Horice Rolls

Horicke trubicky are thin sweet wafers baked flat on an iron and rolled while hot into tubes, crisp and lightly flavoured with anise or vanilla, sometimes filled. The origin story is fixed locally: a French soldier retreating with Napoleon's army in 1812 was taken in by a family in Horice, and in return left the recipe for the wafers, which the townswomen began to bake and sell. Commercial production started in the 1810s and the town has made them ever since; they hold EU protected geographical indication as Horicke trubicky, tying the name to the town, and several small producers work there. They are sold in tins in the town and across the country. Horice itself is a stone-carving town - it has a sandstone sculpture school and an open-air gallery of sculpture on the hill above, which is the other reason to stop.

What you actually see

• Wafers rolled while hot - baked flat on an iron and shaped into tubes.
• A recipe from 1812 - left, by tradition, by a retreating French soldier.
• A protected name - EU geographical indication tying them to Horice.
• A sculpture town - a stone-carving school and an open-air gallery on the hill.

When to go

All year. An hour.

Honest expectations

They soften quickly once a tin is opened. Similar wafer tubes are sold nationwide and are not the protected product. The town is small; the sculpture gallery is a hillside walk.

Nearby

Jicin is fifteen kilometres west; Hradec Kralove is south-east.