It’s like Disneyland, but in real life.
That’s what I kept repeating the first 24 hours we were in the charming capital of the Czech Republic. Because I’m a demographics kinda girl, and for your own reference, the country itself has a population of about 10 million, but there are 1.3 in Prague itself and double that when you consider it’s metro area. So when we arrived in the city center, Old Town or “Prague I,” this was really not representative of obviously all the other thousands of homes that most people inhabit, but it really is a little micro-city within Prague that feels literally like a living fairytale.
A long train ride dumped us out in the main station and if language barrier was a thing before, it was extra confusing now as Czechs use a Slavic kind of language so a lot of what we’re used to in Germany and otherwise is no longer there and instead there are words with no vowels that make us laugh when we try to pronounce them (insert the botched pronunciation of the word trdlo as turd-lo). We jumped on a quick bus to a lovely AirBnb right in the heart of the city. We scored an awesome deal for literally the best possible location and it was great facilities so you should stay here yourself tbh. Tired and hungry, we didn’t have to walk more than 100 m to a really hip little vegetarian restaurant that was very proud of their dedication to Feng Shui. We sat on pillows on the ground in the basement. The food was A1 by my vegetarian standards. Also to note, the Czech Republic uses a different currency, but since so many people are visiting from Europe you can pay a lot of restaurants in Euro.
Only then did we venture into the actual city square itself and were taken aback by the absolute beauty and age of the buildings. Various churches/cathedrals/idk what but they were definitely religious buildings frame the main square of the Old Town. We sipped on cheap mulled wine from the street vendors and immediately indulged in our first of many trdlos, the iconic Prague treat which tastes like a churro but instead makes a kind of cone to stuff in ice cream and the like. We watched the astrological clock go off at the top of the hour with some kind of religious cuckoo clock basically, and we went to a funky bar clearly full of locals and were surrounded by taxidermy. Interesting.
We went to bed early but only after deconstructing the AirBnb’s fire alarm that was out of battery and incessantly beeping. We had an early start the next day with a breakfast trdlo, but this one only had one topping so it was more of a breakfast-y food and less of a dessert. We walked across St. Charles Bridge as the sun was rising and made our way up the hill to the castle. It was super cheap— around $7 USD — if you bring your student ID. This will help you throughout Europe so do it! We walked into the absolutely beautiful chapel with the most majestic ceilings and stained glass. The actual castle has technically been there since 880 A.D. (super old even for Europe) but most the buildings weren’t constructed until much later.
We spent about 2.5 hours going through different rooms and museums, with the ticket you can get into basically everything on the castle grounds. Even if you’re sick of history by the end of it, make sure you hit up the last part which has medieval pieces including dozens of full knight armor. The castle dropped us off at a winery, which we stopped to buy a warm snack and continue on to see Curajici postavy, a statue of two men peeing. It’s quite funny actually so might as well stop. We didn’t really know what to do so we wandered into a few bookstores and gift shops, and the awesome park which was full of peacocks! I unsuccessfully tried to find a feather.
Alright kids this is where it gets weird— we found ourselves at the Alchemy Museum because our friend insisted we chemists would like that. This place is so very odd. There’s a tiny little part where you can read displays about alchemy, a room full of possessed statues, and you don’t know when you pay for the ticket, but you are actually signing yourself up for a 1 hour guided tour through this attic. But instead of a tour or much related to alchemy, it was just a man telling us some Prague history and a lot of his personal pride with his country and some strange anecdotes that definitely felt like oversharing and we felt too trapped to leave. After the very odd experience we decided to forget about it by going to a fancy cocktail place to warm up before dinner and felt like fancy adults paying 10 dollars!!! for a drink. We then got döner but not good döner because it was expensive and it wasn’t Germany. We weren't particularly enthused to getting any authentic food though since their food is not known for being anything too special.
I was pretty tired at the end of it because I’d been traveling for a week straight so I crashed early this night. This was day one in Prague I, stay tuned for day two in Prague II.
