If you've been following my blog posts, you'll know that my parents came up to visit for graduation not too long ago. After our trip up to Preston, they had a few more days with us in London, and then had planned to fly out for three days in Prague before heading home. What none of us expected however, is that on the way to Preston we would spontaneously book flights for me to join them on their trip!! Mental!!!
That Sunday morning we woke up ridiculously early to make the drive up to Luton Airport, so that I could go on my first flight to the Czech Republic! I've wanted to go to Prague for years, although I didn't really have any idea what I could expect to see there. Luckily mum is obsessed with guide books, and had one to hand so that I could have a read and make some plans.
Prague airport is actually significantly outside of the city centre, and our booked transport took half an hour to get us to our hotel, which was near the Old Town not too far from Wenceslas Square. Mum had luckily booked a suite at Mariott Executive Apartments, which fortunately had a sofa bed for me - otherwise I would have had to book a last minute room God knows where. Thanks to mum's sweet talking, we managed to check into our room nice and early so that we could dump our luggage, and then mum and I went to the local mini mart to stock up on some essentials. That was a really weird experience - it put me in mind of one of those corner shops you find in the UK - the sort of places that stock booze, milk, and cans of food. This was basically the same: they had a booze section, a cold section selling all sorts of stuff that we couldn't decipher because they were labelled in Czech, a freezer section containing frozen pizzas and frozen rabbit pieces (literally the only meat they had) and rows of canned food. As you can imagine, lunch wasn't a very exciting affair as it consisted of pasta cooked with canned sauce, however we did manage to pick up a cheese which is surprisingly similar to Maltese gbejna...I couldn't believe it. It was delicious!!!
Mum and I spent that first afternoon walking around Wenceslas Square, then meandered around the shops on Na Prikope (Czech for 'on the moat'), which is a long, pedestrianised street separating Prague Old Town from the New Town, and then spent some time in the Palladium Shopping Centre. I actually really enjoyed the shopping because there are a huge variety of shops: British, American and Mediterranean, and they were all in sale....extremely convenient when you're in need of new work clothes.
We managed to find a normal supermarket as well..a chain called Albert Supermarket. We managed to pick up some amazing foodstuffs: traditional sourdough bread (which I ate entirely too much of during this trip), garlic filled sausages which had no fat in them, and goulash spices. Yum!!
That evening we managed to find a local bar slash restaurant for dinner that was so authentic I walked out of there feeling Czech!! I couldn't believe how cheap and delicious the food and wine were. The highlight of the meal was mum's pork knuckle, which is this immense knuckle of slow cooked pork served with horseradish and red cabbage. I had something called bramboraky, which is a fried potato pancake, and this place served it with a mixture of spiced meats inside the pancake. Delicious!!
The next day was our first full day of sightseeing. Prague has a brilliant metro system, but since it's such a small city we decided we'd get some exercise and walk through the Old Town across Charles Bridge. We stopped for a while in the Old Town Square, took a gander at the Astronomical Clock and then spent ages wandering across Charles Bridge and taking pictures of the Vltava river, the view of the town and all the statues decorating the bridge. We then continued on through Lesser Town, which is on the West side of the Vltava and slowly walked up to Prague Castle, which is up many flights of stairs. Word of advice...it is surprisingly hot in Prague, and if you don't deal well with the heat, save this walk up hundreds of stairs for the evening (not that it's much cooler), or visit Prague in the winter months.
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| Astronomical Clock |
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| The view from the Castle |
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| View of the castle from Charles Bridge |
Prague castle was pretty impressive. It's more like a citadel than a castle, and currently hosts state rooms used by the office of the President of the Czech Republic. It's a beautifully built place, with spectacular views of all of Prague, the incredible St Vitus Cathedral, and historical monuments and exhibition halls open to the public. We spent ages walking around there, checking out the architecture, the toy museum and the buildings making up the castle.
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| The river Vltava |
After the castle we went for a walk into lesser town, and decided to go on one of the boat cruises along the river Vltava. We chose the cruise based on the fact that they gave us beer and ice cream to go with the ride (always a plus). It was fantastic - really relaxing after the walking we had done all morning and a bit of cool breeze and shade to escape from the merciless sun. Our guide took us to various points along the river and described many of the popular sites. My interest was particularly taken by the hotel along the riverbank that allegedly charges 5000€ per night and has previously hosted celebrities including the Queen and whatever Hollywood stars have come along to film in Prague. It's a bit pricey for me though...
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| Walking down Wenceslas Square |
My mum's boyfriend needed a nap after the boat ride, so mum and I went back to our shopping roots, and had a lovely afternoon shopping....until the torrential rain began!!! Luckily at that point we had stopped for a coffee at the McCafe on Wenceslas Square, and we had a bit of shelter. We loved sitting there watching the world go by. By the time we got home it was getting pretty late, we were totally knackered after twelve hours of walking and we stayed in and ate a tasty, traditional goulash.
The next day was our last full day in Prague (it was only a short trip after all). We decided to spend that morning walking around the Jewish quarter, which is North of the Old Town. We spent hours walking around the little cobbled streets in that area, took a look at the Spanish Synagogue and the old Jewish Cemetery and associated Synagogue and then walked back to the Old Town along the river bank. It was such a relaxing morning but there was never a lack of beautiful architecture or views. Amazing.
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| Piggy on a spit!!!! |
Mum and I had discovered that Pandora charms are a lot cheaper in Prague than the rest of Europe, so we may have spent a few hours that afternoon choosing some new charms. I especially love the mask charm I got to remind myself of this Prague trip. We also hit the supermarket to pick up some Czech yummies to take home with us. And, as often as we could, we walked past this restaurant in the Old Town to see the state of the slow cooking, spit roasting piglet that they had on a spit outside. It smelled amaze balls!!
That night we decided to return to the same restaurant we went to the first night, as it was fantastic, authentic and there were things on the menu that we were dying to try. For me and mum, that was their traditional sharing platter, complete with dumplings, pork knuckle, gherkins, horse radish, red cabbage and god knows what else. It was massive, delicious and...oh yeah...MASSIVE. When the Czech say a platter feeds two, they mean it feeds five. Seriously. I don't understand how they're not all the size of a whale!!
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| A traditional Czech sharing platter, with pork knuckle, gherkins, dumplings, horseradish and sweet paprika. |
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