Prague, Czech Republic
/May 29th - June 1st, 2015
Upon leaving Croatia, we were a little less excited to go to Prague than we thought we would be. The way the trip had been progressing, Greece would have been a perfect next stop. However we could not find any direct flights from Dubrovnik to Athens and all other flights connected through Munich, Zurich, and Prague. We didn’t want to fly up north, just to catch another flight back down to Greece, so we decided to make a three day pit stop in Prague in between our two flights. We had heard great things about Prague, but didn’t really know much about it, so we decided to give it a try.
The minute we touched down in Prague, it started to rain…and we were worried we were going to have another Paris experience, but the showers conveniently ended by the time we settled into our new Airbnb apartment. With what daylight we had left, we set out to explore the city. We walked around with no real plan but quickly became fans of Prague’s atmosphere. We came across the colorful Jubilee Synagogue synagogue, walked through Wenceslas Square, and stumbled upon the Old Town Square where there were several people gathering around a folk dancing show. We quickly saw that beer is very important in Prague and it appeared that there are no open container laws, so people can just buy a beer and continue wandering around. We took some photos and watched some of the folk dancing and other performances happening in the square before heading to dinner. We looked up some restaurants on Trip Advisor, but the second we saw an Indian restaurant near the top of the list, we knew exactly where we were going to go. We’ve had some amazing food on this trip but something with different flavors and spices than what we had been eating for the last month sounded great. The minute we considered Indian, nothing else sounded good. So we decided to be great tourists and get Indian food in Prague :) And boy did that turn out to be a fantastic decision. It was the best Indian food we’ve ever had! We literally devoured the three curry dishes, rice, and two orders of naan before most other tables even ordered. Afterwards, we waddled home and went to bed because we had booked a running tour for early the next morning. I didn’t even know such things existed, but we were looking up things to do in Prague and the minute I saw a running tour as an option, I knew it was a must (and I still don’t know how I convinced Allen to do it with me)!
Our running tour started at 7:15 in the morning and our guide, Michael, met us outside our apartment. He introduced himself and then we immediately set off. Good thing we did some stretching beforehand! He took us on a 7.8 mile tour of the city covering close to 75% of the tourist sites.. He gave us historical anecdotes as we passed all the attractions. Touring the city this early in the morning allowed us to truly appreciate the sites without hundreds of tourists around. We stopped by the Astronomical Clock, ran over the completely empty Charles Bridge, and ran up to the Prague Castle. During our run Michael took us into a park where wild peacocks were just wandering around and then we ran past the John Lennon wall. We also got to see the city's original Jewish graveyard that now sits several feet above the ground due to people being buried on top of each other for years. The running tour was a lot of fun and gave us a quick peak at most of the top sites to see in Prague. Over the next two days we had the time to go back to anything we wanted to get a more in depth experience.
After our run Allen was feeling sore and his knees were giving him some trouble, but we couldn't bear to sit around so we just took things slow. We grabbed breakfast at Cafe Colore and then continued exploring the city. We walked to the Dancing House and then continued along the river. We passed through a big festival for kids that included all sorts of activities like soccer, hockey, boxing, tumbling, and even a dance off! We crossed over the river and walked by the Hunger Wall on our way to the Petrin Tower. At the base of the hill there is a Memorial to the victims of Communism which is a series of statues descending on a flight of stairs. The statues are less and less complete the further away they are from the front (losing limbs and their bodies breaking open), symbolizing how political prisoners were affected by Communism. We took a trolly to the top of the hill where we climbed up to the top of the Petrin Tower for some great views of the city. We took our time walking back down the hill enjoying the park and views along the way. Naturally we rewarded ourselves with some gelato from Angelato and then had a delicious lunch at Cafe Lounge.
