kathryn|kurioso

In mid January, we went to visit the Capital of the Czech Republic, Prague. Before we visited Prague, we had seen the city in many well known movies (Mission: Impossible, XXX, Amadeus … ) and heard many beautiful things about this city. Knowing the winter Prague can be beautiful when it covers with snow, although the weather can be cold. Mid January is low travel season, and it wasn’t difficult to find the right price for our flights from the Czech Airlines. For our hotel, we again used our trusty website to book our hotel. Spending some time going through the hotels’ pictures, price and location, we decided our stay with a 5 stars hotel: Carlo IV. Before going, we applied for a visiting visa to Czech. It is interesting that the Canadian requires visa to visit the country, but not the American. It took about one week to process for a visiting visa by applying in person at their embassy. Kevin did all the work when all I had to do was to sign the paper.

For our three days trip, we had an early flight flew from London (Standard Airport) to Prague on Saturday. We were lucky this time that we could do some shopping before our departure. Standard Airport has a Cadbury’s store. We weren’t able to visit the store the last time we flew from Standard. This time we bought some goodies with us preparing ourselves against the cold weather in Prague.

We arrived at Prague Airport around noon. Kevin went to a bank machine to get some Czech Crowns. Kevin and I were trying to be economic and local wanting to take their public transportation to our hotel. After what we had experienced, I would suggest not to, as their ticket machine at the station would only take exact change. Although it was a lot cheaper comparing to the faster, more comfortable and direct taxi and minibus, we just had no exact change. At last, we took the mini bus to our hotel.

It was an adventure taking the mini bus. The driver was constantly trying to take the machine to its top speed going through little alleies, driving on the side walk when the road was blocked with another vehicle off loading things … Kevin was sitting at the front with the driver. He had a better view of the whole experience than I, where I was sitting at the back. We were glad when we arrived at our hotel in one piece.

We weren’t too sure what to expect from our hotel as we weren’t able to find any review about the hotel we were staying before booking. Later from a hotel staff and some research after the trip, I found our hotel was a neo-classical building, which was formerly a Mortgage Bank, and was built at the end of the 19th century by an Austrian architect Achille Wolf. The hotel was only opened in the past six months. It had a big lobby area that preserved most of its history and original feel of the building. Our room was modern and comfortable. For the two nights we stayed, after each day we visited the city, I would make Kevin to wonder around the hotel and admire the hotel with me. We were very impressed with the hotel, and after our first long day of walking around the city, we still found energy to try out their swimming pool almost at midnight time. Not only the swimming pool was opened that late, and the hotel was willing to turn on the jet for us.

The weather in Prague as expected – cold. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any snow for us to experience the white Prague that was well known for. During our stay, we occasionally had some light snow and rain. We always had our umbrella with us just in case.

First day, our first visit was Wenceslas Square. On our way there from the hotel, we saw the State Opera Theatre and National Museum. At the National Museum, we had a good view of the Wenceslas Square, and the back of the St. Wenceslas Status. In the Nove Mesto (New City), there are many big billboard signs on the face of buildings, flashing neon lighting at casinos entrances everywhere in the Nove Mesto. It created a big contract against the Stare Mesto (Old City) where most of the old, historical buildings are. I wasn’t very impressed with the New City, but yet, I found it was impressive when I see the modern architecture, “Fred & Ginger Building”. The building was designed by Vladimir Milunic and Frank Gehry.

For our early evening entertainment, we went to a classical opera at National Theatre. Kevin and I had never been to an opera before, so we were curious how we would like it. We got ourselves box seats, which the theatre staff had to unlock the box / room when we checked in. The room had only 4 seats. We were lucky that we had the room all by ourselves. The opera was in Czech, but we can understand it by reading the sub-title above the stage. All the opera singers were very impressive in the play, but yet, Kevin and I couldn’t stay awake. After admiring the interior of the building during the intermission, we decided to leave early to explore the night live of Prague.

