The good: Prague's medieval buildings survived the wars, so everything looks like a fairytale. It reminded me a lot of Sleeping Beauty -- so gorgeous! The city is also famous for its clock, which tells Bohemian time, regular time, shows the phase of the moon, the time of sunrise, sunset and the Zodiac. It's an awesome clock. Every hour the figures on it move, and a trumpet player appears at the top of the tower to play. The architecture everywhere is a gorgeous blend of styles (with a ton of colors) and there are dogs everywhere (all well-behaved). The cafes have wonderful atmosphere (very nostalgic), and they are very into tea as well as coffee (which has been nice -- they give you a pot). Czech food is good and cheap and much to Kelly's delight, beer is cheaper than water. The street musicians are PHENOMENAL in Prague. We saw a string quartet who also sang, a bass, accordion, violin trio, a sax, trumpet, tuba, banjo and washboard band and a drums, brass and bass band -- and the musicians are so legit. It's like disneyland, but real life.
The bad: We had terrible weather, made worse by the fact that we were unprepared for it. We had rain and cold winds on and off for the first two days (it got a little better on our last day - there was sun!). Sightseeing in the rain is hard. Harder when I only have a thin jacket ad thin windbreaker and kelly doesn't even have that. We had some absurd adventures. Equally miserable was the amount of smoking in Prague. It was everywhere -- inside restaurants and cafes, outside on the streets -- it was inescapable and headache inducing. Trams that say they are going one place and actually go somewhere else. Kelly and I took the "tourist tram" #22 early on our first day so we could go to the castle. It took the path 22 was supposed to take and then changed to the 20 path halfway through. There was probably an announcement in Czech that we clearly did not understand and the tram was still labeled 22! We ended up getting off somewhere in the business district (way past the edge of our city center map) and walked until we found the metro... And gave every tram we passed a dirty look. Everything was just kind of off for us in Prague. Things were closed when we thought they'd be open, bad timing with the weather, and things like that.
All in all I liked the city -- but our circumstances were less than ideal.
Highlights: Farmer's Market! There was a Farmer's Market on Saturday five minutes away from the apartment we were staying in. It was a breath of fresh air (and I got the best latte I've had in Prague). We walked through the colorful stalls and had a breakfast of fresh bread and cherries (for absurdly cheap). Then, we sat and people-watched for a while. Families were doing their shopping and someone was doing a puppet show with sponges for the kids. It was a delightful way to spend a morning.
On our first night, we stumbled upon a French festival in the little quarter, which was a delight. Cheese, sausage and wine! It was great -- we split a wonderful little quiche and I had a bit of baguette with some brie.
Friday night we met up with Mimi, Rachel and Nikhil and went to this great restaurant that was basically in a cavern -- awesome atmosphere and delicious food -- and it was great to see them!
That night, Kelly and I went to a "black light theatre" performance called "aspects of alice." Black light theatre is unique to Prague (or so it said) and it was an interesting experience. The first half was fun and whimsical, while the second half was... Rather odd. It was nice to go to the theater though!
We've basically decided that we WILL come back to Prague and do it right next time. It is SUCH a gorgeous city! Next time, we will do all the things =)
Now we're on the train to Rothenburg, which is a medieval German town. Looking forward to my first time in Germany, although the rain may foil our plans once again (it is raining as I type this). We'll see! Should be an adventure!
No comments:
Post a Comment