David Cerny Statue
Cathedral near our hostel
Old Town Market
After taking an overnight train from Switzerland, Danny and I arrived in Prague at 10AM. We stayed at the Czech Inn, a very nice hostel that is about a 10 minute metro trip out of the city center. Since we planned on doing a walking tour of old town the following day, we decided to explore the other end of Prague, home of the Prague Castle, St. Nicholas Cathedral, and much more.
The first thing we did when we got into town was climb up to the Garden of Paradise, a nice garden/ park type place that has a great view of Prague. We followed the path down through Prague's oldest vineyard that has been around for centuries. After strolling through the vineyard, it eventually dropped us out in the city center. Even though the view from the garden was very nice (and free), we decided to pay the extra money to go to the top of the castle's bell tower to get the best view of Prague, the center of Europe. Legend has it that Prague's bell tower can predict bad luck. In 2002 the bell cracked (which forewarns the bad luck) and months later the entire city experienced a terrible flood. To get to the top of this tower, I kid you not, we climbed up the narrowest spiral staircase I've ever seen for at least 5 minutes- I timed it on the way down. Even though I felt extremely claustrophobic, the view from the top was well worth it. We could see all corners of Prague, which in my opinion, is one of the prettiest European capitals.
We wandered the Prague cathedral and castle a bit more, relaxed in a beer garden for about an hour, and then set off to find one of David Cerny's famous public statues. There is a giant radio tower in Prague, and Cerny built these gigantic bronze, naked babies that look like the are climbing up and down the tower. As if that wasn't strange enough, their faces look like they've had a giant square stamped in the center of them...creepy. The following day we found another one of Cerny's quirky pieces, a statue/fountain of two copper men that rotate, peeing into a pool in the shape of Prague... definitely not your average classic statue you find in most city centers.
That night, Danny and I decided to take advantage of the happy hour at our hostel's bar, which cost the American equivalent of $1.25 for a pint of beer! I'm not exaggerating when I say that beer in Prague is literally cheaper than water. We then headed into old town and went to a popular local bar. The bar had live music and cheap drinks, but I was overwhelmed by the fact that probably 3/4th of the patrons were chain smoking indoors with no doors or windows open. It was disgusting. A pub crawl was going on downstairs, so we headed down there and even managed to sneak a free beer by blending in with the pub crawlers. After that we headed to a jazz bar. The atmosphere was much more relaxed and the air was breathable. We enjoyed a few drinks there and called it a night.
The next day we really got to see Prague on the walking tour. It picked up at our hostel and took us all through old town and the Jewish quarter. Old town is so cute. It has tons of markets with vendors selling traditional dishes, fresh pastries, and lots of little trinkets. We learned a lot about the history of Prague, which was largely based on the Catholic v. Protestant feud that lasted a brutal, bloody number of centuries. Needless to say, the majority of Prague is Atheist now. One of the Catholic cathedrals still has a mummified forearm and hand of a Protestant hanging in the back of the church as a symbol of who has the power. We saw it on our tour... talk about creepy.
The tour was extremely informational and interesting, but I won't bore you with more facts. Let's move on to the fun stuff- the pub crawl we did that night. We got two new roommates from Belgium, Dries and Mathijs, who were really cool and we did the pub crawl with. Side note- if you go to Prague you MUST get a train ticket and VALIDATE it. We used the metro for a full 24 hours and no one checked our tickets (which we luckily had). Our roommates bought tickets but didn't validate them in the machines (confusing) and two security guards bee-lined for us on the train and asked for our tickets. Danny and I were OK, but our roommates got what would be about a $50 fine because their tickets weren't validated... stupid... but back to the pub crawl.
Even though the night didn't start off well, the pub crawl was a blast. At the first bar we had unlimited beer and shots for an hour (don't worry Mom, we paced ourselves). The second and third bars were also a lot of fun with a lively crowd, good music, and dancing. The pub crawl finally ended up at Karlovy Lazne, Prague's biggest and most popular club. It is five stories tall with a top 40 floor, a 60s floor, a chill out floor, a hip hop floor, and an ice bar. If you know Danny, I bet you guessed we spent most of our night on the 60s floor. We also explored the ice bar with Dries and Mathijs and it was so cool! (Pun intended). The night flew by and we ended up leaving around 4:30!
Our last day was spent exploring more of old town. What I loved about Prague was that it had the romantic feel of an old European city, but it wasn't quite as crowded as a city like Paris. I loved exploring the markets and enjoying the sights without getting pushed around by some fat tourist trying to get the perfect picture he will never look at again. That evening we had a wonderful dinner at a local hangout just up the street from our hostel. It was very hispter-esque with a lot of gluten-free options and quirky decor and servers. It was a nice change of pace from tourist places.
We met back up with our roommates and ended up hanging out with them the rest of the night, drinking Belgium beers and playing guitar (Danny was in heaven). Our roommates were also going to Berlin in the morning, so we decided to ditch the train and road trip with them! It was a beautiful drive and nice to be in a car again! We arrived in Berlin that afternoon, but that is a story for another blog! Ahoj!
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