European Vacation Day 11 - Prague

A free day in Prague to do whatever we want. What more could you ask for? Not much, I can tell you!

At breakfast there were a few faces even paler than mine, as a lot of the party (including Aussies drowning their sorrows) had overindulged on the absinthe last night. When I asked Scott how he was doing, he just shook his head at me with a glazed expression on his face. He couldn’t remember how he got home (Amy informed him that he ran home) and Erin couldn’t figure out why they left the pub (Amy informed her that it closed for the night).

We headed into town and after a slight detour (overshot by 3 tram stops) we passed under the Powder Tower and onto Old Square. We bumped into Amy, Katie and Mariam, who had all bought prints. We carried on around the market and ended up getting one too.

the Powder Tower

It was lunchtime by now so we had lunch at a vegan restaurant between the market and Old Square. I went nuts with the self serve and ended up with the soyameat & olive pasta AND the mushroom & ROBI meat stew with potatoes.  It was awesome.  This was followed by some strawberry and banana ice-cream which was delicious.

us in a little park we found

After lunch we walked towards Charles Bridge, stopping at a small park with a fountain in it. There seems to be sights such as this all over Prague, which is great for just wandering about and seeing what you can find.

The old town end of Charles Bridge

Charles Bridge is a large cobbled pedestrian bridge with massive gothic looking towers at each end. There are stalls set out all along the bridge and, like most of the rest of Prague, there seems to always be a band of some description busking away. They all seem to be very good too.

Castle entrance

St Vitus cathedral in the castle grounds

We walked up to the castle, which is a collection of buildings in a similar way to Edinburgh Castle. Big difference here though – it is free to enter, you only pay for the museum parts. Also there is a gigantic cathedral in the grounds which dominates the skyline. Disappointingly Golden Lane was closed for renovations. After out tour leader telling us we shouldn’t miss it, that was a pain.

back of the cathedral

St Georges church, also in the castle grounds

We had some beers in the Lobkowicz Palace, drinking beer from their own brewery that has been in operation for over 550 years. Beer and alcohol in general is pretty cheap in Prague (though not as cheap as I believe it once was). In the bars around our hotel and some of the centre a 400ml glass of beer is 25 koruna, which is about €1. Unfortunately we have only had beers in our hotel (just under €2) and in the castle (around €3.5), but we’re not here to drink so I’m not really bothered. It does explain how the rest of them got so rat-arsed last night though.

beers!

very colourful window in the cathedral

We walked down the steep hill from the castle back to Charles Bridge, and on to the Old Town again. I collected a souvenir paperweight – a loose cobblestone that had found it’s way onto the road. It seems most of Prague’s streets are cobbled with very small (5-10cm square) cobblestones which looks much nicer than flagstones or tarmac.

We ended up back at the same restaurant for dinner as it was so good before. I got a bit carried away with the self serve and ended up with some spaghetti Bolognese, pinto bean & carrot stew and a slice of pizza. It was awesome.

We got the tram home and the stop just before ours was right outside Viktoria Zizkov’s football stadium. It’s really small, and you can see the pitch from the road. I might try to get some pictures tomorrow morning before we leave but I don’t think there will be time. [There wasn’t] Made up for missing the San Siro though! Sort of.

Ironically, with this being about the coolest day yet, cloudy with sunny intervals, temperature around 20 degrees, I have managed to burn the back of my neck by not taking care to apply sun tan lotion. I think I’ll have a bit of a tan when I get home, but it’s all relative as I started off from a sort of white/blue colour.

Prague has been excellent and definitely the most beautiful city we have been to so far. We only saw half the things we could have so hopefully we will get the chance to come back. As J said today, Prague is a lot like Edinburgh, only bigger. There’s a castle on the hill with a steep road full of restaurants, pubs and souvenir shops leading down from it. Wenceslas Square is Princes Street and there is great architecture all around the town. The big difference is the massive river Vltava running through Prague. Maybe we could flood the gardens again?