Picturesque Prague!
- betsydelcour
- Apr 8
- 9 min read
This past week was the girls' spring break, which coincided with a visit from my dear friend of 26 years (!!!) Monnie. She arrived on Saturday morning, and aside from giving her time to adjust to the time difference and do some local sightseeing (see my FB post), we knew we had to go somewhere a little splashy. It was spring break after all, and the whole point of living here in Germany was for us to travel around Europe. We looked into a few locations: Munich, Baden Baden, Brussels, Amsterdam...but the clear winner to visit was Prague. So with a few days' notice, we booked our flights and our accommodation and off we went!
Monnie was the only one who'd been there before, but that was 16 years ago as a rather brief stop on a tour. After an easy 1 hour flight from Frankfurt, we arrived late afternoon on Thursday. Taking the taxi from the airport, the 4 of us sat in silence taking in the views around us. It felt quite different from Germany and it was easy to imagine it during its Eastern Bloc communist days. I kept holding my breath waiting for it to get more scenic...as we approached the city, there came the sigh of relief! Prague straddles the Vltava River, nestled in surrounding emerald hills, with red-roofed buildings, church steeples, medieval towers and ornate bridges connecting Lesser Town with Old Town. I was SO relieved to only be a passenger as the streets were a meandering spaghetti maze of cobblestone insanity with pedestrians EVERYWHERE. Our driver finally pulled up on a sidestreet with an off-kilter Romanesque church in front of us and a Hooters (yes really) to our left. We were staying in an apartment hotel called St. Hlavac, which wasn't there. Our driver pointed to the Hooters and said "there's your hotel." Yes Really. But there was an alley that went alongside the Hooters; halfway down was the sign for our accommodations. (We discovered that in Prague, streets continue through buildings). What a happy surprise this was! A beautiful, spacious apartment with hardwood floors, kitchen, large sleeper sofa and Euro-style equivalent to a king (?) sized bed. The "Euro style" means that it's 2 separate mattresses pushed together, each with its own duvets, so there's no sheet-stealing or weirdness if you're sharing a bed with a friend! We were in the center of the Old Town, literally one block from the Astronomical Clock; for three nights here, we paid 562 TOTAL! With the Hooters and its courtyard below, it did get loud at night (groups of drunk guys sitting at tables long after the bar had closed) but it was OK. We felt safe with our security codes, being on the 4th floor, and we were in the middle of all the action.
It was quite crowded in the city - lots of tourists with a good portion of them being young, like high school and college-aged guys. We also found out that the Prague Half Marathon was taking place on Saturday morning, so there were lots of running club groups from around Europe walking around. Much of the race took place on the cobbles - OUCH! Anyway, our first night we went to dinner as soon as we freshened up a little. There was a traditional-style Czech restaurant on the other side of the alley from Hooters. We walked in, and our waiter greeted us in English (I guess we are so OBVIOUSLY American! Oh well, at least we're a polite and respectful group). I got a Pilsner (I'm not a beer drinker, but I like to drink what's local when I'm traveling) - it was so-so. The girls and Monnie got goulash in bread bowls and I got duck confit with red cabbage - Czech menus are very similar to German; I wonder if goulash is like their version of sauerbraten? One difference is that Czechs serve most meals with their version of dumplings - really like ovals of very soft white bread or sometimes closer to a polenta consistency (these might be their potato dumplings). They're not bad, but kind of bland - good for sopping up stew or sauce, and were surely created as an inexpensive way to fill up. Our waiter was very fun and energetic - he was willing to earn an American tip, but we were happy to pay it. He made our 1st meal in Czechia memorable.
Afterward we took our initial walk around town. By now it was night (Thursday) and was buzzing with crowds. Crammed in on the narrow medieval cobblestone streets around so many young, partying people, it was fun, great people-watching, but felt very pick-pockety. It never felt dangerous, but we all had our guard up and that was enough. It's hard to describe the city justly. It's just so cool. Every building is different; every turn of the narrow streets reveal a new treasure of facades, mixing Romanesque, Gothic, Baroque with modern architecture; gargoyles, statues of artists, intellectual heroes, the Blessed Mother and other saints. Seeing it all lit up romantically at night. It really was a feast for the eyes. Ready to re-charge for the next day, we went to bed tired enough to sleep through carousing in the courtyard below.
Next day the weather was GORGEOUS! Not a cloud in the sky, reached into the 60s. We found a really cute cafe for breakfast; when I'm on vacation I drink only cappuccinos, and this place (Pauseteria) fit the bill! It was nice enough we sat outside in the beautiful courtyard. We wandered around for most of the day. We were tourists, so we did all of the touristy things - we hit the Charles Bridge, which is a famous pedestrian bridge connecting Old and Lesser towns. The river
is beautiful. Street artists and musicians line the way across. The musicians were actually really good and we happily supplemented their coin baskets. We wandered to the castle at the top of the hill. You have to take a million steps to get up there (think Po in Kung Fu Panda going up to the temple). But the view at the top (which has a Starbucks) is worth it. There's actually a collection of palaces there as well as St. Vitus cathedral, which we would return to the next day. For now, we decided to wander back down the hill to check out the original Infant of Prague statue which is in the Church of Our Lady Victorious. It was beautiful and a nice place to stop and pray for a minute.
