We finally made it to ancient city of Prague!! We've been planning to visit this stunning city since last December but we had to cancel our trip due to Nick being hospital bound so we've been trying to plan another trip since then. Nick's parents, John and Julia are visiting us from Australia for 5 weeks so we thought this would be a great opportunity to do our first international train trip and visit the largest city in the Czech Republic. The kids had a long weekend at school so we packed our bags, walked to the station and we were off ... our train left Munich at 9am on Friday and arrived in Prague at 3pm. It was that easy!! Train travel was a very stress free way to get to our destination ... it took a little longer than driving but we'd do it again in a heartbeat - sipping champagne while chatting in our cabin ... what a wonderful experience and a great way to travel when we couldn't all fit in our tiny car anyway! Our hotel, "The Red Chair" was fabulously located in the historic center of Old Town which was a perfect location for us to walk to all of the attractions Prague has to offer.
The best part about our hotel was that it had a cafe beside it called The Choco Cafe ... WOW!! This cozy cafe offers every style of divine hot chocolate you can imagine ... enjoy your decadent hot chocolate with a slice of your favorite cake and you will be in heaven!! If you too are a chocoholic, add "The Choco Cafe" to your list of "must sees" in Prague!! ( I always skipped right to dessert so can't review the lunch options but I believe the lunches and snacks here are equally as fabulous as the dessert menu!!)A little bit of history for you ... Prague is the capital and the largest city in the Czech Republic; it is situated on the Vltava River and is home to about 1.3 million people. It is home to a number of famous cultural attractions, many of which survived the violence and destruction of twentieth century Europe. Prague has more than ten major museums, along with many theatres, galleries, cinemas, and other historical exhibits. Ok, ok ... enough of all that ... here's what we covered in our short time in Prague ...
We arrived late afternoon on Friday so we had a little window of time before dinner so we did a short bus tour of Prague to get our bearings so then during the rest of our time in Prague we walked to all the well known sights - what a gorgeous city! We visited the castle grounds and climbed the 285 steps of the Cathedral tower, saw the changing of the guards, Old Town, we caught the funicular up to Petřín Hill and the observatory, visited the stunning rose gardens and mirror maze all in and around Petřín Hill. We walked through and enjoyed a fabulous lunch in the Jewish quarter of town and across the stunning George Bridge a number of times and touched the St John Nepomuk statue plate for good luck. We admired "The Dancing House" which is a nickname given to a building in downtown Prague. It was originally named Fred and Ginger (after Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers - the house resembles a pair of dancers) the house stands out among the Baroque, Gothic and Art Nouveau buildings for which Prague is famous. We saw the Apostles and other moving sculptures perform their hourly show at the medieval astronomical clock in Old Town Square. The clock was first installed in 1410, making it the third-oldest astronomical clock in the
world and the only one still working. We also enjoyed a wonderful meal with some great friends we've met through the kids' school - it was so fun to catch up on their experience of Prague while we were there! The shopping in Prague is mind blowing ... soooooooo many fun shops, boutiques, malls ... this town certainly offers something for everybody!! The highlight of the trip for us all was the most wonderful performance by the Prague Baroque Chamber Orchestra held in St Climent's Cathedral right near our hotel. Polly has just started learning the violin and Henry is learning about Mozart at school so both kids were so excited to have front row seats for this outstanding performance. If we were to return to Prague one day, we would fill our time with these various concerts that are held in many Cathedrals around this stunning city. While we definitely enjoyed Prague and we are thrilled to now, finally, cross it off our "must see" list ... personally, I found Prague to be way more touristy than I expected. I didn't realise that Prague has 4.1 million international visitors a year! That's a lot of tourists!! All the tourists made it pretty uncomfortable to just walk around town and also made us a bit nervous getting from place to place with the kids. To accommodate the tourists there are many, many little stores selling every tacky tourist item you can imagine - for me this was an unattractive aspect in this gorgeous city and gave it an out of character "Vegas" feel that didn't suit such an ancient city so rich in history. Two and half full days of sightseeing and we are all worn out!! John and Julia continued by train to Vienna and we returned home to Munich.
