Wishing You All a Happy New Year
Photo: This is a Carp pond in our village and by mid-January they'll be ice fishing. So no surprise about what to expect from the weather!!
Christmas will drift on until January 6th. This is what most of the western world might know as 12th Night but in Czech we call it Three Kings. Look out for people writing above doorways in the city (in chalk) something that will look like K+M+B 2019 or maybe 20 K+M+B 19. Either is wishing good luck to the resident of the property but it has to be written by a stranger. The K is for Kaspar, M is for Melchior and B is Baltazar i.e. the three kings. That means that although the Christmas Advent markets are closed, the Christmas Markets at the Old Town Square and Wenceslas Square will have their last day on January 6th.
January is historically the lead-in to the coldest weather of the year. Not unusual for Prague to be down as far as minus 8-10 degrees Celsius for periods although it's offset by very high pressure weather which makes for blue skies and sunshine.
What's Been Happening on the Site
The record for the most number of visitors in any December was broken with the new record now at 53,758. The site single day visitor record was absolutely smashed on December 31st with 6026 visitors to the site which was a 120% increase on the previous record.
A client coming to Prague asked about how to avoid problems as one of their kids had a nut allergy. I'd already spent time looking at what I could write that specifically related to Czech/Prague so that ended with me publishing the Prague Nut Allergy post. That contains general advice, what to look out for and how to pick out places that show an obvious care for preventing this issue. There's also a printable section to make your own "Nut Allergy" card for use here. As I expanded my city knowledge for use in Living Prague Tours I went back to an old post which I'd called "Jewish Plaques" and I fully updated the site with a new post called Prague Stumble Stones. If you want some of the stories associated with the Stumble Stones you'll need to do a tour.
Check the BLOG to see the latest 150 posts on the site.
I've offered this discount to my tour clients for the last year for those specifically looking for authentic Czech Garnet and Crystal. The shop has now extended the range of the discount so now I'm offering it to any visitors to Livingprague. It covers gold, precious stones, semi-precious stones and cut/engraved crystal. Just click the picture and print the associated voucher. Redeem at the shop (Old Town location).
Livingpraguetours.com
The new version of the site is now at https://www.livingpraguetours.com so I can now run the same Turitop ticket system on both sites. You can see the whole booking process at https://www.livingpraguetours.com/tour-booking-process/.
I'm holding at number 14 out of a total 614 walking tour options in the Trip Advisor rankings. Of the top 10 private tours in Prague ranked by Trip Advisor, I'm currently 5th. More and more people are finding me just with a simple search for Prague Walking Tours. In 2018 I walked almost 2000Km over the various tours.
If you've done a walking tour then you are welcome to recommend me on the LivingPragueTours Facebook page.
Quick Links:
In Prague
Jan Palach
January 16th marks the event and January 19th marks his death. Read about what happened on the Jan Palach post.
No go
Taxify, one of the growing breed of taxi apps got banned in Prague after failing to meet the required criteria i.e. that their drivers pay tax in this country. They are appealing.
Three Kings
Don't worry if you see three guys dressed in robes writing on doors on January 6th. Anybody lucky enough to get K+M+B 2019 written on their front door will hope for good fortune in the coming year.
Freebie Culture
More than 200,000 people took advantage of free entry to the recently reopened National Museum to go and visit. From January 1st you have to pay.
Organ Donor
A public fund has now raised 74 million CZK (that's about 2.5 Million Pounds) for building and installing a grand new Organ at ST Vitus Cathedral.
Time for Change?
The EU has strangely given all member states the chance to vote on which time zone they want to be in. Currently the Czechs would prefer GMT +1 (that's the normal Central European Time), the Germans want GMT+2 (European Summer Time) and the Austrians haven't made up their mind. No change there then.
Trivia
Gotcha!
A 46 year old Czech lorry driver was foolish enough to try and smuggle 10 Heckler and Koch pistols in the United Kingdom. He was caught and got 8 years.
Ouch!
A woman in Prague was bitten by her pet Green Mamba snake, fell into a coma and died seven weeks later. The snake survived.
Going Up!
Number of prisoners went up 6% compared to the last audit in 2015.
Number of female prisoners increased by 48% compared with 10 years ago.
Average monthly wage in the country increased by 8.5% to CZK31,516.
33% of Czechs are now living in prefabricated blocks of flats.
There are @48,000 opioid addicts, up 1000 from last year.
British Nationals applying for Czech citizenship rose from 5 in 2016 to 42 last year.
British Nationals applying for long-term Czech residency rose by 1000 in the last year.
Going Down!
GDP projected to fall by 1.1% if it's a no-deal Brexit
Employment projected to fall by 40,000 if it's a no-deal Brexit
Train drivers are retiring faster than new drivers can be trained according to statistics
Going Nowhere!
Government once again NOT to agree a convergence date to join the Eurozone. They'll take another look next year.
Raising a Toast
Look out for Rulandské Bilé on wine menus in 2019 as this Czech version of a Pinot Noir from the Bzenec Winery beat 400 other Czech wines to be crowned Wine of the Year 2019.
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