The guide
Prague
Christmas trip · Prague, Czechia
Old Town Square at dusk — the great tree, the market stalls and the twin towers of the Týn Church.
Getting there
Jess’s loop: Dresden → Prague — about 2¼ hours on the EuroCity down the Elbe valley to Praha hlavní nádraží. Onwards: Prague → Vienna in about 4 hours.
From London: London St Pancras → Praha hlavní nádraží — Eurostar to Brussels, then on east by sleeper or day trains; the loveliest line runs via Berlin and Dresden, following the River Elbe into Bohemia.
Famous for
A Christmas market straight out of a storybook. Beneath the Astronomical Clock on Old Town Square, wooden stalls circle a great Christmas tree that lights up to music every evening, while the twin towers of the Týn Church keep watch over it all. The air smells of cinnamon and caramel: trdelník chimney cakes come off the coals rolled in sugar, and medovník honey cake is stacked by the slice. Then, at dusk, Charles Bridge — statues, buskers, lamplight — and the famous swans waiting underneath. Of the five stops on Jess's Christmas loop, Prague is the pure fairytale.
The Astronomical Clock on the Old Town Hall — the apostles parade on the hour.
Where to eat
- Restaurace U Špirků — Kožná 12, fifty metres behind the Astronomical Clock and somehow a world away from the crowds. Traditional Czech cooking in a cosy, faintly alchemical room; the beef goulash arrives inside a hollowed-out crispy bread loaf, and you eat the bowl afterwards. Jess's pick
- Lokál Dlouhááá — Dlouhá 33. A huge, happy Czech pub pouring tank-fresh Pilsner; the kitchen cooks like somebody's grandmother — goulash, schnitzel, dumplings. Book ahead: it fills with locals.
- U Parlamentu — Valentinská 52, by the Jewish Quarter. Old-school Czech pub with tanková Plzeň and heroic portions of goulash and schnitzel at honest prices.
What to do
- Old Town Square Christmas market — the big one: stalls circling the great tree under the Týn towers. Time your visit for dusk, when the tree lights up to music.
- The Astronomical Clock on the hour — Death rings his bell, the apostles glide past their little windows, and the whole square holds its breath. Over 600 years old and still the best show in town.
- Charles Bridge at dusk — statues, buskers and lamplight over the Vltava, with the river's swans gathered underneath (Jess did her keeper's head-count: 43).
- Prague Castle & St Vitus Cathedral — the vast castle district above the river; go early, then stay for the view back over the rooftops.
- Prague Zoo — up in Troja, and one of the great zoos of the world. Jess's favourite in the city — see below.
The morning pool show — Prague Zoo's polar bears.
A Przewalski's horse — the species Prague's keepers saved.
The Charles Bridge swans — the Old Town's feathered welcoming committee.
Jess's favourite
Prague Zoo, up in Troja — 58 hectares of wooded hillside above the river, and rated among the best zoos on Earth
Jess goes straight to the polar bears for the morning pool show (arrive early: first thing is their liveliest, splashiest hour), then up the hill to the Przewalski's horses — a species once extinct in the wild, bred back by Prague's keepers and flown home to the Mongolian steppe. A keeper's pilgrimage; allow half a day.
Good to know: The Old Town market runs from late November into early January — the longest season of the five markets on the loop — and the tree lights up to music roughly every hour at dusk; go midweek for elbow room. One honest note: the beloved trdelník chimney cake is a market treat, not an ancient Czech tradition, whatever the stallholders tell you. The zoo is an easy tram ride out to Troja. And take koruna (Czech crowns), not euros — cards are accepted almost everywhere.
Jess plans her trips the week before, but trains have a mind of their own. Routes, times and fares in these guides were checked at the time of writing — engineering works, timetable changes and last-minute alterations can still happen. Please check your journey before you travel (National Rail Enquiries or the Trainline app) — and if a replacement bus sneaks in, we hope the day makes up for it.
