City of a hundred spires. Stretching across the Vltava River. Home to such great artists as Alphonse Mucha and Franz Kafka. A mix of old and new buildings, ideas, and cultures. Prague has a different feeling to it than anywhere else I've been in europe. It has a distinct feeling of its eastern-european influences, what with the fur hats on sale in the gift shops and the scent of hot mulled wine floating down the street. It was the seat for the Holy Roman Emperors, one of which was Charles V who is quite famous for his improvements to the city and his relations with europe at large. It is definitely the most romantic city that I have been to so far! It even topped the Spaniards with its number of PDAs per square hundred meters. I heard many many languages being spoken, though english seemed to be the accepted form of universal communication (thank goodness!) I also heard a lot of Spanish, Italian, French and German being spoken around me. It was a fantastic feeling of international exchange and cultural mixture.
We arrived in Prague on friday afternoon and found that our hostel was advantageously located just around a few small corners from the old town square or "Saroměstske náměstí"- we decided that all Czech words are long and full of weird accents and stuff, thank you is "Děkuji" pronounced DYEH-koo-yih, pretty complicated, eh? But apparently I have a good accent because when I said it to the cabdriver he asked me if I spoke Czech, to which I had to blush and say no, not at all.- My roommate Katie and I checked into the Hostel and then went exploring in the old town. We discovered the Tynska church which was right on our doorstep and walked around the square to see the famous astronomical clock (which is completely unreadable to any normal human, but luckily has three or four regular clocks within eyeshot), and the Church of Saint Nicholas ("Kostel de Sv. Mikulás") which was beautifully decorated in baroque fashion. We also walked down the King's Walk (no longer as impressive as it sounds) to the Charles bridge, which is a famous landmark notable for its lines of statues as it crosses the Vltava. We poked our noses into the Jewish Neighborhood, or "Josefov" which was closing shop for the night and would be closed for the sabbath the next day, it had this lovely old feeling about it like you could feel the history there, I really wish we could have seen more. Friday night we decided to try one of the many cafes that offered a patio that was pretty open-air but filled with tall space heaters and blankets on the back of all the chairs. The Czech people are apparently obsessed with Pizzerias there were a million of them, only topped by the number of places offering take away of mulled wine and hot chocolate. But we had a very nice Italian dinner and went to bed at 11ish so as to get up early the next day.
These are the Astronomical clock, St. Nicholas', and Tynska respectively.
Saturday we got up and out on time, but misplaced the starting point for our free tour and so ended up wandering, but that was good anyway. We had some really great pancakes that were like crepe-thin pastries with dollops of maple syrup the texture of caramel on it, SOOO good. We got to see the St. Wenceslas's square in front of the national museum, and also the Municipal house with interior design by Alphonse Mucha, one of my favorite artists. We then walked all the way across the old town, crossed the river and went up the hill to the Prague Castle, the seat of the Czech government and the ancient governing center of the Holy Roman Empire. There, we got audio guides and passes to the various sights and therefore saw the beautiful St. Vitus's Cathedral (which was naturally refrigerated- remind me never to go there in winter!), Parts of the former royal palace and states rooms- one of which was the cite of a defenestration where one political party threw another's representatives out a window, the St. George's basilica which was the older of the churches and the cite of the burial of many Bohemian Kings and their relatives, and also the Golden walk which is a tiny row of houses that was once home to Franz Kafka for a year.
St. Vitus's and one of its interior windows by Mucha!
We then walked all the way back across the city at my insistence to see the Mucha Museum. It was totally worth it! I loved learning more about the history of his work and how he became famous. I think that his works are just the most beautiful things. Art Nuvo is really just so amazingly detailed and lovely. I spent a few hours there, and then Katie, Me, and a Brazilian woman named Maria Fernanda who we met in our hostel room all went out for dinner together. They ordered the famous Czech beer, and I had a mulled wine just for the experience of it! It was very strong with cloves, but the cinnamon and lemon they added to the red wine were really good. I could see really enjoying it if I ever had to live up there in the cold. I also had a really great Czech desert which was called Medovník, or honey cake- I usually don't like cake so the fact that I devoured this means that it was really really good. I mean this stuff was amazing! I've got to find a recipe. Anyway, we had a very early flight in the morning (the only cheap thing we could find unfortunately) and so we turned down the pretty czech boys trying to convince us to go on the a pub crawl they were advertising and called it a night.
All in all, I really loved Prague. The weather was brisk and fall like with trees changing colors and everything. It was a big city but felt very small and beautiful. I loved the art and the architecture and had a lot of fun exploring and trying new things! It was a great trip and I'm really glad we went to the trouble of planning it! If you want to see all the pictures they are finally uploaded on Facebook after much struggle with the idiotic server.
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Katie and I at the top of the Astronomical Clock Tower, looking out on Tynska!
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