Prague, how excited I am to blog about thee! If you want to see a beautiful city, visit Prague! It’s not just the unique landmarks that are stunning, it’s every single colorful building…seriously! Don’t believe me?! You know I have pictures to prove it 🙂
When planning our trip here, we wanted to make it as child friendly as possible for our two jet-setting kiddos. Patrick thought staying in a “Botel” or a boat hotel, would be really fun for them…and it was…for them…! For us, not so much! It was livable for two nights, but not very comfortable…extra incentive to get out and explore, right?!
We hit the ground running and we saw it all in Prague! It’s a country you can see ALL of because it’s not huge. It’s really confined, and all of the big landmarks are within walking distance from each other which we absolutely loved about this city 🙂
We saw the Lennon Wall…a funky wall covered in graffiti…
I was most excited to see the Charles Bridge! It’s a beautiful bridge lined with 30 statues of different saints. The view did not disappoint!
Old Town Square houses the Astronomical Clock – my favorite part of Prague! Every hour on the hour there is a clock show that is quite fun! It’s nothing spectacular, but knowing that this is the oldest Astronomical Clock still working makes it all the more enthralling. It gets quite crowded, so get there a little early for the show!
The Prague Castle is a UNESCO site, and the largest ancient castle in the world! Each hour there is the changing of the guard ceremony, but the one at noon is the most elaborate. We made it to the one at noon, and it gets quite crowded as well. So much to do in Prague every hour on the hour!
Because the castle is SO big, it’s hard to get a good photo of it…this one was taken from the top of Petrin.
Petrin, is an attraction that I feel goes a little under the radar. It is Prague’s very own Eiffle Tower! I’ve not been to the real thing, but from seeing pictures, it really did look similar! I’ve read that it’s a bit smaller than the real deal, but Petrin sits on a hill, so the view is spectacular even if it is smaller! You can hike the hill to get there, or you can take the glass funicular to the top. We chose the latter, which was a great idea because it’s a little trek to the top of Petrin. The stairs are only wide enough for one person to be walking at a time, so you can really feel the pressure to move if you have someone walking behind you…
Prague from Petrin!
Prague is known for puppet shows, so we took one in at the National Marionette Theater. I have to warn that I believe we nearly got swindled here. Thankfully I was on top of my game! When I went to order the tickets at the site, the man working said he would “only charge my kids the student rate” since they were so little…but when I had previously looked into ordering tickets online, the site had informed me that kids under age 4 were free. The man told me he would “give us really great seats with the student ticket price” and I said no thank you, I’d rather have free tickets with not as good of seating. When I got into the theater I was told it was open seating!!! Ugh! Very disheartening to realize someone would try to get over on parents trying to do something cultural for their kids! The show was based on an Opera (The Magic Flute), so it was a little hard to follow as it was in Italian, but looked to be well done. The kids eyes were glued to the stage, which kept their bums glued to their seats so there was that 🙂
Food wise, Prague is a win! I grew up with a Bohemian Grandma, so it was just like being back at Grandma’s house! To see things like “flank steak” and “pork and sauerkraut” on the menu made my heart so happy remembering Sundays at Grandma and Grandpa’s! “Goulash” and “Halushki” are two other dishes I grew up eating at home that could be found on the menu’s here which was neat! You don’t see these dishes on American menu’s 🙂
One really interesting place we ate was Vytopna. This restaurant has a model train system that goes through the entire place and delivers your drinks directly to your table! I obviously picked it because Beau loves trains, but it was even really fun for us as adults, and the food was really good too! We had read sub-par reviews on the food, but we had a really good experience there!
A few months back, social media was buzzing with a photo of ice cream with a doughnut cone…when I read it can be found in Prague, you can’t even imagine my excitement that there was a chance we would be going there! I mean hello, delicious meets delicious! I had read that Good Food Cafe was the place that concocted this genius idea. They may have been the first, but they may not be the best…it didn’t live up to my dreams of deliciousness, but then again, I may have had the bar set pretty high. Truth is, it’s not really a doughnut on the bottom, it’s actually a trdelnik, a traditional sweet pastry that is similar to a doughnut, but NOT a doughnut! These pastries can be found along the streets, and many other places also now put ice cream in them, so I suggest trying one!
My favorite meal in Prague was a Traditional Czech Night dinner experence we bought tickets to. Not only was all of the traditional food delicious, it was also a really FUN show! Maybe it was all the included beer and wine we drank..but we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves at this dinner! If you have some extra time in Prague, I would certainly suggest this experience!
Overall, I would deem Prague an awesome city to visit! It’s super clean and extremely beautiful! I found it very child friendly too! I loved that this city was small enough to see in a day, yet there was so much more you could do to further explore and experience the sites and city. If you are close by, definitely make Prague a part of your European vacation!
Be Blessed + Be A Blessing
TIPS FOR TRAVELING TO PRAGUE
The official language of the Czech Republic is Czech, so expect to hear a language that isn’t common. However, we found this to be one of the better English speaking countries that we visited on this trip.
Prague has their own currency, the Czech Crown (czk) Some of the bigger places take Euros, but many places, especially the smaller ones only take Crowns.
Patrick read that in the Czech Republic, the police are extremely strict and if ticketed expect payment on the spot in Crowns…we thankfully didn’t have first hand experience with this, but I added it just in case there is any truth to it…play it safe in Czech!
Crossing the border via car wasn’t too exciting or intimidating. Though the officers wanted to see our Passports, they did not stamp them.
Pilsner Urquell is a Czech beer that is quite good! Coincidentally it wasn’t served at the restaurants we went to in Prague, but we were able to try it out in Bratislava 🙂
I first noticed in the Czech Republic that many businesses in Europe charge for you to use the public restroom. While we did see some of this in Budapest and Vienna, I noticed it was most prevalent in Czech. It seemed like everyone charged you to use the restroom, which is frustrating with a newly potty trained child!
There is an above ground tram/train system. We used it only once our last day there, so I can’t speak too much on it other than there is one, and Beau nicknamed it “The Trolly-Train” 🙂
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