We’ve been running food tours in Prague and Moravia for 11 years now, and we can confidently say that we’ve seen it pretty much all. But there are some mistakes our guests make, and some misconceptions they have, over and over again. So we’ve said “enough”!

Here’s five basic tips that will help you enjoy our food tours (and any other tours, really) to the fullest.

Are you in Prague this year, love wine and want to get into Moravian wines, but don’t know where to start? We’re happy you’re here. First of all, good job you for knowing about Moravian wines. They are hardly ever exported (the entire wine production of the Czech Republic satisfies only about 40% of its consumption) and definitely worth looking into. Second, good job finding your way here. Because we have a few ideas. A starter pack, if you will.

We won’t lie to you: this list is heavily biased by our very own Moravian wine tours and whatever it is we taste on our explorations of the Moravian wine country. But we do believe that the winemakers we visit are the best we can visit, and we choose them very, very carefully to be a true representation of what great Moravian wines and winemakers can be. (BTW, if you want to book a spot, don’t hesitate - it’s an awesome weekend out of Prague that sells out quick and is always guided by Jan, who happens to write these words.)

So without hesitation, here we go - a few wines you should try in Prague while you’re here.

If you follow our Instagram, you know we love to travel with our little JJ. Travelling with him and seeing the destination through his eyes is truly rewarding... as is giving him to the grandma for a day or two once we come back. (Sheesh, rewarding but so tiring, too!)

Anyway, while we want to do the things we want to do when we travel, we try to make sure he gets what we call his “executive time” - a good hour of juts pure playtime at a playground where we travel. Some cities do playgrounds really well (Paris, for instance, or Kyiv was great, too), while some lag slightly behind (we’re looking at you, Barcelona and Rome).

Luckily, Prague clearly belongs among the cities that do playgrounds really well. So if you’re traveling to Prague with your kids, here’s our favorite kids’ playgrounds in Prague.

Everybody knows about the beer. Some know about the wine. But where Prague really punches way above its weight, it’s artisanal cocktails. (And specialty coffee - just see for yourself).

And after two plus years of covid that feel like twenty regular ones (btw, have you seen my hair? I seem to have lost it some time in 2020), we all need a drink. (If you’re reading this later on, this was written days after Mr Smith “slapped the sh*t out of” Mr Rock.) And in that sense, Prague delivers. So where do you go to have a drink? Just read below... and enjoy. (Another Prague’s hidden gem: our Prague food tours, of course. [End of shameless plug.])

You may be watching the recent developments in Ukraine with the same dread and anxiety and fear for civilian lives as much as we do here in Prague. We stand with Ukraine as it faces a violent, unprovoked aggression from the Russian government. We say Russian government because we firmly believe that regular Russians as a people have nothing to do with this and have no interest or desire to wage a senseless war against a neighbor.

But perhaps you are from overseas and planning a trip to Prague, or Central Europe as a whole, and you’re thinking how it may affect us, or your trip. So we thought it would be a good idea to clarify how the war in Ukraine affects us here in Prague, and how do we feel about it here in Prague. And let’s be honest here: when I write “we”, I mean fairly affluent, liberal-leaning urban dwellers from Prague. We’re not the ambassadors of Czechia, and can’t speak for everybody here, but we feel compelled to give our two cents about this whole situation. So let’s get to it.

Executive summary

If you’re planning a trip to Prague, come over. It’s safe, and the fighting is far. Just give support to Ukraine and see if you can help from where you are. This proud nation deserves it.

Monday is Valentine’s Day. Sure, you “don’t celebrate” Valentine’s Day. But let’s get real - if your significant other celebrates it, you celebrate it too. This is not optional. But winning at Valentine’s Day is easy, especially when it comes to food in Prague. Here’s a few (and definitely not all) options and ideas when it comes to Valentine’s Day dining in Prague.

When we started our Prague Foodie Tours at the top of the Wenceslas Square in Prague’s New Town, showing its historical importance was easy: we’d just whip out our iPad and show photos of people celebrating Czechoslovakia’s independence in 1918, the Nazi troops parading on the square in 1938, the Soviet tanks in 1968, and the Velvet Revolution that ended Communism in late 1989.

Yes, Wenceslas Square, one of Prague’s natural crossroads and a place when the locals meet to venture into the historical centre, where they work and shop (but rarely live) is a place where history was repeatedly made. It has been losing its splendour in the past decades as it lost some high-profile retail shops to Old Town’s Pařížská street and as it became the nearest Prague had to a red light district at night. Think Champs-Élysées, but in Prague.

So the locals may be a bit grumpy about the current state of the square, and look forward to plans of its revitalisation, which - after years of empty promises - seem to be finally picking up speed.

The Wenceslas Square is not just a photo opportunity to capture the monumental National Museum towering at the top of the avenue (year, the „square“ is not really a square), but a great place to spend a day, or a half of it, breathe in the history, have a meal and a drink, and wonder through the webs of walkthroughs that connect the buildings around it. So if you’ve done the Old Town and the Castle District during your Prague trip, the Wenceslas Square is a great place to explore, especially on a rainy day in Prague.

At the end of every year, we write a piece on new openings in Prague. And every year we’re surprised by how many good or decent places actually opened. And boy oh boy, while 2021 sure was a difficult year, we have edited our count down to 50, which means nearly one opening per week. Not too shabby. And this list is by no means exhaustive - it’s just a list of places that have entered our radar and are or are supposed to be good.

And like every year, we’ve made a cheat sheet for you to print out and out it in your wallet or on your fridge, in an attempt to remind yourself that there are still places in Prague you haven’t been. Feel free to scroll down for a download.

Anyway, let’s go down recent memory lane and see what opened in 2021.

So here we go again. When we posted our last post about the covid situation and restrictions in late June, we may have honestly thought it would be the last one: after a slower rollout, vaccines were widely available to anyone who wanted them, our infection numbers were low, and the future was bright.

Well, some five months and one general election later, we entered a pretty brutal fifth wave in November 2021: the number of infections were breaking all previous records, and our hospitals started to fill up with mostly unvaccinated patients.

Right now it seems the peak of this wave is behind us, and the numbers of infections, hospitalisations and Covid-related deaths have been steadily falling, and some of the restrictions have been lifted.

So let’s look at what the situation and restrictions are, how did we get here, and what may be our way forward.

So after last year’s Christmas lockdown, take-out boxes and a whole lotta eggnog, Christmas dining is back in 2021. We’ve been personally eating out on Christmas Eve for years now, for one simple reason: we can’t be bothered. Spending the special day in the kitchen, alternating between swearing and drinking, and then trying to avoid all talk of politics when the in-laws get in (add more wine) and listen to them talk about how „grandma’s potato salad wasn’t done like this“? (Is there any wine left?) Thank you but no, thank you.

Now, eating out on Christmas Eve means a clean kitchen, a visit to a few relatives in their messy homes, a nice dinner and then getting back to your squeaky clean, fragrant-candle-smelling home to give and get presents. And if you’re visiting Prague as a tourist, it’s honestly the only option.