Prague puppets

Most visitors to Prague swirl around the Old Town Square, with its history and the Town Hall

tower (from where you can get a splendid view of most of Prague) and then head off to the

Castle and St Vitus' Cathedral via Charles Bridge. And rightly so: for a short tour these are the

highlights, but there are many others which are there to be discovered during a longer stay:

Wenceslas Sq and the National Museum, the famous Jewish Cemetery, the beautiful Art

Nouveau 'Municipal House' with its concert hall and restaurants, and the many old pubs and fine

churches. It's a far cry from the dour, suspicious city I limped into with a friend on a

broken-down old British motorbike in 1967, the year before the Russian tanks rolled in. But

today it's a happier place, and one of our favourite hide-away corners is up a tiny alleyway

alongside the Týn Church, the one that looks like a Disney confection on the Old Town Sq. This

opens out into a small conclave of shops including an Ebel's coffee house (a godsend on a

winter's day), a fine bookshop and various artisan workshops including a puppetry studio where

these characters were displayed. Prague is famous for its wooden toys as a local craft, and

these exquisite harlequins were among the best I'd seen. They weren't there in 1967, and nor

was the best small hotel in town - I'll tell you where that is if you buy a picture from me!