Prague’s night scenery is beautiful and mystical. Walking along the river side, we could not resist ourselves but noticed the Prague Castle stood alone in the dark hill and well lit up like fairytale. In the Old Town Square, the Church of Our Lady before Tyn was standing up like Hogwarts’ Castle in Harry Potter. The Church is one of the landmarks of the Old Town. That area just gave me a wonderful feel of being in back in time, surrounding with historical buildings, standing on cobble stones pavement, seeing black smiths in front of their little shops in the market starting up the fire and casting iron, and with all under the yellow street lights. As we were trying to find the restaurant that was mentioned in the TimeOut guide book, it took us back to the Nove Mesto with high rises and flashing neon lighting of casino entrances. In the Wenceslas Square, either sides of the Square were packed with high rises. But when our eyes followed the garden field in the centre of the Square looking to the one end, the National Museum stood out at night reminding us the beautiful side of this city.

Our TimeOut guidebook was quite a disappointment in the restaurant section of our first night in Prague. We looked for 3 restaurants that were recommended in the book, all of which were closed or no longer around. We ended up in El Gaucho, Argentinean food, in Wenceslas Square. Kevin had a steak and I had lambs. Both were done in Argentinean barbeque. My lambs dish wasn’t very good when they were well done, but our waiter got us new ones and had them done right. We were both very impressed with the food and live Argentinean music. It was ashamed that we later found out it is a chain restaurant, and they have a restaurant in London.

On our second day of Prague, we began our day with some pastry from a locate bakery shop. Bakery shop didn’t seem very popular in that city comparing to other European cities that we visited. Buying fresh bread from the bakery shop in the morning was the best! Having the taste of the freshness of the moist, the fragrance and the crust of the outside of the bread … mmmm … that was good!

After we experience the night scenery of the Old Town Square, we went back in the morning to have the better look of the area. Before we were in the centre of the Square, we walked by the Municipal House and Powder Tower. Those two building were a little uncomfortably joint right next to each other. The Powder Tower is a much older building comparing to the Municipal House. It seems to me that the Tower had other parts, but they were destroyed. The Municipal House was later built in a different era, and somehow the architect just jointed them together without any design, but just kind of glued them together next to each other with one vertical seam. The seam was very visible due to the Tower was so old and dirty, against its neighbour with regular maintenance with fresh paint as the building is still in used.

In the Old Town Square, we were just happened to see the Astronomical Clock to play a tune at the hour. The Clock’s wooden statuettes of saints emerge from behind trap door while below a lurid lesson in medieval morality is enacted by Greed, Vanity, Death and the Turk. The clock shows the movement of the sun and moon through the 12 signs of the zodias as well as giving the time in three different formats: Central European Time, Old Czech Time, and Babylonian Time. With the complexity of the clock, it is for sure an art of itself. It is a shame that I don’t know how to read the clock.

Getting to the Prague Castle, we crossed the Charles Bridge, a stone bridge which was built over 600 years ago. There were statues lining on both sides of the bridge. They were all different, and many of the statues had their own interesting story behind. Starting from the bridge to the way going to the castle, there were many vendors selling paintings and other types of souvenirs.

Before seeing the castle, we had our brunch at Palffy Palac, which was recommended by our guidebook, and this time we found the restaurant. The restaurant had very poor signage showing how to get to the restaurant after getting inside of the building, and poor reception. We felt that we enter the restaurant by the back door. We were there 30 minutes after its open time, but there were no customers yet. We had to walk into the restaurant and find a staff to let know that we were here. The interior of the place had a quaint décor. The food was good. Kevin really enjoyed the lamb dish I ordered. The waiter who was serving us wasn’t giving the fine service like what the guidebook had suggested.

Walking up the hill on the Old Steps toward the castle, we had a good view of the city. We visited the Church of St. Nicholas. The immense dome and belltower of the church dominate the area of Mala Strana after the St. Vitus’s Cathedral in the Castle ground. Inside the Church of St. Nicholas, it has many big statues. Many of them, especially the big one, weren’t peaceful to me but violence. One big statue was holding a pair of handcuffs, which I found it weird.

The most stunning building in the castle ground is the St. Vitus’s Cathedral. There were many areas in the castle areas to visit and they cost to go in. We didn’t find worth paying to get inside everything in the castle ground. So, we just walked around in the castle ground mostly admire the exterior of the buildings. For the St. Vitus’s Cathedral, it didn’t cost to go in, but there were areas that needed to pay to see. The church had some beautiful stain glasses. At the front entrance of castle ground, we saw a small ceremony of changing guards.

Further west from the castle, we visited Loretto. It is a very cheesy shrine, overdone Christianity with fully coloured statues, which I found them disturbing. There was a room, which is a safe with heavy safe doors at the two entrances to the room, and each window displays showing popes’ crowns, jewelleries, and crosses made from expensive metal and gems. I regretted that we had to walk there and paid the money to see the ugly side of Christianity. On the opposite of the Loretto, there is an ex-gestapo interrogation centre.

After the Loretto, we took the tram and got down the hill and back to the other side of the river. We passed by the other famous theatre in the city, Rudofilnum Theatre, which claimed to be one of the most beautiful concert venues in Europe. It was unfortunate that the theatre was closed on Saturday and Sunday, which were the only two nights we were in town.

Jewish has lots of history in Prague. There are many Jewish Synagogues. We passed by the Old-New Synagogue on the 2nd night, but they were closing when the time we got there. Seeing a few building of their exterior, we found they are very different and unique comparing to most buildings in Prague. Old Jewish Cemetery is another famous sightseeing place in Prague. All of the Synagogues and the cemetery required a fee to go in. A fee, which is a ticket you can visit all their sites. Unfortunately, on our last day, we just didn’t have the time to see all of them. Therefore, we just walked by a few to admire the exterior and the interior (gift shop area).

Our high light of the food was having dinner at U Zlate studne closed by the castle on the second night in Prague. The restaurant wasn’t very easy to find. It was impossible to find it without knowing the address. We were not sure if it was a low travelling season, or if it was a Sunday night, or if we were there too early, like the brunch we had in the early day, we were the first one there at the restaurant. The view was nice seeing the city and the dome of the Church of St. Nicholas. Presentation was great on every dish we ordered. We were impressed with the pumpkin soup as a starter for me, and duck (a Czech dish) for Kevin’s main course.

On our last day, we ended with spending an hour and half in a Thai message place. The price was good, but the décor of the place as sketchy. Again, it was difficult to find its location. Kevin asked for an hour Swiss message, and I tried the traditional Thai message. It was my first time trying the Thai message. I felt lucky that I asked for the Thai message and not the other one, as Kevin had to strip his clothes off for the message oil. The two Thai ladies who gave us the message just asked Kevin to take his clothes off and did not leave the room for privacy. And since we were going in as a couple, we shared a room. So, poor Kevin stripped in front of me and the two strangers. We were all kind of looked at him since the message session couldn’t start until he is ready … I was just more like stunned for the whole situation. I only had to take off my sweater and shoes. My Thai message is more like wrestling. There were many stretching, pulling and cracking joints. It started on my legs, feet, back, arms, tummy and heads. I didn’t know how she made almost all my joints cracked. After the one hour message, we asked for another half hour foot message. We had foot message once in Hong Kong. Comparing the two foot messages experience, we both like the Hong Kong one better. The one we had in Prague was little too gentle in comparison.

On our return trip, we took a taxi from our hotel to the airport. We arranged our taxi when we checked out in the morning. In the airport, before we took our flight back to London, we stopped by the duty free to buy some wafers for my colleagues and Tolberone for ourselves, in order to spend the rest of the Czech Crowns we had. After we left the big duty free shop, we found a smaller duty free shop, and the price for the same Tolberone we just got was a lot cheaper. We couldn’t believe we got ripped off by duty free shop in the airport.

I was really glad that Kevin booked the earlier return flight so I could be home by the early evening instead of getting home at midnight. It was nice that I had some good rest before going to work the next day.

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