Spring Break Eur(Bro)trip: Prague

Wednesday, March 9th.  Praha, Czech Republic.  What an amazing city.  Former USSR communist-block country, once the Capital of the Holy Roman Empire, beer Mecca, and a flourishing city (e.g. extremely inexpensive).

Prague is doing everything it can to encourage people to visit, bring their friends, and all their money to Prague.  For instance, the plane to rome cost 17.60 Euros, they gave us a tourist map of Prague when we got on the plane, and a complimentary drink and sandwich.  After flying Ryanair multiple times, where the flights are cheap, but you're basically corralled onto the plane like a herd of steers, this was awesome.  There was no immigration to go through coming into Prague, so basically I read it as "Come to Prague, we'll do anything, just come visit our city!  We're not communist anymore, we promise!"

So we got into Prague and to our Hostel, The Prague-1 Hostel, which we weren't sure about initially, but turned out to be the best one we stayed in on our entire trip.  We had to pick up the keys from the bartender at the pub across the street, so I immediately thought "Czech Mafia".  But we got in, and the place was only 3 rooms, with a central hallway and shared bath.  Brian and I had a private room with a loft, sitting area and kettle.  Not bad for 7 euros a night, not bad at all.

So I'm going to put in some basic highlights from the trip, and hopefully let the pictures do the rest of the talking.

Wednesday, after getting settled we went looking for some food and some beer.  Yes, I know I talk a lot about beer.  But I'd like to consider myself a beer enthusiast...not yet a connoisseur, but definitely an enthusiast.  And a responsible enthusiast.  And this is Prague, you gotta talk about the beer at some point.
We went to a restaurant, where I got goulash and potatoes with some kind of caramelized onions and a Dark Beer.  The food here is so heavy, but so delicious.

Everyone talks about Pilsner Urquell in Prague.  But not as many people talk about the Dark Beer.  The Dark beer is a little bit sweeter, unbelievably smooth, and unfortunately unavailable in the USA.

Master 12 deg. Dark Beer- best beer I've ever had in my entire life.  No exaggeration

Thursday, March 10th,

Breakfast first of all- a crepe swimming in whipped cream and raspberries-  awesome, but that much sugar early on was a killer.  We headed to the old town square to go on a walking tour of the city.  newEurope tours have a "free" tour in many cities around europe.  They work off of tips only, and do an excellent job.  Our guide in Prague was studying theatre in Prague, which was self-evident by the way in which he presented the tour.  Very eloquent and dramatic, but extremely knowledgeable.  We happened to meet up with other kids from Notre Dame studying at UCD with us, who were on the same tour.  Afterwards we went over to the Prague castle with them and toured around (check out the picture below)

Completely still, but check out the sideways glance he's giving me.  What if he needs to scratch his nose?

Old Town Square

Charles Bridge & Prague Castle (in background)

Kafka!

Apparently Franz Kafka (surrealist author who was from Prague) had a dream that a giant was after him, but had no head, so he jumped on top of the giant to get a closer look.

Up at Prague Castle in front of the Cathedral there- St. Vitus Cathedral

When we were on our way back from Prague Castle on the Charles Bridge, there was a band of guys playing, called the Charles Bridge Band.  They were a bunch of older guys playing the guitar, mandolin, violin/fiddle, and one guy playing a washboard with thimbles on his fingertips.  They played songs in Czech, and would take turns soloing.

View downriver from the Charles Bridge

 That night we went to dinner at a Tank Pub.  Beer is usually pasteurized to eliminate any harmful bacteria before export, but that can contribute to oxidization, which can cause an occasional bottle to taste bad.  The Czechs came up with a way to solve that, by putting them in large plastic tubes at just the right temperature and dispensed via compressed air to avoid any external contamination.  All of that equals unpasteurized, delicious Czech beer, which I had with Potato dumplings filled with some kind of meat...I know I vowed not to talk too much about food, but man, the combination of hearty potatoes, meat and good dark beer was awesome.

Friday, March 11:

Breakfast at a place called the Creperie- I had bacon, smoked salmon and cheese in mine.  I could taste it the rest of the day, but it was so good I really didn't mind too much.
We went to the Muzeum (below), a natural history museum which apparently had a good geology collection.  I have always had an interest in geology, but this consisted of rooms filled with different mineral specimens, some of which were interesting, but everything was written in Czech, and really, there are only so many stuffed birds, fossils, bones and rocks you can look at in a given amount of time.

Muzeum at Wenceslas Square

 We walked around the rest of the city that we had missed on the tour.  One drawback to Prague is the fact that smoking is still allowed indoors, at restaurants, cafes, etc.  Walking out of a pub I'd suck in fresh air like I had just swam the length of an olympic pool underwater.

That night, as we were walking down the street by the Charles Bridge, I literally ran into one of my roommates from UCD who goes to UVA.  What a small world!  We ended up meeting up with them and going to their hostel, where there was a band playing American songs, but singing in Czech.  It was funny to hear OCMS's "Wagon Wheel" sung in Czech.

Astronomical Clock in the background-frozen in time. Ironic?

The next morning after breakfast (crepes and ice cream, hell yea) we jumped on the train to Berlin.  5 hours riding through the country of the Czech Republic and Germany, we passed a cool tower/fort/castle on top of a cliff by a river along which we were riding:

Prague overall was a great city.  Beautiful architecture, great atmosphere, small city and streets, great food, even better beer; I would recommend this city to anyone visiting Europe.  Because it was formerly part of the Soviet Union, I had "The Hunt for Red October" montage stuck in my head for some reason. There is obviously a ton of Soviet influence in Prague, but there is so much more history, and so much going on in the city now, it's a great place to visit, especially during the warmer months.

And now, off to the last leg of our 10 day Euro Trip: Berlin.