Well, I’ve been to Prague now, the very real and exciting city to an over-exuberant friend who has never been. And you know, I think he was right. It is a pretty neat city. It’s size makes navigation simple, and the exchange rate is not bad at all. I withdrew 100 euros (roughly 3000 Czech Crowns) for the weekend, and I came back with about 30 euros worth of Czech Crowns.
Guess I’ll have to go back to Czech Republic for dinner or shopping.
In traveling to Prague, there were a couple of different public transportation options open to me and my friends. We could train, bus, or plane. The contributing factors to our planning were the following: time, cost, and comfort.
We actually didn’t even consider going by plane.
Train was a first vote. Upon further research, we discovered that train and bus took about the same amount of time but the cost of a round trip ticket by bus was only 28 euros rather than 70-80 euros for a train ticket. So we bussed ourselves to Prague for a weekend (Saturday to Monday).
One other practical point before we gallivant through some more of the fun stuff. We stayed at Sir Toby’s hostel for both nights in Prague. They offered reasonable prices plus a great breakfast spread and you could rent public transportation passes from the front desk. The other guests I saw were fairly youthful but super fun and friendly.
Sunday morning, my friend Erin wanted to go in seek of delicious breakfast outside of our hostel, but our other two travel companions had no desire to stir earlier than they had to. Erin and I went in search of Cafe Savoy (which Erin did find), but it was reserved probably for all of forever.
We backtracked for a while to a couple of cute looking places I had eyed as we beelined (which in reality and for us as well was not very straight). It took us a few tries before we settled on Vescovi Caffe. The outside was super quaint (man, do I wish I’d taken a photo), and the inside just warmed my heart. Jazz music. Calming decor. Unique plants. And the food…!
People keep asking me what my favorite part of Prague was, and I unashamedly admit the sandwich that I mmmm-ed my way through from Vescovi Caffe. They’re on Trip Advisor, too.
This sandwich. It was a shot in the dark since I don’t read Czech. But my taste buds tell me it was goat cheese, jam, lettuce, and a fabulously dense and nutty bread. My gosh. Even thinking about that deliciousness, I want to jump on the first bus back to Prague. (Oh, the pie was good, too!)
Okay. Okay! I’ll stop fangirling over a sandwich.
The rest of the day in Prague, we meandered through the various sights and historical monuments. We climbed high over the city to get some snapshots of the view! We also found some beautiful nature and a Deer Moat tunnel that connects two different fields.
We also wandered through a beautiful space of castle, and from that view, we saw this wall, which looked very much like dried lava. To me, it also could have been a holocaust memorial with humans piling or climbing over each other frozen in time. Trying to find that wall through the curving streets of Prague without GPS proved impossible. So we circled to a McCafe, and then we tried again.
We found the Wall of Sculls in a pretty little garden that was lit up with fall colors. Wallenstein Garden.
Midway through the adventure, I was unsure if I’d find a lion statue to teach how to roar. My sister and I have this thing of teaching stone lions about roaring. But I had yet to see one, so I opted to have this back-up picture with a fish fountain statue. Naturally, making a fish face turned out more difficult than I thought.
Happily, while waiting for a tram, I looked up and saw a ferocious lion with wings across the street. I grabbed one of my photographer friends and dragged her across the street to capture an image of me facing off with a lion who actually already knew how to roar.
When we were researching places to see in Prague, the John Lennon Wall was mentioned a few times over. It’s a place where you can graffiti Beatles song lyrics, and other inspiring thoughts or pictures. But if you’re like most tourists, you just show up for some pictures in front this public art.
Grabbing some wall space for your photo is pretty difficult, though.
Best story of the trip goes to Erin, though, because as she stood in front of the wall, saying she wanted to have someone in the photo with her, a group of American guys jumped into her photo. It was such a fun and funny moment. The best was the audacious dude that decided this photo should include his butt, front and center.
The dude was probably inspired by this cheeky statue. But you can never be sure…
That’s the thing about traveling. You never can totally be sure what will happen. I mean, there are about a trillion other little moments I could tell you about from this trip. This is just the highlight reel!
Prague brushes modern and historical together into a manageable heap of entertainment, good food, and beauty. And it’s all quite affordable, too.
So go!
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