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| View of Prague Castle on the Vltava River |
We arrived in Prague at 6:23am via the overnight train from Budapest. It was raining, which is not a good omen. Weather forecast says it'll rain for the next 3 days (conveniently, the 3 days we are here), but I'm always hoping the forecasters are wrong. Which they are, 99% of the time...in California at least. No such luck here.
It was dark outside as the sun had not yet risen, and I hadn't anticipated Prague's main train station, the Hlavni Nadrazi, to be so vast. Florence, Budapest, Venice--their train stations are tiny in comparison. As it was raining--and dark--I left Mom, Dad, Angel inside in the warmth of the train station while I went to investigate how the heck to get to our hotel. I couldn't even find my way out of the train complex ("ausgang" I can follow, but when there's a park in front of the train station with a dozen different paths, not so much). I asked around, but it seems like it's the morning commute and everyone's busy. I got 2 people pointing toward the same general, vague direction. Promising...somewhat.
So I go back in to ask the Tourist Information desk. The desk opens at 7am but the lady's there, so I figured, why not? The lady pointed at the clock. Ugh. Are you kidding me? I have to wait around twenty minutes (by then it was 6:40am) for you to give me directions? From Google maps, the hotel should be a 5 minute walk from the train station...that is, if I ever figure out how to get out of the station.
I go and ask two different ticket counter ladies, who both say to me: "No info here. Go to tourist information."
I. Was. Just. There. And. No. One. Would. Help. Me.
Grrrr.
Not a good way to start out a city. Raining and rude, unmotivated employees. I read somewhere that 60% of Czech Republic's economy is generated from tourist dollars. Why wouldn't you want to be nicer to tourists??? You think, based on this experience, that I'd go home and actually recommend people to visit Prague??? Not with that kind of attitude!
After 40 minutes of frustration, I finally drag Angel out of the station with me to help. We walked in another direction, and as it turns out, it's the right direction! After fetching the parents, we roll our suitcases out into the rain and literally, five minutes later (ok, so it felt like 10 in the rain), we were at our hotel. Dripping wet, of course.
The K+K Fenix is a 4-star hotel and the lobby looks it too. Right when we walked in, Mom's eyes lit up like a kid on Christmas day. It's absolutely beautiful. We were dirty, exhausted, and I was a bit apprehensive about checking in early (didn't want to get yelled at, not after my experience with the train station workers). I originally wanted to just check our luggage in and go out to explore the city, but the gentleman behind the counter was so nice and said our rooms were ready, would we like to check in now?
I could have wept.
He gave us maps of Prague (69 korunas at the train station tourist info booth. $1 USD = 21.80 CZK) and a brief orientation of how to use our keys. The hotel keys are nothing like I've ever seen before. I'll try to take a picture of it tomorrow.
After a shower and some rest, we were ready to go out to explore Prague. It stopped raining and the sun came out from behind the clouds, so we thought it was a perfect omen that the trip was turning up for the better.
Turns out we were right. We turned a corner from the hotel out onto the main street (the Champs Elysees of Paris - Vaclavske Namesti or, Wenceslas Square) and two seconds later, we find:
Ta-da! Marks & Spencer, Angel's favorite British store. Dad still remembers their pastry cream and sultana raisin snail-roll, and he was hungry, so we went upstairs to the grocery department and he made a beeline for the bakery. Who knew they'd sell it in Prague?
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| Eating on Wenceslas Square |
We walked down Wenceslas Square til we hit a cute little square selling roasted pig knuckle, beer and odd trinkets:
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| Little stand selling roasted pig |
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| Haha looks like anyone you know? |
We made it to the Powder Tower, so called because it used to store ammunition:
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| Powder Tower |
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| Astronomical Clock Tower |
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| Astronomical Clock |
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| Coat of Arms of Bohemia - the Lion |
And I thought it was off season!
Tourists abound everywhere, in every language. With the backdrop of a picturesque historic town, it's like Disneyland, only 100 times worse. Actually, I keep thinking it's like being inside the Venetian or Caesar's Palace in Vegas. Stormy silvery clouds dot the unbelievably blue sky like Renaissance art, the cobblestones are intricately laid out, and the colorful houses in city center look like they popped out of Venice.
It's pretty chilly in Prague, especially at night. Still, if you're out and about during the day, a light jacket and scarf is probably all you need against the elements.
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| Charles Bridge |
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| Statue on Charles Bridge |
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| The Castle side of Charles Bridge |
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| Is it not like Disneyland??? |
These two. When they gotta eat, they gotta eat:
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| Angel with gyros wrap, Dad with Prague sausage |
They were pretty cheap at a stand at the base of Charles Bridge going up to the Castle. 70 CZK for the hot dog, 95 CZK for the gyros wrap. There's a lot of gyros stands in Prague, though the meat is somewhat drier than Munich's gyros. Still tasty though.
