Prague Feb 13 - 17th

We are currently on the train heading back to Bratislava after a wonderful long weekend in Prague. We had a great time exploring the city and taking in the sites. Prague's reputation for beauty is well deserved -- each building was more gorgeous than the last. We ate lots of rich, heavy, and delicious Czech food and I think we are all feeling very ready for some vegetables now!

We found some great dinner restaurants right by our apartment, which was very convenient! As usual, we did grocery shopping often and had breakfast and coffee in our apartment before heading out for the day. We even did a light dinner in our apartment twice after very late and heavy lunches. One of the many reasons we love staying in apartments instead of hotels! This apartment was conveniently situated, spacious, and affordable.

Buying our public transportation passes once we arrived in the train station. They allowed us unlimited use of bus, tram, and metro while we were in Prague.

Walking from the metro to our apartment

I like to document bits of our apartments because even though it isn't exciting, it helps jog our memories and better recall our travels.

On the street outside our apartment building

We arrived in Prague at lunch time and this restaurant nearby got excellent reviews so we made a beeline for it.

Even *I* liked this beer Doug ordered!

Had to try the garlic soup. It was indeed super garlicky and so delicious!

This was beef in a cream sauce with dumplings and bread. The meat was topped with an unsweetened whipped cream and a bit of cranberry. It was as decadent and fabulous as it sounds. I could personally do without all the various dumplings and squishy, doughy bread because it just isn't my thing. But they are mainstays in both Slovak and Czech cuisine and Mairin and Doug love them.

Goulash with dumplings and bread. It was robustly flavored with incredibly tender meat and so far the best goulash we've had.....but I know we have lots more testing to go, especially since we haven't been to Hungary yet!

Not pictured is the schnitzel and fries that Carys and Orla routinely choose. It was great, though!

We found a little market with a bunch of these wooden huts set up to sell food and warm, mulled wine. We just browsed the first day since we had just eaten, but we came back another day for a delicious lunch!

Cooking of the ubiquitous "chimney cakes" that are sold all over Prague (and a fair amount in Bratislava, though we hadn't tried them yet). You can eat them plain (with cinnamon and sugar), with warm chocolate spread on the inside (how we tried one), or stuffed with various ice creams and toppings in the more elaborate shops. 

Various flavors of halusky, which they describe as being "gnocchi", but not in the Italian sense. The first few times the kids saw the words "gnocchi" on a menu they got very excited, envisioning marinara sauce. These are really delicious and commonly served with sauerkraut and bits of chopped bacon.  

Salty, flavorful, crunchy-yet-tender potato pancakes. Total perfection. Sauerkraut seems to be a fairly typical topping.

A beautiful museum right by our apartment. The girls were goofing around....

...which inevitably led to this. 

On our first full day, we headed to the Prague Castle Complex. There is a lot to see -- there are different ticket options depending on what you want see. We went to St. Vitus Cathedral, Old Royal Palace, exhibition "The Story of Prague Castle", St. George's Basilica, Golden Lane with Daliborka Tower. We skipped Rosenberg Palace, which housed art that we weren't particularly interested in seeing.

A guard at the entrance to the castle complex.

Just inside the gates of the complex.

Just one example of the exquisite stained glass in St. Vitus' Cathedral

The kids had no context for these confessional booths, so we explained it to them. They were fascinated and wanted to know about all the things Doug and I had confessed to priests as kids. 

Someone is buried in this casket! Actually there is another crystal casket within this silver one. It is St. John of Nepomuk and the elaborate silk canopy and angels supporting it are shown in the picture above. 

Castle under renovation

St. George's Basilica

Love catching these sweet shots from behind

This was near the Golden Lane and I think it was called the Defense Corridor, which was full of armor and weapons.

Just scoping out the arsenal of weapons

The Golden Lane, which is a colorful and charming (and very crowded) street within the castle complex. It was fun to peek into the tiny houses and see examples of the way they used to be. 

Along the exterior castle walls, overlooking the city below.

Enjoying the views from inside the castle complex, which sits above the city. 

We climbed this watch tower, which was really fun and interesting and the views were excellent! Along the way, there were replicas of the apartments that the watch people used to live in. 

After that the tower, we made our way to the Charles Bridge, which was as beautiful, ornate, and crowded as expected.

