The dates and opening times of this year’s Prague Christmas markets have been announced. The markets on Old Town Square and Wenceslas Square will run from December 2 to January 1 and will be open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays and from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekends. The markets will close around noon on Christmas Eve (Dec. 24). Food stands at the markets keep longer hours and can stay open until midnight.
You can find lots of information about Prague Christmas markets and other events in the Prague Christmas section on My Czech Republic.
When I looked out of the window this morning, I gasped. There was snow, and a decent amount of it! True, it was freezing last night and the weather forecasters did predict the possibility of snow showers for the whole country, even in low elevations, even in Prague. But this is very early in the year and I didn’t believe we’d actually see snow before 
If you’ve ever taken a hike or even just an out-of-town walk to a particular sight in the Czech Republic, chances are you found yourself on a marked trail. You probably know what the markers look like. Two short horizontal white strips with a strip of color in between. In nature, the markers are usually painted on trees. If they are needed in a town, you’ll find them on whatever surface works – walls, fence posts, etc.
Unlike trail marking systems in other countries, the Czech system was unified from the very beginning and hasn’t really changed since. Only red markers were used at first (red and white were the colors of the Czech flag at that time) but three more colors were added soon after. The use of the colors is not random but follows clear rules, each color signifying a different trail level:
By 1938, Czechoslovakia had the longest and best trail marking system in the world with 40,000 km of marked trails. Today’s 39,742 km no longer constitute the longest marked trail network, but it is still the densest in the world. All trails are perfectly inconnected and the clear and frequent markers enable a hiker to hike without the need of a map. And when a marker starts rubbing off or gets damaged, it is simply painted over with a hand brush and looks like new in a matter of minutes.