This trip started like many of our trips do — by finding a deal we couldn’t pass up. I visited Prague as part of a backpacking trip in college and loved it. As soon as we saw a deal for flights and hotel for $500, we just picked a weekend and booked it. The flights to Prague were uneventful. We rented a car at the airport and drove into town. As we were driving into town, I was worried that either Prague had changed significantly in the 18 years since my college trip, or my memories wouldn’t hold up to reality, but as soon as we got close, I feel in love with the city again! You can really feel the history and culture as you get into town. We stayed at Hotel Pav, located just south of Old Town in New Town. Most deals are structured based on dual occupancy, so when we all checked in (2 adults and 2 kids), we were given two full rooms! That first night, we just wandered around New Town a bit and had dinner at a pizza place called Kmotra, which was delicious and very close to our hotel. After dinner, we explored a little further and found a great ice cream place called Creme de la Creme before heading back to the hotel. After the kids fell asleep, I sneaked out and went to the Dancing House, a very unique building where it looks like one part of the building is hugging and pulling in another part of the building. I discovered that there’s a bar at the top with great views of the river, castle, and Old Town. After a quick drink there (admission is free with drink purchase), I went to an absinthe bar near the hotel called Absinthe Time for two shots to end the night.
The next day was our only full day in Prague, so we had a lot of ground to cover! We started by walking straight to Old Town, passing by the hanging Sigmund Freud statue along the way. After a quick stroll through Old Town Square, we took an elevator to the top of the Old Town Hall observation tower which has incredible views of the square and surrounding areas. Next, we walked east towards another great gothic building called the Powder Tower, which goes over the road. Nearby, there were a bunch of old-style cars and fancy coaches. We hired one of the old-style cars for a nice and relaxing tour of the city. After the car ride, we strolled north to an interesting statue of Franz Kafka riding on the shoulders of a headless figure. Continuing our walking tour, we went to the Old Jewish Cemetery but it was closed for the Sabbath. Nearby, we bought some delicious biscuits at Golem Bakery before going back towards the main square. We attempted to see the elaborate library known as Clementinum, but you can only see it as part of a tour which had inconvenient times and the elevator was broken, so we decided to skip it.
One thing Prague is known for are their puppet shows. We stopped by the National Marionette Theater near the Old Town Square and were bummed to see that the only shows advertised were evening shows we didn’t think would be appropriate for kids. Just as we were about to move on, we noticed two people go in and buy tickets. I went in and down a flight of stairs to ask what tickets those people just bought and we were told about a kids show starting in an hour! We got tickets, then had a quick lunch before showtime. The show was a twist on Hansel and Gretel, although it was in Czech so it took some time and Googling to figure that out. Next up was a busy candy store called Sweet Candy that had a wide variety of strange and unique gummy candies (eggs, full-size bananas, eye balls, etc).
After that we considered going back to the hotel to take a break and a potential nap but we all got a second wind and decided to power through and explore the west side of the river known as Lesser Town. It starts with going through the Old Town Bridge Tower and crossing the amazing 14th century Charles Bridge, a destination in itself. It’s lined with blackened statues from the 1700s and full of hawkers and performers. On the west side of the bridge, there are two more towers called Malá Strana Bridge Tower and you can go up the taller of the two, which of course we did. The views were incredible again — you can’t go wrong with any towers/hills/rooftops in Prague! Our next destination was Prague Castle but as close as it looks from Old Town, when you are in Lesser Town and looking up at it, it’s quite daunting. We looked for the best route to get there and it was via trolley. It took a few minutes to understand how the ticketing worked, but being 2019, it ended up being a mobile app that was ultimately easy to use. The castle grounds were amazing and we wandered around them for a couple hours soaking in city views too as night began to fall. On the walk back down we stopped for dinner at Le Bistro Kampa and then meandered through back streets towards Charles Bridge. We stumbled across a small beach with an amazing view of Charles Bridge, an old Czech gingerbread bakery, and a very unique art installation called Piss Statue (the groins moved back and forth). Walking back across Charles Bridge at night was a different and less crowded experience. This time I noticed a building with a large neon sign labeling it Karlovy Lazne and the memories came flooding back. That’s a massive five floor music club that I had gone to in 2001 with different themes and music on each floor. Last stop of the day on the way back to the hotel was to buy a special Czech dessert called a chimney — a large cone of dough filled with various toppings.
Our next day was the main reason we rented a car. The first stop was a city about an hour east of Prague called Kutná Hora. It’s known for a few things, but we were only there for a pit stop to see the Sedlec Ossuary, otherwise known as the “bone church”. It’s a relatively small church but it’s entirely decorated with human bones. There’s a massive and incredible bone chandelier that’s directly in the middle, and then there are four huge piles of bones in each corner around it. It’s a quick 15 minute stop, and I’m glad it was on the way to our next destination as I don’t know if I’d recommend two hours of driving just for the church.
