Before leaving for my year abroad I had ideas of all that I wanted to do over the course of the year. Realistically I knew that I would not be able to do everything that I wanted, and new things that I had not thought of yet would come up, but without a doubt I knew one fact; I wanted to go to Prague. I told everyone that "I would not come home from Europe until I had been to Prague". Well in theory, now I can come home, but after such a wonderful trip I am definitely not ready for that yet.
Caitlin and I arrived in Prague at 6pm on Thursday night. We found our hostel, dropped our bags off and went in search of food. Luckily, before leaving Caitlin reached out to a friend of hers who studied abroad in Prague and she was kind enough to give us a detailed list of great places to go. We tried a restaurant called Cafe Savoy.
Caitlin and I at Cafe Savoy
My dinner
After dinner we crossed over the river back towards town and lucked upon a fireworks show. It was absolutely beautiful. We briefly walked through town and were in awe of how pretty the city is all lit up at night. As much as we wanted to see more we were tired from the day of traveling and went back to the hostel to get a good night's sleep before the next day.
Friday morning we were up and out the door, little did we know that we would be so busy we wouldn't return for another 12 hours!
Our first stop was to Prague Castle. It is perched atop a hill just across the river and is so picturesque that we had to make sure we had plenty of time to explore it. There is plenty to do once on the castle grounds, in addition to the castle there is a plaza, cathedral and many greens.
The view of Prague Castle from Charles Bridge
St. Vitus Cathedral next to Prague Castle
Stain Glass inside the Cathedral
Possibly the most intricate and stunning stain glass that I have ever seen
Caitlin and I underneath the Cathedral
At the top of the Cathedral, (286 steps to the top) there was a beautiful view of the city. Unfortunately, it was foggy so you could not see much beyond the river
By the time we wrapped up at the castle it was around 2pm and we were hungry! The street food in Prague is very highly rated so when I passed by a stand that sold fried cheese I just had to try some. It came as a sandwich with some lettuce sprinkled on top as a possible attempt to pass this off as a healthy sandwich? After making the decision to eat fried cheese I could not have been bothered with anything green so that was easily wiped off.
Me with my fried cheese
To cross back over the river to the city's main center there are numerous bridges, but we chose to go to the Charles Bridge, the most famous one. On our walk there I found an open area at the bottom of the river where I could get this picture (one of my favorites from the whole trip!)
Charles Bridge
Just underneath the Charles Bridge is the John Lennon Wall. It is so cool because it is truly just a random wall in an area that is nothing special in particular but was born in the 80's as people drew on it using inspiration from John Lennon and the Beatles. It was a way for people to fight back against the communist regime of the time. It still remains today, even though the original work has been painted over many times. Remarkably, it is not vandalized and still remains a bright, colorful, inspirational piece of art from people all over the world.
I signed the wall!
XO Jane 2014
For dinner we tried another suggestion from Caitlin's friend Kelly, the Vytopna Railway Restaurant. It is fun because the whole restaurant has a train track running through it. The trains pull up and stop right at your table and to drop off your drinks!
After a very exhausting day we were ready to go back to the hostel and sleep! Caitlin's phone tracked our steps and we took over 27,000 steps that day…which equates to about 13 miles!
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