Just one of the many elaborate statues along the bridge.

We all needed an afternoon rest to warm up and have a little snack. The girls got gelato topped with macarons, while Doug and I had cappuccinos. 

Doug popped out for an hour one afternoon to check out this exhibition he wanted to see. 

One evening we went to a restaurant across the street from our apartment. We loved the ornate ceilings and the food. We've noticed in Slovakia that a lot of indoor places are oppressively hot and stuffy. Our American friends have noticed as well and Doug and I started referring to it as "Slovak Hot", which generally translates to "really f&$#@*! hot". Anyway, this restaurant was fun and tasty, but definitely Slovak Hot! We were literally sweating. 

Mairin, attempting to cool herself with my chilled wine carafe

Doug's pork knuckle and various accompanying sides.

Goulash, with the requisite squishy bread and dumpling / stuffing things.

Mairin ordered this rolled beef which was wrapped around a pickle and served with rice. Unusual sounding combo, but it worked! 

The next day, we first headed to Old Town Square to do some exploring in that part of town.

Astronomical Clock

We walked through the Jewish Quarter and saw several synagogues with beautiful architecture and carved details.

We knew we had to go back to the wooden hut / food stall place to finally try some of that food we'd been eyeing!

My favorite: the potato pancake. I have always loved them and used to make them often. I haven't made one in years and this one did not disappoint. It was fabulous!

Farm potatoes with various spices and veggies

Halusky with cream sauce and spinach, which was divine.

Not pictured were the chicken and veggie kebabs we shared and a seared chicken breast Orla and Carys devoured.

After lunch, we went to this museum, which was excellent. 

Just some more stunning architecture and artistry

The view as we were leaving our apartment one evening for dinner.

That night we were going to get Turkish food. Then we decided to go back to Husinec, the wonderful place we'd had lunch on our first day. But it was suddenly closed for renovations! So we ended up at an Irish Pub, called Beckett's. Quite the departure, but it was delicious and the service was very friendly. People smiled and were gregarious....because they were all Irish! Doug and I have definitely observed that "service with a smile" is 100% not a concept in central Europe. People are kind, don't get me wrong. But they are much more reserved and smiling at strangers doesn't seem to be typical at all. Additionally, they are definitely much more brusque and direct than Americans.....and they do not shy away from demonstrating their frustration and displeasure with you. I have had more people roll their eyes at me in the past month than I have in my entire life! Someone literally huffed and puffed and tossed our change at us recently, which is not exactly uncommon. It was at a major tourist attraction, where you were required you to pay in cash and she was apparently angry and dissatisfied with the bills we had. So she kind of snarled and hurled our change back at us! Always an adventure.

Despite being at an Irish pub, I was really drawn to the falafel salad. My body was strongly requesting vegetables and the falafel was delicious!

Doug's fish and chips, which was terrific. 

They had all of these great choices for homemade lemonades - flavored with fresh mango, raspberry, strawberry, etc.

Girls' vat (s) of heavenly mac and cheese and garlic bread...had we known the portions were going to be that enormous, they could've shared one order!

The next day we went to Petrin Hill, which is a lovely park you can hike up. Or you can take the funicular, which I think goes back to the 1890s (but definitely don't quote me on that or pretty much anything else). We meandered up the paths and stopped at a little playground along the way.

 


Views from the top of the hill

This is Petrin Tower, which is loosely modeled after the Eiffel Tower. It has 299 steps to get to the uppermost observation deck. Not all 5 of us made it all the way up. We have climbed higher things than that many times on both this adventure and lots of others.... I assumed it would be no big deal. But the steps being on the outside definitely made all the difference!








After the Tower, we headed into a (very tiny) fun Mirror Maze.







There were a bunch of funny distorted mirrors at the end.


From there, we walked to a monastery brewery and had a wonderful lunch.












Entrance to the brewery / restaurant where we ate.

Later that evening, we went out to enjoy the gorgeous lights of Prague along the river.

We loved being in Prague, but are eager to be heading back "home" to Bratislava now. Prague is a much bigger city than Bratislava and it was so much busier -- more hustle and bustle, way more tourists, just generally livelier. We're all looking forward to a week of being in our own apartment and the very new and loose routines we have established there.