There are few things I truly love about London. However, the close proximity to major airports served by budget airlines is one of them. I can hop on an EasyBus (the cheap and terrifying bus transfer) and onto a Ryanair or Wizz Air flight and get away for the weekend for under £50 return and I like to try and get a couple in each year.
This year we did our major holidays in Egypt and India and our weekend breaks in Katowice, Poland and Brno, Czech Republic. Over the years though I've been to Venice, Bremen, Frankfurt, Milan, Oslo, Dublin, Warsaw, Wroclaw and probably a couple of others that I can no longer remember.
When I tell people this they presume I love to travel, the real truth is though that I love to eat. Eastern Europe offers some fantastic food at a miniscule amount of money compared to home.
In Katowice we had three course meals with a leg of goose, a whole stuffed apple and roast potatoes for £12. We also gorged ourselves on the local dumplings; piergoi.
I rarely blog about my adventures but thought it was about time I did after eating a ridiculous amount of food at the Christmas market in Brno.
It started so innocently with a chimney cake - how could I resist the warm fire with the wafting smell of cake and sugar and caramel? The dough is coiled around a thick cylinder before being rotated over an open fire until golden brown. Once cooked it is pressed into a sugary, nutty bath before being sliced off and the hollow cakes served wrapped in napkins. I ate it slowly, uncoiling it as I went. The cost? 50kr - £1.40 a meagre price compared to what you'd pay at a street food stall in London.
We continued to walk through the market, taking in the smell of the mead wine (£1) and the sights of the locals queuing to stand on a platform to ring a bell.Then disaster happened, well, for our cholesterol anyway. We walked into the food stalls. People were gathered round tables eating deep fried pancake looking things and big meaty sausages; a whole pig was hoisted up ready to be cooked.
We ordered a potato pancake and a sausage with difficulty and then headed back to one of the tables to share our finds (90kr - £2.50).
The potato pancake (called bramboracky - we found out later) was dripping with grease, fresh from being deep fried. It was stuffed full of garlic and caraway seeds, it was, I'm not ashamed to say, delicious. The grease made it hard to eat large quantities but you felt in the cold that really you needed these calories especially the crunchy edges. The sausage was also delicious and no gristle in sight, it was served with bread and a mustard that wasn't too hot, it was just right.
We then stretched our legs and headed up to the second part of the market about 300m down the road. This one featured more craft stalls selling Christmas decorations, wooden spoons and toys. It also happened to have even more food stalls, just what we needed!
This time we ordered a Langose (30kr - 80p), it looked like a pizza but tasted more like a fried Yorkshire pudding. It's essentially a deep fried flat bread - healthy! We topped it with cheese and ketchup but regretfully no garlic - I hadn't realised it was traditionally served this way!
After all this we did manage to eat a main meal in the evening, again for a reasonable price. All washed down with the local beer which was actually cheaper than the bottled water!
I'd certainly recommend Brno for a weekend break. In between the feasting we visited many of their local landmarks. The most notable of which is an ossuary which is a mass burial site, Brno's was only recently discovered (2001) and has been transformed in a modern way, it's certainly worth a look. Other attractions include the castle (steep walk up!) and cathedral (fantastic views from the top of the towers).