After lunch we made our way across the Charles Bridge, which was completely packed with people unlike in the morning when we were the only people on the bridge. We made our way back to Old Town Square where I indulged in a local delicacy, a cinnamon sugar chimney. By this time we were both feeling pretty sore from our morning adventure so we decided to get Thai massages (risky, but cheap and totally worth it!) before walking another 1.5 miles to the restaurant we chose for dinner. We enjoyed an amazing dinner at U Kroka. We started with some local Czech cheese with walnuts and onion jam, I had a butter and herb game hen with almond stuffing in a plum sauce, and Allen had a sirloin steak with a beef reduction and potatoes. It was easily one of the best meals on our trip, so of course we finished with dessert. We enjoyed a slice of traditional Czech Misa layer cake with chocolate. Afterwards we walked along the river on our way back home and enjoyed the remnants of a beautiful sunset.
We started our last full day in Prague by walking back to Cafe Lounge for breakfast and experimented with different coffee brewing techniques. Neither of the techniques we tried produced strong enough coffee for our taste, but we enjoyed the experience and the breakfast. From there we walked to the John Lennon wall to take some photos of the quotes, graffiti, and lyrics currently covering the wall since we forgot to take a photo while on our running tour. We then set off in search of the Senate gardens where we were told there was an albino peacock. Allen was determined to find the peacock so we walked all around the garden until we found it. We were both disappointed to find out that the albino peacock was a female and therefore didn't have the large beautiful tail. We took some pictures anyway and looked for the nearest exit. As we were on our way out we heard some squawking and saw people taking pictures. Low and behold there was a male albino peacock hiding up in a tree squawking at all the people below taking pictures. It was hard to get a good photo of him up in the tree, but nonetheless he was pretty impressive. We left the garden and began the climb up to the Prague castle. On our way we stopped for some wine from the vineyard on the hill just below and enjoyed the fantastic view of the city. We decided to tour the St. Vitus Cathedral within the Prague Castle, but all the audio tours were sold out so we just wandered around appreciating the building with its impressive stained glass windows. We climbed to the top of the tower to get some good views of the surrounding area and then stopped in at a "WWII through the lenses of Czech Photographers" exhibit before leaving the castle. We then walked up to the Metronome (which is giant and actually functional) in Letna Park. It's supposed to have the best beer garden in town and best views of the city. We ordered two large beers and sat on the ledge in front of the Metronome and just took in the view. People were skate boarding behind us and there was a roller hockey game going on nearby, yet the whole experience was so peaceful and relaxing. We talked about how glad we were that we added Prague to our itinerary and decided that Prague was one of the most livable cities that we had been to so far. We loved the food, the people, the sights, the parks, it's a runner friendly city and there are happy and healthy dogs everywhere!
After brainstorming our future lives in Prague we walked back to Old Town Square where we took a closer look at the Astronomical Clock. It's a pretty impressive piece of technology from hundreds of years ago (when people still thought the sun revolved around the earth) and it still functional! It's one of the oldest astronomical clocks in the world and its main function was actually to depict the movement of celestial bodies (including the sun and the moon), telling time was a secondary feature. It was pretty fascinating! We decided to have Indian food again for dinner since it was so good the first time. We felt a little bad about not eating traditional Czech food up until our curries came out from the kitchen. Immediately all guilt vanished and we once again devoured our food. We just can't help it, we love curries and spicy food. After dinner we made our way back to the river to get some photos of the sunset. While taking photos, a family of swans swam by. Allen immediately lost all interest in the sunset and followed them along the river taking photos of them along the way. I have to admit baby swans are pretty dang cute. Once the sun had set we walked back to our apartment very full and happy :)
We woke up in the morning and vowed to eat some traditional Czech food before heading to the airport. We had breakfast at Cafe Colore again (lots of restaurant repeats in Prague) and then walked around the town aimlessly trying to work up a lunchtime appetite. We stopped at a Czech restaurant near our apartment and tried beef goulash and herb chicken. Both were terrible, but the beers were good. Even though we had been warned that we probably wouldn't like the food, we felt like we had to at least try. We may not like the local food in Prague but we pretty much loved everything else Prague had to offer. We headed back to our apartment, grabbed our bags, and set off to the airport. Next stop... Athens!
