By Gail Foley BBC Wales' Social Affairs correspondent

It is not every day a count and countess invite you to go Christmas shopping in Bohemia.

So when Maria and Andrew Hubert von Staufer of Monmouth mentioned their plan to research Christmas in Prague, it did not take much to persuade me aboard.

Maria has been researching Christmas customs and stories all her adult life. She's produced nearly a dozen books on the place of Christmas in history, and round the world.

Maria Hubert von Staufer: Traditionalist

She and her husband - who is descended from the Polish nobility - rarely use their full titles these days, though, as she says, being a countess can come in handy when you are trying to book a restaurant table.

I first met the couple 20 years ago, when they lived in a small house in Cardiff which was absolutely crammed with exquisite Christmas decorations and artefacts.

Ten years ago, they sold almost the entire collection to a Japanese design firm.

But Maria could not stop collecting festive memorabilia. As she says, there is always something new to learn about the way the season is celebrated around the world.

This year, for instance, she has visited Christmas markets in Arizona, Valencia, Mallorca and now Prague.

The city's main square is transformed into a Christmas market in December with dozens of brightly decorated stalls selling traditional Czech and Slovak items.

Christmas is full of symbolic images

Blown glass baubles, some as big as your face, jostle for space with gingerbread tree decorations, honey and candles made from beeswax.

The scent of roasted chestnuts, brittle chocolate sweets and nougat fights with the smell of freshly cooked potato pancakes, and a whole pig turns on a spit.

In a corner, goats, sheep and a donkey graze behind a crib, and at night, a vast, 60ft high tree twinkles with lights as bells ring out from the nearby Tyn church.

The whole scene is almost medieval .... those with a rampant imagination can transport themselves back through the centuries, especially as a temperatures plunged to minus eight Centigrade!

Prague is trying to recover from the devastating floods it experienced this summer, and is banking on tourists travelling to the city to enjoy Christmas and New Year.

Prague's astrological clock is a popular attraction

Maria thinks people are yearning for a more traditional, and less commercial, approach to Christmas.

In the market, she bought small decorations and traditional foods, which cost far less than the surrounding shops.

She applauds the re-emergence of these markets, both in Wales (Cardiff's is growing by the year) and in English cities like Bath and Lincoln, where you can pick up gifts for under a fiver.

And I'm now the proud owner of several Vienna dew baubles ( when hot liquid glass is dribbled on glass spheres to make patterns) for my Christmas tree, a very pretty reminder of Prague!