Czech Out Prague!

June 5th

We arrived to Prague on June 5th from Venice via plane. Once we arrived, it was early evening, so we had some time to czech into our Airbnb and grab some dinner. We had a great start to our visit by first locking ourselves out of our Airbnb on our way out to dinner! With a misunderstanding about the keys that we needed to use to get into the apartment, we left one in the apartment when we left and had to message our host to come let us back in. She showed up quickly and let us back in and we were on our way to dinner again without much delay.

We czeched out a place not too far down the road for dinner that was recommended by a previous guest at our Airbnb (our host has a booklet that she lets guests write tips in - very helpful!). We had a delicious dinner and some really cheap beer! But really, everything is cheap in Prague when converted to American dollars or Euros. It looks expensive, because most things are hundred(s) of Czech korunas, but the exchange rate is around 24 CZK to 1 USD. We definitely took advantage of the great prices! After dinner we went home to get some sleep before exploring the city the next day.

June 6th

Will found a cafe down the road that he wanted to czech out for breakfast, so we went to "Coffee Break and Cake" and got some coffee and cake! Then we headed to Old Town Square to see the Astronomical Clock. In the middle of an open, (mostly) pedestrian square, there is a large clock tower that houses an old "clock" which was installed in 1410 and is the oldest astronomical clock still operating. The clock has 3 main parts: the astronomical dial showing the position of the sun, moon, and other astronomical things of interest; the hourly show of the Apostles (which draws a large crowd, but lasts about 20 seconds); and a calendar dial indicating the current month. There is a lot going on and it's hard to understand all of the different things being calculated/marked by the tower, but either way, it's very beautiful and remarkable to consider how long ago the clock was built. Czech out the wikipedia article if you're interested in reading more.

Astronomical Clock

After the clock show, we found some authentic Czech food for lunch. After filling up on yummy food and beer, we went to czech out the Charles Bridge. Everything in Prague has a magical, gothic, castle-y, dark, creepy, awesome feel to it. This bridge fits that description. It has large towers on either end and statues running the length of the bridge on either side. It's packed with tourists trying to get pictures and people trying to sell everything you can imagine. We made it about half way and it started raining a bit harder than we liked, so we headed back to the Czech Beer Museum, which we had passed earlier. Obviously we were going to make a visit, and with the rain, it felt like a good time. The museum was on the smaller side, but had lots of interesting history to read and cool antique beer brewing tools to look at. We learned that the Czech Republic has the highest beer consumption per capita of any country in the world (with Germany coming in second). At the end of the tour, they gave us samples of 4 different types of beer, and they were the largest "tasting" glasses I've ever seen. We met a Brazilian guy who we chatted with for a bit who joked that they had such large tasting glasses to make sure they kept up their per capita consumption.

Charles Bridge

"Tasting" glasses

With lots of beer in us, we headed back to our Airbnb for a little to rest up before dinner and put on pants. It was cooler than we were prepared for that day, but we were very excited to have some weather cooler than the HOT weather we had been experiencing for most of our trip so far. After our quick break, we found a vegetarian restaurant to czech out for dinner. We had a great meal and hit up the grocery store to grab some things for breakfasts during our stay.

June 7th

Wednesday morning we decided to czech out the nearby Vyšehrad Castle and basilica since we could easily walk from our Airbnb. We climbed up some steep hills and entered the walled in area. We found our way to the riverside and admired the amazing view from the top of the hill. The basilica was another amazing piece of gothic architecture. I could look at that style all day, every day (which is about what we've been doing). There was also an great cemetery around the basilica with unique headstones and plot designs and includes the grave of composer Antonín Dvořák. A lot of the plots had a bed with all sorts plants growing on top of the plot. They were beautiful and gave a more "lively" feel to a usually somber place.

View from Vyšehrad

Basilica of St. Peter and St. Paul

We found another recommended place for lunch and had another great Czech meal. Afterward, we made our way to the Lennon Wall which is a spontaneous memorial/inspiration wall created with graffiti by locals, and more recently visitors, inspired by the ideas of John Lennon, general political grievances, and spreading global ideals of peace and love. The wall is ever-changing. Nearby, is the Prague Castle, which is still used for Czech government purposes, but certain areas are open to the public and open for tours. We didn't pay to go in to see the cathedral or elsewhere, but we walked around the area that was open for everyone and enjoyed the views we could get for free.

