First things first: if you’re in no way interested in looking at a million pictures of Prague, YOU SHALL NOT PASS. If this is the case, there’s nothing in this post for you.
If you want to see a million pictures of Prague, today is your lucky day!
Though we only technically had one full day in Prague, I’m going to count it as three days because we had plenty of time to explore on the day we arrived and the day we left. I feel as though we fit enough in without stressing ourselves out, as a holiday is about relaxation as well as activity. I could have happily spent a few more days, or a week, or perhaps the rest of my life there, continuing to roam the streets happily, stopping off occasionally for a beer, or to eat some delicious food. The food was exactly what you would want after walking around in the cold. On the first night we ate at the Trilobite Restaurant, a very trendy but equally unpretentious place in a subterranean but warm and cosy setting. The waitresses were incredibly friendly, and also very patient and helpful while Becci and I struggled with the difficult decisions of what to eat or drink. I settled for a Pilsner, and roast duck with red cabbage and 2 kinds of dumplings. I was not prepared for how much I was going to love these dumplings. They were nothing like anything I’ve really eaten before, and I’m now faced with the following options: a) move to the Czech Republic and eat them every day, b) accept that they were a holiday fling and that if I love them, I have to let them go or c) try my best to make them myself. The answer is probably c. I looked at some recipes and it seems that you make a mixture of chopped bread and eggs, then put it in a pan of boiling water?! Only time will tell.
Prague is architecturally stunning. So many of the buildings were incredibly grand and ornate, as well as being very colourful. We went on a one hour bus trip, which took us through the city, and then on a river cruise (with coffee and cake included, oh yeah!). The views across the river were absolutely gorgeous. As you can probably tell by the pictures, I spent a lot of time gazing up into the sky. As a country girl I’m quite used to looking up and seeing nothing but sky, so I always find it quite cool that in a big city you can look up to the heavens and the sky will be framed with the tops of buildings.
Prague Castle was really, truly beautiful, but was also the busiest place in the history of the world, ever. (True story… maybe.) In my head I always feel as though I am not a tourist, so I stand and look at huge crowds and think, ‘Pshh, tourists’, before reminding myself that I’m doing exactly the same thing. Despite being enough of a grown-up to acknowledge this, I was not going to stand in what looked like an hour-long queue to get into each building. Just looking at the queues made me want to literally cry. I still wandered around the grounds, took some pictures, bought some tourist tat, and thoroughly enjoyed myself nonetheless.
Before getting a taxi to the airport on Friday, we hung out at a Staropramen Potrefená husa bar, and tried a Staropramen cool lemon which was absolutely amazing. Another thing that I will be gutted if I can’t find in England. I love a good lager, and so I loved the beer drinking tradition in Prague. I’m not usually one for drinking in the daytime, but for some reason sitting down with a beer outside a bar at 11.15 just seemed so normal and acceptable. I ended up with a load of coins left in my purse and was so confused by the currency I ended up leaving it all in tips, and I honestly have no idea whether I left a brilliant tip or an awful tip.
Now I’m going to be dramatic and you’re probably going to think I’m over exaggerating, but I’m really not. In the taxi on the way to the airport we very narrowly missed being in a huge catastrophic car crash. I’m not even joking. When I describe it, it sounds like nothing, so I guess the only people who will understand how terrifying it really was are Becci and the taxi driver. Basically the taxi driver turned left out of a junction and must have completely misread the oncoming traffic, and essentially avoided colliding with a tram by what felt like a millisecond. When he swerved to get out of the way of the tram, the back end of the car spun out of control and nearly spun into the railings, where it might have gone through them and off the bridge. Neither of these outcomes happened, obviously, hence why I’m here writing this, but we were less than a second from either fate. All sarcasm and drama aside, although technically nothing happened, it feels incredibly weird to know that there could be another version of events in which the taxi driver faltered for one more second and hit the tram, or span off the bridge and into the river. After he straightened up and carried on driving I spotted two cars on the other side of the road who had obviously had a bit of a fender bender. My first thought was ‘oh dear, that looks bad’ and my second thought was ‘if we’d hit that tram we would have looked a million times worse’. This little experience did not in any way ruin my holiday, but it did leave me feeling a little shaken up and nervous. Thankfully the flight was stress-free, except for some crying children. On a lighter note, on the way to the airport we drove through (I think) Prague 6, and saw some amazing houses that did not actually look real. It looked like a model village or a doll’s house.
Enough of my moaning now. How have you all been?
