This little piggy went to Market

This year the destination for our annual Christmas Market trip was Prague and because of the flight times from Glasgow I had to spend a day longer there than my fellow Marketeers, it's a tough life :)

We arrived in Prague the evening before the main market opened, what can I say we were keen??

So our first port of call the next morning was to check out the main market in the Old Town Square, which as you can see was appropriately festive for the weekend ahead.

Prague's Christmas markets are spread out throughout the city with stalls set out naturally in Wenceslas Square as well as in other areas of the city

including in front of St George's Basilica next to Prague Castle.

We ventured off the beaten track a bit to visit Namesti Miru Christmas market, which is held in front of the Church of St Ludmilla. This market had a much less touristy feel with stalls selling mistletoe branches and Christmas trees as well as Czech sausages and hot drinks.

There has been an open-air market at Havelska street in Prague since 1232 when Wenceslas 1 was the ruler, so it was definitely on our list of must-visits!

Of course as well as sampling the delights of warming svarak (mulled wine) we had to try the local speciality of trdelnik, or chimney cake, which as you can see above is a pastry wrapped around a roller and baked over coals. It is then rolled in sugar or cinnamon and can be eaten as is or filled with fruit, cream or chocolate. You will not be surprised I am sure to know that we went for the filled version, with a delicious Apple Strudel filling!

For the first time on one of our market trips we stayed in an apartment rather than a hotel and it worked out really well. We were a 5 minute walk from this view from the Charles Bridge to the Castle and Cathedral,

We spied this very patient donkey in the live tableau at one of the markets in the city.

We were, however, rather underwhelmed by the Christmas markets in Prague to be honest. The majority of the stalls were selling food or drink which was fine but there is a limit to how much mulled wine and cake a girl can eat and drink! The market in front of the cathedral, for example, had 29 stalls and all but 5 of them were for food or drink.

One of our pleasures from visiting markets in Germany is collecting the ceramic mugs that the mulled wine is sold in, the particular stall we buy from is often determined by the novelty of their mug :) In Prague, however, the drinks are all sold in paper cups which had the benefit of making the cost of the wine cheaper but wasn't quite so appealing.

We had hoped too, that as our visit was at the beginning of December that we would be able to find different to the usual Advent Calendars, we have very fond memories of the Gingerbread Advent Calendars that we found in Aachen. Again we were disappointed as there were no Advent related gifts or calendars at any of the markets we visited.

One of my youngest son's favourite foods is Stollen, the fruited yeast bread with a marzipan centre, and he is often the happy recipient of several Stollen items from these market trips but we couldn't find anything like it in Prague either. The chimney cakes weren't for travelling unfortunately.

We enjoyed our trip and saw lots of lovely parts of Prague, but I could not in all honesty recommend it as a Christmas Market destination. It will be back to Germany, hopefully, for us next year!

Ready for Market

By the time you read this I shall be well into my annual Christmas Market trip with my lovely daughters-in-law and our youngest son's lovely partner. Well I hope I am as I am writing this the night before I head off very early next morning!

This year we will be tasting and testing the delights of Prague's Christmas Markets.

I last visited Prague in February 2014, where I took this photo of the Charles Bridge. I think it might be a bit colder in December :)

To get us in the mood for Christmas shopping I made some small gifts for the girls for the trip.

Snowflake earrings

Let it Snow earrings (it will be -2 but the forecast is not showing any snow whilst we are there)

Santa in the Chimney earrings. I couldn't resist these charms as last year our grandson entertained us all with his Santa getting stuck in the chimney song for hours :)

And for me, these polymer clay Christmas tree earrings.

All of the charms for these earrings are from Beads Unlimited, they had a great selection of Christmas themed charms and beads and on the day I ordered them 15% off all charms!

In years past I would always bring my Mum back some scented decorations from whichever Market I had visited. This year, I will not be able to do that but as I came across this beaded Santa brooch that she had made when I was clearing out Mum and Dad's flat in February I will be wearing it on the trip instead.

So, if you happen to be in Prague at the weekend and you see a group of females bedecked in Christmas jewellery testing all of the various Mulled Wine variations and sampling all of the many cakes on offer give us a wave :)

Na zdravi!

Books, Clocks and Dancing Buildings

On our recent visit to Prague, whilst searching for a Post Office we wandered into a rather large building expecting to find Post Office counters and mail boxes. Instead we found this!

As soon as we were close enough to see that this was made of books we realised that we had wandered into the library by mistake!

This book tower was amazing, it ran the full height of the building, which was at least three storeys high. This photo was taken on the first floor so peeping through the gap in the front you could see right down to the basement or right up to the top floor.

We eventually found the Post Office around the corner :)

Around another corner we found another amazing feat of engineering.

This is the Town Hall clock in the Old Town Square in Prague, isn't it glorious?

The mechanism for this clock dates from between 1552 and 1572, which is pretty mind-blowing too.

The bottom dial, which was replaced in 1866, represents a calendar with peasant scenes to illustrate the months of the year.

The top dial, seen here in close-up, has a wealth of information on it. The hand with the sun on it records three different times, the outer ring for Old Bohemian time (of use only to Old Bohemians!), the Roman Numerals inside that ring records current time, the blue part inside the Roman Numerals represents daylight hours, which vary from summer to winter. The inner ring shows the movement of the sun and moon through the 12 signs of the zodiac. It makes digital clocks look exceedingly boring!

As well as all of the above to take in, there is a floorshow to be seen on the hour :) The two figures on the right hand side of the clock are Death (the skeleton) and the Turk. At each hour Death pulls on the rope in his hand and inverts the hourglass in his hand, the Turk shakes his head from side to side. Vanity, on the left hand side, meanwhile is gazing at himself in the mirror next to his friend Greed.

But that is not all!

Above the dials the windows open and a procession of the Twelve Apostles pass by peering out of the open windows in turn.

Needless to say it is not difficult to tell when an hour approaches if you are anywhere near the vicinity of the clock. The whole show is over in a flash, but is definitely worth the wait.

Although buildings such as the Charles Bridge and Prague Castle above are how most people think of the city, there is a modern side to this beautiful city too.

Nowhere is this better epitomised than in the aptly named Dancing House. 

The building was completed in 1996, and was not universally popular at the time of its' construction, but now is as much of a landmark as its' Baroque and Art Nouveau neighbours. It is even more fun when lit up at night, but we didn't get a chance to see that. Maybe next time :)

Linking up as ever to

New to Me in February

It's the 25th of the month, which means that it is time to look back on February to see what we have tried that is New to You this month.

Maybe it's because February is a short month but it feels that I haven't tried out very much that is New to Me this month. I have, however, a big (to me anyway!) new activity to report!


Visit Celtic Thistle's Craftsy Pattern Store »




I have opened a Craftsy Pattern Store!!! At the moment there is only one, free pattern in the store so I am certainly not going to be making my fortune from it :) Still, I have wanted to write up a pattern for this Luckenbooth applique for a long time, so I am thrilled to bits to have finally done it. I am even more thrilled that 90+ Craftsy members liked the look of the pattern enough to download it too :) I already have plans for the next pattern, I just have to get my head around the technology to get what I have in my head into pattern form!

Prague in Winter http://www.praguewelcome.cz

When you read this I will be experiencing my second New to Me activity this month as we have headed off to Prague for a few days. We have never visited Prague before so we are looking forward to exploring this beautiful city.

Now, it's your turn to link up what you have been trying out this month.


As ever please help to spread the word by linking back to this post in your post and/or adding the blog button to your sidebar.

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Check out the other links and leave a comment along the way. The emphasis of this link party is to celebrate the trying of something new, whether it works out exactly as planned or not, so a little encouragement here and there would not go amiss! 

The link will remain open until 23.59GMT on February 28th, so if you have been inspired by the Winter Olympics or trying to escape the snow, floods or heat there is still time to try something new and link up and join the party :)

An InLinkz Link-up

There is still time to link up to the Ho,Ho,Ho and on We Sew link party too

So, if you have made a start on your Christmas/Holiday gifts or decorations this month check out February's post and link here

All links will be entered into the random draw to win this great addition to your Holiday sewing library.


An eBook of Christmas patterns from Bustle and Sew, the perfect start to your organised Christmas crafting :)