Recently we have been getting desperate emails and calls from people planning to spend the holidays in Prague asking us to confirm whether the rumors that many restaurants would be closed over Christmas were true. Yes, they are. Although eighty percent of the Czechs are atheists or agnostics, Christmas remains the main holiday of the year and the majority of services, restaurants and shops shut down over the holiday season. Hey, those Christmas cookies won’t eat themselves, right?

We don't want you to end up with cheap booze offered by fake Santa (pictured above), so we have made a few calls, browsed a few websites and collected information about the opening times and special events some of the popular restaurants in Prague (that have our "seal of approval”) may have over the holidays. Here’s the results.

Ah! The beauty of the Czech language. Too bad it is only spoken by ten million people... and mostly incorrectly at that. To be honest, we always discourage anyone from trying to learn Czech in any serious fashion - it's just too difficult and only takes you that far. Jan had an English colleague at work who lived in Prague for over a decade and gave up after about 12 years of trying with these words:

"I'm giving up. The Czech language only goes to show how much you hate all other people. You gave a completely new meaning to language barrier."