Compact archive December 2005

Have you ever thought to stay in Prague on Christmas Holiday? An Australian couple realized this idea. Do you know snow only from pictures?
Do you want to have snow-premiere to remember? Snowfall at Castle of Prague is gorgeous!

It was very quiet for 2 days before Christmas.
Saturday we woke up (no snow :-() and explored Prague. Went across the famous Charles Bridge and up to Prague Castle. Boxing Day… woke up and did our obligatory look out the window for snow and guess what????? SNOWING.

Their opinion on Prague when snow falls you can read in their travel diary.

Prague photos from an American businessman, who has a camera still ready. You can see his pictures of well-known Old town square, Charles Bridge as well as photos of Vltava, Prague rooftops or Old-style pub on his web blog.

Very famous Wenceslas square was suffering because of prostitution, pickpocketing and drug dealing.
Prague magistrate decided to make decisive step and cleans up whole square. Prague mayor Pavel Bem summoned dozens of policemen, uniformed and under covered for few weeks to square.

Jiri Sellner, Prague 1 Police chief: “Over one thousand were engaged in the oldest profession. Of the people we checked, 1,600 were foreign citizens, of whom 350 ended up in police custody. Sixty of them were people already wanted. We also recorded 2,183 criminal offences and gave out over 1,500 fines totalling 628,000 crowns (25,500 US dollars).”

“My citizens of Prague understand me,” once Mozart said.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, maybe best composer ever, really liked Prague and Bohemia. And now there is struggle between Czechtourism agency and Austrian Freedom party. Freedom party wants to remove from Austria Czechtourism billboards that says “Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart stayed in the Czech Lands five times. What about you?”

Party objects that “The Czechs are trying to create the impression that the Czech Republic always existed on its present territory. But, Mozart never visited the Czech Republic. You could only say he visited Bohemia and Prague was considered a German city at the time.”

But Czech historians point out that name for this country as Czech has been normal since the Renaissance.

I have found a nice article about Prague Christmas markets with some author’s photos. So if you would like to see how Wenceslas square, Old Town square or Parizska (Paris) street looks in December night, click here.

Some Prague Christmas photos you can also find at Prague pictures.

A little notice: The author describes “a something that looks like an elongated donut.” It is called Staroceske trdlo (Old-Bohemian muff) and it is food from medieval times. And it’s great.

An American student spent one semester in Prague. She find out, that there is hard to be an vegetarian with such a cuisine which includes wild rosemary boar, cheese infused kielbasa or goulash with bread dumplings.

It was in Prague that I broke my 6 years as a vegetarian. I arrived and was offered (more or less) to eat tomatoes, cucumber and fried cheese for 4 months, or dine on wild rosemary boar, cheese infused kielbasa, goulash with bread dumplings, chicken stuffed with ham and cheese… I thought I should take advantage of the situation.

You can find more about Czech beer, “The Simpson’s” restaurant and carrot ginger soup here.