Lennon Wall

Building at Prague Castle

One requirement of our visit was to indulge in the famous Czech dessert, trdelník. We never learned exactly how to pronounce it, but that didn't stop our enjoyment. They are essentially a spiral cinnamon doughnut with a variety of possible fillings. They are a bit denser and crispier than a doughnut and hold their shape well to hold their filling. We got ours with some delicious buttery ice cream.

Trdelník

We had made some dinner reservations for the evening, so we killed some time before dinner by visiting a couple more sites: Prasna Brana and Wenceslas Square. Then we headed over to dinner. We made reservations to have dinner in the top of the "Dancing House" which is named Ginger and Fred. This building is uniquely designed in a way that I will avoid describing and instead include a photograph. We were still a bit earlier than our reservation, so we czeched out the rooftop bar which had AMAZING view of the city. It was definitely worth the cost of the drink required to go out on the rooftop patio. We sat up their for a while and enjoyed the view and nice weather before heading to dinner. We had a great meal then went back for the night.

Dancing House

View from rooftop bar

Wine with a view of a castle


June 8th

On our last day, we went to visit the "Eiffel Tower" of Prague (Petrín Tower). They are very proud of this feature of their skyline, bragging that it is higher than the Eiffel Tower above sea level. We climbed from the base of the hill to the base of the tower and it was a long way up, but I can't say the tower was extremely impressive once we got to the top. We were planning to go to the top of the tower, but once we failed to get student priced tickets, we decided we'd save our money for the REAL Eiffel Tower. The climb wasn't a waste however since there were some beautiful rose gardens and good views even from the ground once we made it to the summit of the hill. On our way down, we found our way to a brewery in an old monastery and grabbed a snack (oh and some beer).

Rose Garden 

View back down from our hike to Petrín Tower

We had passed by a vegan restaurant the day before that we planned to go to for lunch, so we made our way back to that area for lunch. After a couple days of Will enjoying great, authentic Czech food with lots of meat, and me settling for salads most places (good ones though), I finally got a taste of some of the signature Czech dishes that were "veganized" at this restaurant. It was a great meal!

We had run out of things on our to do list, so we came up with a some new ideas to fill in the end of our last day. With a trip across town, we visited the Žižkov Television Tower. This tower has been controversial for many different reasons since it was built. Most obviously to me is that it is a bit of an eyesore on the skyline. It looks very industrial compared to the old, gothic feel of the rest of the city. It is also equipped with some interesting pieces of art including strange-faced babies climbing up the main towers. There's a restaurant and one room hotel in the tower, but we just admired it from below.

Žižkov Television Tower

At the end of the day, we were pretty tired, so we decided to run by the grocery store to pick up something quick and easy for dinner. We bought a frozen pizza and some fruit to eat. We were dumb to think we could get away with something "easy" for dinner since we had several issues with our "easy" meal. First, there were 6-7 languages on the pizza box, but none were English. We had to figure out what temperature to cook the pizza and for how long. This was relatively easy with google translate, but some strange phrases find their way through sometimes. Next, we had to figure out how to work the oven. It seemed easy enough since there were few dials, but we did everything we could think of, including referencing ol' Google, but had no luck. Eventually we gave up on the oven and decided to try the stovetop. I found a pan that was large enough and something we could put on top to give it an oven effect. We cooked it on really low heat until the cheese melted and we ended up with some pretty darn good pizza!

Prague was a fantastic city to visit and we would definitely recommend visiting it, especially if you want to experience Europe on a budget. Everything from the food to the lodging to the beer was significantly cheaper than some of the other cities we've visited. We made it to Berlin today (June 9th), and we're very excited to start exploring Germany. Germany is the one place we've been saying we'd like to visit together for years now. It's exciting that we're actually here!

Comments

  1. That looks like something out of Game of Thrones.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I hope Will got some Polish sausage there in Czech Republic.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I hope Will got some Polish sausage there in Czech Republic. I love the John Lennon wall!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment