To Europe and Back

On Our Feet All Day in Prague

We awoke about 45 minutes outside of Prague (well, we were originally awoken around 3 a.m. by Czech border patrol, but quickly went back to sleep) and arrived in Prague at 8:15 a.m. After wandering a bit, we located our hostel, winced at the less-than-spectactular digs, and locked our packs up at the hostel until we could return after check-in time at 2 p.m.

Our first stop was at Cafe Imperial for coffee and their free jelly donuts. It was a beautiful spot, and for just under 2000 cK (about 80 USD) you could even purchase a bowl of yesterday's donuts to throw at other patrons (being budget travellers, we opted out). We were pleasantly surprised to have arrived in the affordable world of Prague -- coffees for under $2 were a pleasant treat after the expensiveness of Austria and Germany because of the weak dollar.

We then wandered over to the National Theater to try and get some opera tickets for our stay -- unfortunately, during the summer ticket prices are dramatically higher than the rest of the year (damn tourists!) and the few cheap tickets were all sold out.

Not to be completely defeated, we picked up some postcards and headed to the National Museum to meet up with our walking tour. The next five hours involved chasing after our tour guide who lead us around Prague at a nearly frantic pace. We did get to see an amazing amount of Prague, but there was little time for pictures or pausing, as our long-legged (and Cate confirms the cute trend had continued) tour guide. From beginning at the National Museum, we got glimpses of all of Prague's major sites, including Charles Bridge, the Jewish Quarter, the Old Town and even the Castle area. Tiring, but a speedy overview of Prague.

After dragging our sore feet back to the hostel to check-in, we discovered several unpleasant facts about our hostel: push button group showers (meaning you get a stream of water for about 10 seconds before you need to push the button again), surley receptionists, and a hostel full of parent-funded travellers who seemed to spend their days and nights hanging out in the hostel. After having such nice hostel experiences in Salzburg and Munich, it was a bit of a disappointment, though I was very glad to have brought the sleep sheet with me! We showered and headed out to find dinner and some entertainment for the evening. After several misses (including a very nice wine bar that had no room for us, a former pizza bar on the water that converted into a swanky restaurant and the discovery that Bohemia Bagel didn't serve liquor) we ended up at a Mexican restaurant where we soothed our homesickness with a pseudo-Senor Panchos experience complete with fajitas, quesadillas and margaritas. We headed back to the hellish hostel, and decided that we'd find a new place to stay in the morning for the remaining two nights in Prague, despite the receptionist insisting that if we didn't want to stay for the next night we'd still have to pay because we cancelled with less than 24 hours notice.

posted by Heather @ 4:46 PM