Read Jess's diary of the day ↓
Jess's Christmas Adventures · Diary No. 4
Prague: Wild Horses, a Bread-Loaf Lunch, and a Headcount of Swans
Christmas trip·Prague, Czechia
Six years of zoo mornings have completely rewired me — I wake before dawn wherever I am, already half-listening for the lemurs demanding breakfast. This time it worked out, because I opened my eyes somewhere over Bohemia, with Prague sliding closer outside the window. Fourth stop of my Christmas week off — Strasbourg, Nuremberg, Dresden behind me, and a whole week of mornings with nobody to feed but myself.
The EuroCity from Dresden had carried me the two and a bit hours down the Elbe valley, the river doing all the entertaining — sandstone cliffs, little villages, frost smoking off the water in the morning light. I had my flask of tea and Barnaby's latest dictation in my notebook — a Clarence & Pinafor story about the fine art of not rushing, which felt appropriate for a girl on a train with absolutely nowhere to be. Out into cold that makes your eyes water cheerfully — roast chestnuts on the air, and spires everywhere.
The zoo
There was never any question where a junior keeper starts her day in Prague. The tram out to Troja, and then the gates of Prague Zoo — fifty-eight hectares of hillside above the river, around five thousand animals, and a keepers' legend — rated among the best zoos on Earth, and you can feel why: it doesn't feel like a city zoo at all — more like a wooded valley the animals have kindly agreed to share.
First stop, non-negotiable: the polar bears. Prague's bears have a proper pool, and if you catch them in the morning you get the full show — great white shapes sliding off the rocks and torpedoing through the water after their breakfast, surfacing to shake off a whole waterfall and look extremely pleased with themselves. I watched a cub-sized one (they are never cub-sized for long) do three laps of pure, pointless joy, and honestly, I get it. Some mornings at the zoo I would also queue to dive headfirst into a pool for a fish. Then — because every keeper does — the horses.
To the Przewalski's horses, then, and I make no apology for going misty-eyed at that fence. These small, tough, dun-coloured horses were once extinct in the wild — gone, finished — until Prague's keepers spent decades breeding them back and flying their descendants home to the Mongolian steppe. A whole species, brought back by patience, one foal at a time: nobody notices slow work until it saves a horse. A quick courtesy call on the gorillas followed — they gave me the unimpressed once-over our gorillas save for visiting keepers — and then it was time to be a tourist.
Lunch
Back over the river into the Old Town, to a little place just behind the Astronomical Clock that a friend had raved about: Restaurace U Špirků, on Kožná. Proper traditional Czech cooking, in a cosy, faintly alchemical interior, fifty metres from the square and somehow a world away from the crowds. I ordered their speciality: goulash served inside a hollowed-out crispy bread loaf, tender beef, rich gravy, the bowl deliciously edible. A raspberry lemonade, a seat by the window to watch Prague hurry past while I absolutely did not. Jess's pick — I'd cross a city for that bread bowl, and I have the crumbs on my coat to prove it.
The market
Then my mandatory wrong turn: aiming for Old Town Square, I ducked down a lane that got narrower and narrower until it gave up and deposited me there anyway. The square at Christmas is the beating heart of the city — wooden stalls circling a tree the size of a house, hung with more lights than our entire zoo festive budget, steam rising off roast chestnuts, the grown-ups queuing happily for mulled wine while I went for hot chocolate. I had a trdelník fresh off its spit — chimney cake rolled in cinnamon sugar, too hot to hold, impossible to put down — and a slice of medovník, layered honey cake, for the train. When the Astronomical Clock struck the hour, the little apostles paraded in its windows and the whole crowd watched, mouths slightly open — six centuries old and still the best show in town. As dusk fell the great tree lit up to music, the square stopping all at once to look, and down beneath Charles Bridge the river's swans were gathering for market scraps along the bank. So I did what I always do. I counted them. Forty-one, forty-two — no, madam, you don't get counted twice — forty-three. Six years of morning headcounts; I can't watch a crowd of animals without turning it into rounds.
Home
A night in Prague, then, and tomorrow the train south — four hours down the line to Vienna, the last stop of the whole loop. I packed slowly: cinnamon on my gloves, the honey cake saved for the road, notebook smelling of roast chestnuts. Tired feet, cold nose, one more city to go. Happy.
Barnaby's text“A zoo at dawn, a lunch that was also a bowl, and forty-three swans counted before supper. Stop four of your week and you're still doing your rounds like a professional. The animals would approve.”
— Jess
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