Christmas Market at Starometska, Prague

We can hardly believe that Christmas is storming down on us again.  It seems like a blink since we were shivering at the Nuremburg markets last year.

We have also not had a week-end in Prague for many weeks and so decided to be the “tourist in our own home town” again.

I heard word at the office that the Starometska (Old Town) markets were really good this year so we went to visit them on the week-end.

The first sight that caught my eye was the Staročeské trdlo (Old Czech pastry).  I have just been scanning google to find a translation, but the best I could find was this explanation: 

Credit to a web source I can’t remember (sic) “I am Czech so I can tell you what TRDLO really means. It comes from old Czech where it meant a pole, especially a standing pole that could be used for various purposes like tieing up animals (goats etc) or also keepint fiber when making threads etc.etc. The saying was “do not stand here like a trdlo” (and rather do something useful. So people who used to stand and not to know what to do or how to work, there were considered foolish, maybe a little bit stupid for not to know what should be done. So this way in modern Czech this word means someone who had done something stupid, but it is not serious, it is often used to address children who just made something that has to be repaired.
So trdlo really means a pole or a stick, simply the stick on which one makes the food you had seen. The food is rarely called trdlo itself, traditionally it is called trdelnik, but a company that sells it most has patented the name trdlo for this food though it is a little bit nonsense in Czech but propably shorter, who knows why.”

So back to the trdlo stand which I am never able to pass by without becoming a customer.  Sweet bread freshly roasted and rolled in cinnamon … mmmm.

We gave the girls a limit of 5 Christmas market goodies each and so we stopped at each stall while the girls considered what to spend their 5 limit on.  Here we are at a stall that sells shell Christmas tree decorations.

And another stall of brightly decorated glass ornaments – and I could not resist the warm winter mittens.

The atmosphere is great with street performers and musicians:

Sarah posing for the camera (isn’t she stunning):

We could tell it was close to on the hour by the tourist swarm in front of the astronomical clock. It performs a jig every hour (and was an immense let down for us when we saw it the first time)

We had lunch at a street-side cafe overlooking the astronomical clock and Colin snapped his girls, playing with his new camera:

 Lunch barely over and it is already getting dark.  Notice the angel made of lights:

Yes, The Woods were here: