Prague Christmas markets

The headline market, set out in rows of wooden stalls across the Old Town Square, with a tall tree and a stage in the middle and the Gothic towers of the Týn church behind it. The tree lighting at the start of Advent draws one of the biggest crowds of the Prague year.

It is also the most expensive and the most crowded. Prices at the food stalls are pitched at visitors, and on a December weekend evening the square is shoulder to shoulder.

Go on a weekday morning or just after dark on a Monday. The lights are the same and you can move. Look up at the astronomical clock on the hour, keep your phone in a front pocket, and walk ten minutes to Wenceslas Square when it gets too full.

Stalls run down the lower part of Wenceslas Square, the long boulevard of the New Town. It lacks the Gothic backdrop of the Old Town Square, and it makes up for that with space: the crowd thins, the queues are shorter, and it is an easier place to stand still with a hot drink.

It is also the natural second stop — ten minutes on foot from the Old Town Square through Na Můstku — and a better choice if you are with children or a pushchair.

The markets locals actually use are smaller and further out. Jiřího z Poděbrad in Vinohrady, in front of the extraordinary modernist Church of the Sacred Heart, is the best of them: farm food, local crafts and prices meant for neighbours. Náměstí Míru, a few tram stops away, sets up in front of St. Ludmila's. Kampa in Malá Strana has a small, quiet market by the river.

None is a destination on its own. All of them are pleasanter than the Old Town Square on a Saturday evening, and they are where you will actually hear Czech being spoken.