And then...
Stairs???
Who said anything about stairs?! It did NOT feature a topographical on the map...had I known... I guess it's better not to know, so I won't spend the whole day dreading the exercise. And to think, I have to do it tomorrow. AGAIN.
There's two ways to get up to the Castle complex. 1.) Stairs 2.) Tram
...though Angel didn't bother telling Dad there was a tram option, and I just plain forgot.
I think it's like 12 flights of stairs? I'll count--painfully--tomorrow. Heck, I can't even make it up the 2 flights of stairs at Target without huffing and puffing. But once you get up, the view's amazing.
And, as usual, Dad's intrigued by the guards:
Inside the gate:
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| St. Vitus Cathedral |
The ticket office has 3 different types of tickets. Each will allow you entrance to certain buildings and not others. The ticket is valid for 2 consecutive days, and you'll need it cuz it's impossible to see everything in one day (well, depending on who you are. I can spend the whole day in the Louvre while Angel can only stand an hour at most). We bought the Circuit A, which allows us entrance into St. Vitus Cathedral, where the coronations of Czech kings and queens were held. St. Vitus's relics are here as well.
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| Interior of cathedral |
We went into the History of Prague Castle museum after that, though they didn't allow pictures there. I spent 3 hours in there, only to come out and find an irate Dad and Angel, who spent the time sitting outside, freezing their asses off. Hey, I had no watch. How am I supposed to know you'd speed through everything? By the time I got out of the museum, everything in the complex was closing (they close early here--5pm. what's up with that?)
Angel said the museum was a bunch of cups. And earrings. And another cup. With handle. Without handles.
And Jen has to read every tag as "C. U. P. Ooh a cup!" Then "C. U. P. Oooh! Another cup!"
I thought it was fascinating. It takes you through 1000 years of history, from skeletal remains and burial ornaments of the first Czech kings and queens, the medieval ages to Maria Theresa, and finally, what happened to it under Communist rule, etc. There was one king, Ferdinand, whose brother Matthias plotted to overthrow him. Matthias styled himself a king, and had his own court. Ferdinand's policies were to keep the peace in the region, and I guess that wasn't very popular at the time, so he made a few enemies. Matthias, from an early age, would get portraits of himself done up and send them to foreign dignitaries as gifts (this was apparently a very popular thing to do in those days). This way, he networked his way into powerful friends who could help overthrow Ferdinand.
Damn younger siblings.
So after their miserable sitting-outside-waiting-for-me experience, Angel spotted something she wanted to eat and put her foot down.
She wanted to go into McDonald's.
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| Chocolate ganache cake with marzipan and gianduja filling |
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| Donut hole with jam filling |
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| Happy now? |
McD's bathrooms in Prague cost 10 CZK per person. But, you can use that money toward buying something from them later on. There's a toll booth where you insert the money (they do give change), then you go through the booth (much like a Metro rolling booth) into the bathroom. Don't forget to retrieve the voucher from the machine:
It's basically a 10 CZK coupon toward your next meal. It's valid for 1 month, but you can only use 1 voucher at a time.
We walked a little way down back toward Charles Bridge, when we saw this restaurant:
The menu looked good and it was pretty cold outside, so we decided to go in. It's a cute German tavern with traditional Czech/German food. One Asian lady came in before us and mentioned to the waiter that she read this restaurant was the best on this side of the bridge, so she wanted to try it out. After we sat down, a lot more Asians came in (different parties), which makes me think it's on some UDN list somewhere.
Mom got gold roasted pork knuckle. When the waiter brought it out, my jaw dropped. The waiter smiled at me because I'd squealed, "It's huge!"
I got the duck confit with duck breast and dumplings:
Angel ordered foie gras with chocolate sauce and raspberry coulis. That circle there is some sort of sweet nutty scone/pancake:
And of course, don't forget the beer. Mom ordered Prague's famous Pilsner Urquell.
Dad got the Pilsner roasted beef with goulash:
The portions were so big that by the end, we were stuffing it down. This is really a jean button-busting endeavor. Another group of Asians near us ordered two appetizers, the pork knuckle and the duck confit to share amongst 5 people.
We each had an entree (rookie mistake), and polished nearly everything off our plates.
No wonder they're so skinny.
Besides pork knuckle, Prague is also known for their beer. Urquell is the one Mom ordered with dinner tonight, so she thought she'd try Krusovice, another famous Prague beer. We bought it at Billa supermarket on our way back to the hotel.
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