Prague

Greetings Everyone—just got back from a weekend in Prague. Here’s part 1:

Maddie and I found a nice deal on Orbitz which included airfare and 4 nights in a hotel. The only catch after doing some research was that the hotel was about 20 kilometers outside of the town. After finally finding out that there was a bus that connected the small town to Prague we booked it and weren’t sure what to expect.

We arrived kind of late and had to get a cab. After about 30 minutes of driving and some minor cursing from our cab driver who didn’t know where the place was, we arrived (driving by it, Maddie having to point it out to the driver).

We stayed in Tuchlovice, which is also the name of the hotel. The town was even smaller than we thought. One grocery store, one meat store, a bakery, and three restaurant/bars make up essentially all the commercial activity in the town.

Our hotel was overall good. Beds were benches with a thin mattress on top that were nailed to the floor, the free breakfast was good, and the staff was nice. Language was often an issue (one time we were unable to ask for a bus schedule), but they had a few employees with mediocre English so it really depended on who was working at the time (only one employee was usually working). It was really not busy at all with the most people staying there around 20 and maybe 5 on our final night. They were nice in lending us enough money to take the bus into town when we found out there was no ATM at all in the town to get any money to take the bus…

The bus was another adventure altogether…We were of course unable to read the time tables—although that it seemed many people from Prague also had that problem. Buses didn’t really like to come when they were supposed to, leaving us with waits sometimes of over an hour, once we finally got our hands on a readable schedule so we knew when they should be coming. But after getting on it was a comfortable 50 minute ride into the city or back to our hotel.

We arrived in Prague the first morning to Wenceslas Square opening up to the big national museum, not having any guidebook, or even map yet. We decided to check out the national museum for more info and to find a bit of help. Overall the museum was not that great—nothing really unique to Prague and little to no English explanations BUT…Maddie overheard two older women speaking English in an American accent and it turned out they were leaving that night and left us their Rick Steves Guidebook! Needless to say this was heaven for me…

Now with maps and a guide we walked down the square passing by the hotdog stands featuring dogs around a foot long to the old town square. This area was absolutely packed with people and it was interesting to see more tourists here than in Italy which I was definitely not expecting. The old town square was a nice open area with the city hall, churches, and buildings featuring elaborate art nouveau on all sides.

For lunch we tried our first Czech cuisine (RSR). I had Goulash made with beer and a dark beer which was quite good. The Czech beer is the best I have ever tasted and also the cheapest (around $1.50 for a large beer in a restaurant).

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around. We crossed the famous Charles Bridge with nice views of the city, statues lining the bridge, as well as countless tourists and oddly, caricature artists. On the bridge we got our first glance at a statue of Saint John of Nepomuk who is everywhere around the city with 5 stars over his head. As the story goes the queen told the Saint many secrets and when the Saint refused to tell them to the King who wanted to know them he tossed the Saint off the bridge. When he was thrown in the water 5 stars appeared above where he was thrown in.

We walked up to the castle district, but decided to leave it for another day as it would have been hard to get our money’s worth for our ticket. But next to a monastery in the castle district was the oldest beer garden in Europe, started by the monastery in the 1600’s (unfortunately the monastery was closed but we peeked in to an amazing elaborately decorated church of gold). Of course we had to go, having more delicious beer and a cheese which was made from beer which I enjoyed but Maddie found a bit questionable.

After this we walked down Petrin Hill, eating some pears and apples from the hillside while walking down to Little Quarter (The 4 districts of Prague are Old Town, New Town, Castle, and Little). The highlight here was Lennon’s wall which arose after the singer’s death in 1980. After his death people put graffiti up on this wall as a memorial and in support of respect, peace, and free thinking as a contrast to the other Lenin. Every night it was erased by the communist government until the 90’s when communism left and the wall was accepted and the graffiti now stays.

We then walked by the “dancing house” a warped building designed by the same architect as the EMP before finding a big pub to have a beer and watched a group of crazy locals nearby that were jumping over chairs and doing handstands while completely drunk. Maddie and I were entertained while everyone else seemed to look on with disgust…

Hope everyone is doing well, hope to hear from you.

Jeff