Prague Blague

(Brett came up with that clever title)

Eight years ago, as part of an Orchestra tour, I visited Prague. This past weekend, I got to experience it again with Brett. This time around was definitely colder, but Prague is always amazing no matter what time of year you visit.

We actually drove with a couple who we know from Monterey. (They are also here for 6 months doing an internship. His mom lives in Germany, so he has a car here.) It seemed like a good idea at the time, but there were five of us in the car (her friend was also visiting from the U.S.), which obviously meant we were all a little squished in the back and I was sitting on the hump. Brett offered to sit on the hump, but we all know that would just be ridiculous.

We left on Friday around 5 and the guy we were with, Zak, wanted to stop at a town called Český Krumlov. It's a quaint little Czech town with a beautiful castle, as seen here at night:



We wandered around town a bit that night, walked up to the castle grounds, and also ate at a Restaurant called The Two Mary's. We ordered the traditional "Bohemian Feast," which was
delicious.




The next day, we woke up and wandered around some more and then hopped in the car to head to Prague. Once we got there, we found our hostel and got settled in... but not before taking a wrong turn and running into this chump:



I know you can only kind of see him, but that jerk of a cop is giving us a 1,000 CZK ticket which is about $40. While that may not be a lot of money, it's still ridiculous that he even gave us a ticket. We obviously didn't speak czech and we didn't see the tiny sign that apparently meant cars were not allowed down that street. At any rate, we were finally in Prague and once we dropped off our stuff, we headed into town. We wanted to see as much as possible so we did a lot of walking. We started by heading over the Charles Bridge:

And then headed towards the Prague castle and the Old Cathedral, which you may recognize from "A Knights Tale."


The rest of that day included us walking a lot, seeing plenty of other awesome things, and me trying to stop in every shop with bohemian crystal. It's just so sparkly I couldn't help myself.

We also found a falafel place to eat at that night, and Brett was excited to be able to communicate with someone in a common language, since the guy that owned it spoke Arabic. (A lot of people in Prague speak English, but you get what I mean.)

The next day, we went to the National Museum in Wenceslas Square. It was amazing. I don't think we appreciated it as much as we should have, since we were both so tired, but it was pretty awesome. Before and after the museum, we mostly just wandered around a lot. We wanted to take in as much of the city as possible because it really is beautiful.


We also ate a lot of delicious food while we were there including decadent chocolates, crepes, pastries, and a sausage or two. But, I didn't feel too bad about it considering how much walking we did... it all works out, right?

We left that evening at 5:30 via train. We decided not to ride back in the car for my back's sake. It took a little longer than we thought it would, but it was well worth it. No squishing and apparently our friends got stopped at the Czech border and accused of human trafficking. They eventually got through, but yikes.

So that pretty much wraps the trip up in a nutshell.


Oh and my parents are coming at the end of April and they want to go to Prague too... so Prague might be a three-peat for me. :)

So I guess that about sums up the trip. You can see all the Prague pics here