A Day In Prague – Czech Republic

You all might have been wondering why there were no recipes and posts on my website. Am I right? Yea, the news is that I was on a short vacation to Europe (Prague, Vienna and Budapest) last week and a bit busy with shopping for the trip and office work before that.

It is difficult to get back to writing and office work after a vacation. A vacation is meant to rejuvenate us, but I am still in holiday mood that I don’t even feel like unpacking 🙂 thankfully, today as it was a holiday I was able to unpack. Yeah… I am slowly coming back on track.

Today’s post is dedicated to my Europe trip. I want to share with you all about my trip, the places that I visited, places where I ate and places where I stayed and shopped. It is after 3 years that we again planned an International vacation. Last one was a trip to Australia. Though International travelling is not new to me, every trip out of India is exciting and worth remembering.

I had been to UK, Paris and Switzerland during my last trip to Europe. Europe is a beauty and hence we decided to see some more countries this time. We choose Prague, Vienna and Budapest as we wanted to see historic and cultural places during this trip. The planning for this trip began 4 months back with finalizing on a travel package, selecting the best airlines, getting the visa to planning the dates to fly and getting leaves approved. We decided to fly with Emirates as it is the cleanest, punctual and one of the safest airlines to fly with.

On 4^th of August 2017, we flew from Bangalore to Prague via Dubai by Emirates. Since we were travelling with a group, we did not get seats of our choice. But we were able to swap the seats and get some satisfactory places. My daughter had a great time playing games and watching Moana on the in-flight entertainment. I too spent time watching movies and taking a nap. After reaching Dubai, we again went through security check and after sometime, boarded the flight to Prague.

Prague is the capital of Czech Republic. It is also called as Praha. It is a lovely city with historic and cultural sights. After clearing Immigration we boarded the coach and went for lunch at an Indian restaurant named Lal Quila, followed by which we went to our hotel – Hotel Royal Prague where we stayed for 2 days. Climate at Prague was cool and pleasant.

On day 1, we all were excited, but an incident happened in my life early morning. I had never expected Prague to have thieves and pick-picketers. The travel guide had warned us, but I took it lightly. A thief entered the restaurant and tried running away with my hand-bag. Yes with my hand-bag which had my DSLR. But he was chased by a brave lady from our group. The thief fled away but dropped my hand-bag on floor before doing that. I was lucky and thanked the brave lady and God 1000 times.

After this incident, we went to Castle District by vintage cars.

Oh! What a lovely experience. The drive around the city was a beautiful one.

We walked across from the Prague Castle to Charles Bridge.

The old street was beautiful with lots of souvenir shops, currency change shops, musicians, restaurants, cafes, old buildings, etc.

Everything looked romantic. It looked like a fairy tale.

A trip to Prague is incomplete if you do not visit historic Charles Bridge.

The view of the city from the bridge is breath-taking.

This was the view from the Charles Bridge.

We also saw the St. Nicholas Cathedral while walking towards Charles Bridge.

Do stop at the Old Town Square and enjoy the art there.

There are many museums in Prague. You can check the museum websites and purchase entry passes to the museums.

Prague has a good transport system. There are 3 easy to use metro lines and a huge network of tram lines. It is easy to move around using public transport but we preferred to walk around.

The natural beauty of Prague can be seen better when we are on our feet.

There is a belief that people who walk below this tower are considered lucky for the next 10 years.

We also tried Trdelnik which is one of the top 5 pastries to try in Prague. This too we purchased from a shop close to Charles Bridge.

We had lunch at Cantonata Restaurant which is inside Eden Mall. I loved the dal makhani at this place, but I was bored eating Indian food. On day 1, for lunch and dinner and even for day 2 lunch the menu was almost same. The travel operators should mention this to the restaurants before placing orders.

After lunch we went to Staropramen brewery where people got to taste Staropramen beer. My hubby tasted non-alcoholic beer and I decided not to taste anything. In Prague, Beer is cheaper than water. But I love expensive things and decided not to taste it and went for a glass of water instead 😉

After the brewery visit, we got a shopping drop at Palladium mall.

 

Instead of shopping, I again went for a walk across the Charles Bridge and enjoyed the evening.

We had dinner at Folklore Garden where we were welcomed with honey wine. The traditional Slavic drink, Honey wine is a drink of the Gods and is an elixir of strength and youth. This was a different experience. There was a Czech folklore show and dinner where traditional Prague food was served admit folk music with Czech girls and boys entertaining us by dancing and singing.

Loved this Czech traditional potato soup and mixed vegetable salad. Apple pie was served with coffee.

A guy was also going around with whiskey and wine on his shoulders and feeding sips to interested people through a pipette – glass wine taster. This was an unforgettable experience. I met many more tourists at this place. The place had a homely atmosphere.

After this we were dropped to our hotel. I had to pack up as next morning we had to leave for Vienna by coach. Read about Vienna in the next post. Till then enjoy some more pictures of Prague.