After that we ambled back to our apartment. I booked a ghost tour for us that night, so we took an afternoon break for a nap/chill time. Refreshed, we decided to check out the Astronomical Clock since it was right around the corner. Completed in 1410, it rings every hour and statues move around for a show; It tells the time, the phases of the moon, the orientation of the universe to the Earth, sunrise/sunset, astrological phases...I'm sure I'm missing some things. The statue show: on the left of the clock are two figures representing vanity (a guy looking in a mirror) and greed (miser with a bag of gold); to the right are death (skeleton) and lust (a Turk). At the top of the hour, the skeleton rings a bell while the other 3 figures look away from him, as they are not prepared to die. Above the clock two windows pop open and statues representing the 12 apostles cycle through. It's a cool little show and amazing how old it is. After that we had dinner at an Italian place (it was Friday, so no meat. Italian is an easy way to have tasty non-meat options). It was REALLY good!
The ghost tour...this was ok. We met at 8, which was the start of dusk. It was a group of 17 of us, and though it was an English-speaking tour, we were among the minority of native English speakers. There were 3 others from the UK, but then the others were all Poles, an Israeli family, a Phillipina and Egyptian. The tour guide HATED me from the start for some reason. Stories were ok. But it was a fun way to see some history and walk around.
Next day, we went to the same place for breakfast, which breaks my tourist rule: Thou Shalt Not Go to the Same Restaurant Twice on Vacation. But it was so good on Friday morning, we all eagerly ran back. And...it was a mistake. None of us enjoyed our breakfasts as much as the day before! And, we sat at the same table outside...but it was significantly cooler and windy, so we froze! Oh well, lesson learned!! The four of us decided to split up; Monnie and Genna wanted to check out a library said to be one of the most beautiful in the world. Molly and I wanted to check out a church that was a stop on our ghost tour the night before. It was said that hundreds of years ago, some guy snuck into the church and tried to steal the crown of the head of a statue of Mary. When he reached to grab it, the statue grabbed his arm and refused to let go. He hung there all night. When the monks came in the next morning, they tried everything they could to grease his arm out, to no avail. Reluctantly, they called the police. The police noted that the penalty for stealing anyway was to cut off the hand of the thief (this is the legend, anyway) so they decided to free the thief that way. They took the guy to arrest him and the monks said "but the arm! It's still in Mary's clutch!" to which the police said "not our problem!" The monks decided to cut the arm out of the statue and hang it from the ceiling of the church to dissuade any would-be thieves, and it still hangs there today. Yep. Still there. It's a black, shriveled piece of jerky hanging just inside the entry to the Church of St. Jakub. LOL!
Unfortunately Monnie and G's side trip was a bust as you had to have an official, booked ahead of time tour to see the library. That's annoying. As we all had to navigate the sold out foot race going through Old Town, we met up on the other side of the Charles bridge for some shopping, then we hit the castle again for a tour. The main area is walled off and includes St. Vitus Cathedral and a couple of palaces. The cathedral was by far the most interesting. It's huge and took nearly 600 years to build, with construction completed in 1929. The stained glass windows were gorgeous. The rest of the palace grounds were ok. By then we were all freezing - it'd been so warm the day before we were overdressed. Not wanting to make the same mistake on Saturday, most of us were underdressed. The sky was overcast and it was a biting wind - even Minnesota Monica was cold! :P
We had planned on going to an English-speaking vigil Mass that night on the Lesser Town side of the river (where we were) so to kill time (and get out of the cold) we decided to go for an early dinner. One of the downsides of being tourists, in a touristy town, and not having had time to do a lot of research, is that you don't know what establishments to trust. You can walk past ten restaurants advertising "goulash in a bread bowl" and you don't know if it's going to be good, expensive, etc. No one WANTS to be a dumb tourist, but alas, due to my lack of planning, we kind of just winged a lot of this trip. No matter though - we found a Czech style restaurant to get cozy and we all enjoyed our meals. I decided to try a local light beer again and actually enjoyed this one. I got a roast pork with sauerkraut, red cabbage, dumplings and gravy and it was delicious. Monnie and Molly got goulash again - this one was really yummy. And Genna got a schnitzel, as that is her favorite food so far on this side of the Atlantic. It was all really good, and service was so slow, it killed ALL of our time before church! Mass was great - a small group of English speakers in a Romanesque side chapel, with an old priest with a heavy NY accent. He was elderly and stooped over; he sat to give the homily. And what a thoughtful homily it was, discussing the story of the Pharisees bringing the adultress to Jesus in the synagogue ("whomever is without sin may cast the first stone"). In that ancient room and this dear old priest, it felt like we were getting loving advice from a wise grandfather. Touched all of our hearts.
On that note, we shiver-fast-walked back across the bridge to our home. We were done for the day and ready to get cozy in our beds! Next morning was an 8am Uber to the airport - this driver took us a different way past some beautiful wealthy looking neighborhoods - a different look from the other day. We all loved our visit to Prague - I can't wait to bring Casey back one day!
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