Prague is my favorite city in Europe, maybe even in the world. It has enchanting Romanesque architecture and cobblestones streets. The city transports you to a different time. Everything about the city, the landmarks, food, and people, make you feel like you have entered the 16th century. This underrated European city holds a special place in my heart. I went to this beautiful city on a school trip in 2017. Here is what I did with my few days in my favorite city.
Day 1
It started with a stop off the bus. We pulled over to take a walking break and find dinner. This is the exact moment I fell in the love with this city. I remember turning to my mom and saying, “This is my city. Look at the river, the bridges, and buildings. I love it!” Walking across the bridge I couldn’t help but smile. Looking out at the river, we had an amazing view of Prague Castle. Yep, I was in a fairy tale.
Then we walked to our restaurant, where we had our first Czech meal. It was also the best and most famous Czech meal. It was Goulash and Dumplings. Trust me, it is not what you are imagining right now. Eastern European Goulash is different than the American counter part. It consists of chunks of meat, usually pork or beef, covered with a sauce served with some vegetables, potatoes, and dumplings. Czech dumplings are also different. They look more like a slice of bread. That is because a Czech dumpling is a huge roll of dough that is boiled and then sliced.
After dinner and some breath taking views of an amazing city. We found our hotel. Now what I am about to tell you really happened. We stayed at a soccer arena. Yes, a soccer arena. It was a soccer field with a built-in hotel, which because of a few awkward encounters, we discovered in also where the soccer teams stay.
We had an interesting first night at this hotel, not just because of some drunk soccer players, but also because of an alarm. It was about midnight when we all woke up to a loud sound. The 3 other girls in my room and I looked at each other confused. We thought that maybe the alarm on someone’s phone was going off, but then we heard voices. The alarm started saying things in languages we couldn’t understand. I assumed it was in Czech, but then I heard some German and French too. Then finally English. It turned out to be a fire alarm. We calmly followed the other people to the exit and met with our group outside. After some attendance and gossiping, our tour director told us what was up. A kid from a different tour was smoking in their room, which caused the fire alarm to go off. That has to have been embarrassing. I think they even got sent home. I think every student learned a lesson that night.
Day 2
The next day I headed downstairs to find an array of Czech breakfast food. You should have seen the look on my face when I saw the bread. Fact about me: I love bread. Ever since I was little I could stuff my face with bread. Even now, if someone asks me what my favorite food is, I will say bread. I grabbed a few different piece of bread to try, and then there is was. A particular Czech bread I know all too well. Every Christmas, my dad’s family, which is part Czech, particularly Bohemian, makes Czech Christmas bread. It is called Vanocka. Of course I was thrilled to find this bread here. It was the first thing I witnessed in the Czech Republic that connected my Czech life at home with Czech life here.
We took our bus over to Prague castle. It was a bit of a walk to the actual building and we had to wait in a few long lines, but it was worth it. As we entered into the square we saw in front of us the presidential building. If the flag is out, which it was, it means that the Czech president is there. Then to our left there was a path to the Cathedral. We took a tour of the Cathedral and the palace, but I am going to be honest. I didn’t learn much. Our tour guide had a very strong bias against Catholics, which is understandable considering the Czech Republic’s history with the Holy Roman Empire. I tried my best to ignore her bias, but being a Catholic, it was hard. After awhile I just could not listen to her anymore. I settled for reading the signs and imagining the events that happened here.
This beautiful cathedral and palace has a dark history though. Have you ever heard of the defenestration of Prague? First I will ask. Do you know what defenestration means? I would have said no if I was asked this at the time. Defenestration basically means to throw some one out of a window. I’m serious. This was the site of the famous defenestration of Prague, where Protestant Bohemians threw Habsburg Catholics out of the window of Prague Castle. The Protestants were unhappy with the rule of the Catholic empire and showed their dissatisfaction with this act. I’m not saying I approve of throwing Catholics out of windows, but sometimes you do what you gotta do.
On our tour of Prague Castle we walked down ‘Golden Lane’. The lane was lined with Medieval museums and gift shops. My favorite part was seeing the torture chamber. I may or may not have seen a real skeleton. I don’t know and I don’t want to know.
We then made our way to ‘The Shiny Penis’. Here is what I know about this. It is a statue of a little boy and his shiny penis. You may ask why it is shiny. That is from all of the tourists touching. Why are tourists touching the little penis of a little boy? To bring themselves luck of course! Yeah moving on from that because this is lightly weird and creepy.
After some walking around Prague we finally made it to the thing I was looking forward most to seeing the most: Charles Bridge! It is not all I had expected it to be though. I thought it was going to be magical. As we were walking up the steps, I heard a street musician playing Danny Boy. I thought I was entering a fairytale, but instead I entered onto a bridge covered in people. I don’t even have a nice picture of the bridge. Just a picture with a bunch of people in it. It didn’t help that there was a lot of vendors too. You wouldn’t be able to tell that it is the Charles Bridge. I did get to see many statues of different saints which was cool. I even touched the feet of one to make my wishes come true. What can I say. Feet are less gross than penises.
Then is was lunch time and we were on our own, so we went to a cute little restaurant called ‘The Fat Cat’. I like cats and everything here was CAT!! I was lame and only ordered a salad. If I could change what I ordered now, I would have definitely got dumplings like my grandma did.
