Spice has two hosted holidays over the festive season this year: a short break at the Prague Christmas markets, 4 Dec 2026 – 7 Dec 2026, from £675, and New Year in Puglia in the heel of Italy, 28 Dec 2026 – 2 Jan 2027, from £1,139. Neither is away over Christmas Day itself. Both have a named host, and sharing a twin room with another guest costs nothing extra.
- Prague Christmas Magic: 4 Dec 2026 – 7 Dec 2026, 3 nights, from £675. Includes a four-star hotel with breakfast, airport transfers in Prague and the city tax. Your host is Sally Wiltshire.
- New Year in Puglia: 28 Dec 2026 – 2 Jan 2027, 5 nights, from £1,139. Includes the hotel with breakfast, the New Year's Eve gala dinner, New Year's Day lunch, two more dinners, day visits and private transfers. Your host is Claire Dymond.
Both from-prices are for arranging your own flights. With flights, Prague goes from Birmingham, Bristol, Gatwick, Stansted or Manchester, and Puglia flies from Stansted into Bari. The prices with flights are on each holiday page.
Prague at Christmas
Prague's main Christmas markets are on Old Town Square and Wenceslas Square. They open daily from late November until early January, so an early December visit sees them open every day. The holiday is a short one, based in a four-star hotel with breakfast each morning and transfers from the airport. Evening meals are not included, which leaves the evenings free for the markets and for eating out, with the group or on your own.
It suits someone who wants a first taste of travelling with a group before committing to a week, and it fits round work.
New Year's Eve in Puglia
This is a Spice exclusive with WingsItaly, whose Claire and Andrea escort the whole holiday. The group has the rooms at the Hotel Tesoretto in the Salento to itself, which is the same hotel Spice took a group to for New Year before.
Lecce is the main city of the Salento, and the visits to Specchia and Galatina take the group to two of its smaller towns. The days are organised round the turn of the year:
- a welcome aperitivo at the hotel, and two dinners there with wine;
- an aperitivo reception and a New Year's Eve gala dinner, with wine included;
- a traditional Italian New Year's Day lunch;
- visits to Lecce, Specchia and Galatina, and a Puglia wine tasting;
- private transfers throughout, and city taxes paid.
Most of the meals that matter over New Year are in the price, so you see in the year at a gala dinner with a group you have already been travelling with, rather than booking a table somewhere on your own.
Christmas Day
Nothing on sale this year is away on 25 December. If a Christmas Day holiday is what you are after, tell the office: we would rather say so plainly than let you find out at the booking page, and we can tell you if one is added. Telling us you would travel over Christmas itself also helps the office judge whether to run one next year.
Choosing between them
Prague is the shorter and cheaper of the two, needs little time off work, and leaves most of the evenings to you. Puglia is longer, has most of its meals and the New Year events paid for, and is escorted from the airport onwards by people who live in Italy. If you can only take one, decide between the Christmas markets and company for New Year's Eve.
Rooms
The price on both buys a place in a twin room shared with another guest of the same sex, at no extra cost. Two friends travelling together can take a twin or a double. A room to yourself carries a single supplement on each holiday; single rooms and supplements lists the current figure for both.
Who comes
Almost everybody has booked on their own, some come with a friend, and there is no upper age limit, so both suit people in their fifties, sixties and beyond. More on that is on solo holidays for over 50s.
If December does not suit
For winter without the festive season, Iceland Discovery is in November, and the ski and winter holidays start in the new year. To hold a place on either December holiday, or to ask what the single room costs today, send the office a message.
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