We were originally planning on going to ÄŒeský Krumlov within Czechia, but when I noticed it was only an additional 30 minutes to get to Slovakia (a new country for us), we changed our plans to go to the capital Bratislava. I had read that parking was limited so if you’re going be sure to set your GPS to the one parking garage there to save time. We started our journey by walking through Michael’s Gate, built around the year 1300 and is the main gateway into Bratislava’s Old Town. I had found a bunch of fun or quirky sites around town, so we proceeded to wander around and look for them. The first stop was an old ruined building that had bright vibrant art in all of the windows. Next, we saw the famous UFO bridge in the distance. We were originally thinking of skipping it because the GPS overestimated the walking distance to get there, but once we saw it, we knew it was within reach. The UFO-shaped observation deck was on the far end of the bridge. It’s a nice shaded stroll under the roadway on a pedestrian path to get there. After tickets were purchased, we realized it was all under construction. The elevator was still operational but it didn’t look like it necessarily should have been! We got over our fears and made it to the top. There’s a restaurant upon exit and then a staircase to the outside above it. The views up there were incredible! You can see all of Old Town, lots of old communist bloc buildings, some new buildings, and even into Austria.
Walking back across the bridge, we continued the tour of Old Town with a stop at a Hans Christian Anderson statue. It was at the start of a long wide boulevard lined with upscale restaurants. We couldn’t find a place that we thought the kids would eat at, so we continued walking. Turning back towards the center of town, we stopped for a photo op at a statue of a man peeking out of a manhole cover aptly named Man at Work. We still hadn’t eaten dinner yet, but we were near a highly rated dessert place, so we decided to take a pie break at Zeppelin Cafe. Delicious! We continued wandering various back streets in and around the Old Town Square for another hour or so. We decided on a restaurant just outside of Old Town, so we headed back towards Michael’s Gate. This time we realized that you can go to the top (which you might notice that we always do!). The sun was just going down, so the views were completely different and the shadows cast everywhere made for a surreal scene. Afterward, we went to the Bratislava Flagship Restaurant. The restaurant is in a massive hall and I read that it is one of the largest restaurants in Europe. It started as a church of sorts and has also been used as a movie theater. The food and beers were great and very cheap. After dinner we had an uneventful three hour drive back to Prague. We ended up getting a midnight snack of more pizza from the same place a couple nights before near the hotel.
The next morning, we started off by walking back to Prague’s Old Town and got breakfast at Coffee & Waffles, where we had coffee…and…waffles… After finishing up, we went back to the Old Jewish Cemetery and it was open this time. To enter the cemetery, you must pay admission and go through the Pinkas Synagogue. It’s mostly empty with a very moving tribute of names on the walls for 78,000 Czech Jewish victims of the Holocaust. The cemetery itself is very unique — it has thousands of gravestones all crammed into a square block. Many are stacked and overlapping as they ran out of space. We then meandered back through the Old Town Square for some coffee and then stopped at Prague City Hall. It’s a generally bland office building on the inside, but we were there for something extremely rare, a Paternoster elevator. It’s an elevator that never stops moving — it has no doors and you jump on and off. It’s quite a thrilling ride! We ended up riding it a handful of times each before heading back to New Town to grab our car.
Our destination this time was the city of Plzeň about an hour southwest of Prague. If you sound it out, you may realize why we were there. This is where pilsner beer was invented! We were there to tour the first and only Pilsner Urquell Brewery in the world. It’s a huge campus and starts off like most brewery tours, walking through the various stages of beer making, viewing the bottling plant, etc. What we were not expecting was a bus ride to the other side of the grounds and an over-sized industrial elevator ride underground to a large complex set of tunnels that seemed to never end. It was impressive to say the least. We got to see how they used to brew the original beer back in 1842, and they still make it the exact same way to compare the original unfiltered raw taste to the more modern filtered bottled beer that’s sold everywhere. We got to sample a glass of the unfiltered beer and it was fantastic! We picked up a couple unlabeled bottles of it to have later in the evening too. After the tour, we headed back to Prague and went back to the Old Town Square again. If it sounds like we were there a lot, we were — I can’t get enough of the beautiful architecture and cultural vibe you get there. This time it was dark, so it was a different experience too. We had an excellent dinner at Restaurant Mincovna next to the square. Lastly, we finally got to see the famous astronomical clock strike the hour and watch the performance of statues celebrate.
Prague will always be one of my favorite cities in the world, if not my absolute favorite. It’s such a joy to visit, soak in the history and culture, eat great food, meet friendly people, and relax. Our next adventure will be Ecuador in April. See you next time!