The afternoon brought even more adventure and even a little bit of horror. The music of a cocktail festival surrounded us. I couldn’t understand the words, because the words were in Czech, but thanks to my musical brain I was able to understand that they kept playing the same 3 songs over and over. Ok, maybe not the same 3 songs, but they definitely played a few of the same songs over and over again. I didn’t mind it though. I love music from other countries. I love the sound of different languages in music.
I did some little dances in my head as we walked to the entrance to our Underground Tour, which was next to the famous Astronomical Clock. Because of my love for Old European Royalty and the Middle Ages, this was my favorite thing that I did in Prague.
A long time ago, in the 13th century, another Prague existed. This Prague was buried. Because of its location on the Vltava river, the old city experienced lots of flooding. Eventually the people buried their city and built a new one on top. This is the Prague we see today, but the old one has been preserved and holds just as much history. In the late Middle Ages, it was used as a dungeon. Many people were tortured or executed here. This included being burned alive in the old wells that existed in this old city. When underground first started to be explored again after its dark time, 200 skeletons were found behind one of the doors. The underground had a dark, but intriguing feeling. I’m not the kind of person to be into ghosts, but I kind of enjoyed being in the haunted underground.
We entered the underground though its one entrance in a beautiful decorated room full of paintings and statues. I had a moment when I saw the name listed on one of the statues was Vaclav, the name of my Great-great-grandfather who came to Iowa from Bohemia. It wasn’t the same person, but I never have seen or heard the name Vaclav unless it was referring to him. It made the feeling that I was actually in the Czech Republic even more real.
As we walked down the steep stairs into the underground, it became quite clear that if you were put in here there was no way you would escape. We entered another room. It didn’t have a eerie feeling right away. It actually seemed quite normal because the tour set up the underground to make it look like people lived there versus died there. As we continued to walk and I saw things like the wells and the dungeon doors the haunted feeling arose, but I liked it. I was totally into it. I just had to hope that one of the distressed ghosts wouldn’t lock us up in there. We made it out alive though. This is one of my favorite things that I have ever done in any country or city. I don’t know if everyone on our tour enjoyed it as much as me, but that is ok. I’m a history nerd and this place was right up my alley.
The adventure continued with a little side visit to the John Lennon Wall. This was something new to me when I got here. I actually never had heard of the Lennon Wall before. It isn’t the kind of thing that I would usually think of visiting. I like history. I like old buildings, streets, sites, food, and people. I’m not usually into Pop-Culture sites like this, but I am still glad I visited it. I got to see a different side of Prague that is very relevant to its modern history. I witnessed the hippie side of Prague. The city has had a few cultural revolutions. The new Prague is very liberal, especially since its legalization of Cannabis in 2010. I saw this kind of culture across the river at the Lennon Wall. In the 1980s a mural of Lennon was painted after his murder. After that it became a mode of expression in youth culture. It was filled with graffiti, Beatles lyrics, and political statements and grievances.
When I saw it, it wasn’t quite like this anymore. All the original graffiti has been covered up by tourists’ names. It was kind of sad to see that, because it could have been something really cool. It isn’t quite my kind of history, but some day it could be. It could be history, but instead it we have ruined it.
We did a little shopping to pass the time until dinner. You can’t go to a European city without doing some shopping. I’m not the kind of person to buy the normal souvenirs when I am in another country. I don’t buy t-shirts, keychains, or pens. I like to buy things unique to the city sold by local artisans. In Prague, I came across a little shop and found the cutest homemade bag with a cat stitched on it. I love cats, and it seemed to be appropriate to buy it from a city whose mascot is a cat. It was also super fun to read the Czech newspapers that where stuffed in it. I also bought a scarf. When you are in Prague you buy a scarf. Its the rules. It is now my favorite scarf. The lady from the scarf shop was also really nice and helped us pronounce the Czech word for thank you, which is Dekuju.
For dinner we had the usual 3 courses; soup, entree, and dessert. This meal we had bread and potato soup. Then another pork dish. I wasn’t quite sure what is was, but it look liked a pork chop on some rice, covered with a tomato sauce and vegetables. It was ok, but not as good as the goulash and dumplings we had the night before. Then dessert was ice cream. I guess ice cream is an international love.
After dinner we had some free time. We had two choices: go back to the hotel or explore the city some more. There was no way I was spending my last day in this amazing city at my hotel, so we explored. We didn’t do much though. We mostly just walked around and looked at the architecture, which is my favorite thing to do. We did a little bit of shopping and checked out a Czech Starbucks (hehe, see what I did there). Then for a real authentic Czech experience we took a tram to Slavia station. Luckily we had a few other people from our tour on the tram, because none of us knew what we were doing. It turned out we needed to switch trams to get to our station. I’m glad someone from our group was able to figure that out.
The night ended with some journaling and an early night to bed for me. I wasn’t used to such long days and I would have to wake up at 6:00 for our drive to Poland and a visit to Auschwitz, one of the most memorable experiences in my life.
Look out for a post about my life-changing experience at the concentration camp Auschwitz.
The Journal of Wanderlust 