angel hands out sweets and fruit, the devil rattles a chain and threatens to take the bad ones away in a sack. Most children sing a song or recite a poem to be safe.
By late evening the devils have generally stopped bothering with children and are drinking in the squares in full costume, which is its own kind of entertainment.
If your trip covers the 5th, this is the single most Czech thing you’ll see all week. Old Town Square and Wenceslas Square are the places to be.
11. Hear A Concert In St Nicholas Church
Prague runs classical concerts in its churches all through December, and St Nicholas in Mala Strana is the grandest room of the lot.
It’s high baroque, all pink marble and gold, with a ceiling fresco that’s one of the largest in Europe. Mozart played the organ here, which the programme will not let you forget.
Tickets are sold by people handing out flyers all over the Old Town, and the programmes are heavy on Vivaldi and Bach. Nobody is pretending this is the Philharmonic, but it’s an hour in a beautiful room and it’s cheap.
The Mirror Chapel in the Klementinum is the other good one, and it’s smaller and more atmospheric.
12. Skate At The Rink On Ovocny Trh
Outdoor rinks appear around the city for the season, and the one on Ovocny trh behind the Estates Theatre is the most central.
Some of them are free to skate on if you bring your own skates, with hire available for a small charge. It’s a local thing rather than a tourist attraction, which is most of the appeal.
The Estates Theatre next to it is where Don Giovanni premiered in 1787 with Mozart conducting, so the setting is better than the average municipal rink.
Rinks also turn up at Na Frantisku by the river and out in the residential districts if you’re staying away from the centre.
13. Order Svickova At Lokal
Czech winter food is heavy, cheap and exactly right after a day in the cold. Svickova is the one to order: beef in a cream and root vegetable sauce, bread dumplings, a spoon of cranberry and a curl of whipped cream on top.
It sounds wrong written down and it’s superb. Roast pork with cabbage and dumplings is the other classic, and goulash comes in a bread bowl in the touristy places and in a bowl everywhere else.
Lokal is a small chain of proper Czech pubs, and it’s the safe recommendation. Fresh unpasteurised beer, paper tablecloths, brisk service.
Book a table in December. The office Christmas party season fills these places from about six every night.
14. See The Nativity At Tyn Church
The twin Gothic towers over Old Town Square belong to Tyn Church, and the inside is much less visited than the square outside it.
Churches across the city put up nativity scenes for the season, some of them carved and painted and very old. The one here is worth stepping in for, and the church is free to enter outside service times.
The Loreta over near the castle is the other one to know about, partly for its nativity and partly for the carillon of bells that plays on the hour.
Both are a five minute break from the noise outside, which by day three of a December trip is worth quite a lot.
15. Drink At The Strahov Monastery Brewery
The monks at Strahov have been brewing on and off since the twelfth century, and the brewery up at the monastery still makes beer you can only drink there.
The dark one is the one to have in winter. The food is roast meat and dumplings and it comes in portions built for people who have walked up a hill.
The monastery library next door is the reason most people come up here. Two baroque halls of old books and painted ceilings, and photographs of it turn up on every list of beautiful libraries in the world.
It’s a steep walk from Mala Strana, or the tram drops you at Pohorelec five minutes away. Coming down at dusk with the city lighting up below is the best part.
16. Look Down On The City From Letna Park
Letna is the park on the bluff above the river on the north side, and the view from the edge of it lines up every bridge across the Vltava at once.
The beer garden up here is a summer institution and mostly shut in the cold, but the view is there all year and there’s usually a stand open selling something hot.
It’s where people from Prague go rather than visitors, especially at sunset. The giant metronome at the top stands where a huge statue of Stalin once did, which is a story worth reading before you go.
The walk up from the Old Town over Cechuv Bridge takes about fifteen minutes.
17. Walk Vysehrad Away From The Crowds
Vysehrad is the old fort on a rock above the river south of the centre, and on a December afternoon you’ll share it with dog walkers and almost nobody else.
There’s a neo Gothic basilica with a painted interior, ramparts you can walk the whole way round, and a view back up the river toward the castle.
The cemetery here is where the country buries its famous. Dvorak and Smetana are both in it, and it’s a quiet, beautiful place in the cold.
It’s two stops on the metro from the middle of town and it feels like a different city. Go on the day the markets start to get to you.
What To Know Before Visiting Prague At Christmas
The markets open in the last few days of November and most of them run into early January, so the season is long. The first half of December is busiest.
December 24th is the day to plan around. Czech Christmas happens on Christmas Eve, and from lunchtime onward shops shut, restaurants close and the city goes very quiet. Book somewhere for dinner well ahead or you’ll be eating at your hotel.
Trdelnik, the sugared chimney cake sold on every corner, is not a Czech tradition. It’s a tourist invention of the last twenty years or so. Eat one if you want, just don’t think you’re eating something old.
It gets properly cold, regularly below freezing, and the cobbles get slippery. Bring boots with grip. Most of the best things to do in Prague at Christmas happen outdoors, and the ones that don’t involve a warm pub.
Final Thoughts
Prague in December is small enough to do properly in three days. Two for the markets and the Old Town, one for the castle side of the river, and an evening somewhere quiet like Vysehrad or Letna.
The markets are lovely and they are also the least surprising part. What sticks is the carp tubs, the devils on the 5th, and the fact that a city this pretty still shuts down completely to have dinner with its family.
Book dinner for Christmas Eve, pack for the cold, and go up a hill at least once.
