Travel In Prague
Travel Tips for Prague
Prague isn’t well connected to other countries by rail so plan for a bus ride into town unless you’re flying.
The Charles Bridge is best visited at sunrise and especially if it rained. Few people if anybody will be on it and the reflecting lights are magic on the cobble stones.
Go up the Powder Tower in central Prague for the best view of the city! Sunset is the best time and you’ll likely have the view all to yourself.
Eat at U Kroka as much as possible. The food is a steal for the price and among the best I had anywhere in Europe.
Yes, you deserve that extra chimney cake, you gluttonous traveler you!
Our Travels In Prague
Friends back home who had visited Prague on past trips only had stellar reviews of the city. They all said prices were cheap, the food is good, and the architecture is beautiful. Our friends living in Vienna also agreed that we’d have a great time visiting so we got on that FlixBus from Vienna to Prague excited to visit, and our experiences only got better the longer we stayed in Prague!
Travel in Prague was very different than anywhere we had been to in Europe up to that point. For the first time ever we couldn’t understand anything written or spoken thanks to the Czech language. At least some German, Italian, and French words are understandable, but Czech is absolute gibberish to us. The second most common language we heard was Russian which didn’t help us out. The worst was when we needed extra towels and I found a very nice housekeeper who didn’t speak a lick of English. I basically played a casual game of charades in the hallway as a way to ask for a towel! I did get one. Don’t worry.
Language aside, Prague felt like any other country in western Europe. The well connected trolley and bus system can take you across town in about half an hour. Big Macs and McFlurrys are always within walking distance. Grocery stores are still tiny but convenience stores are bigger and filled with offbeat snacks like weed infused chocolates. Prague felt familiar, comfortable, and not entirely like a foreign culture. Sometimes we hear of people afraid to visit eastern Europe because of a cultural or language barrier. We didn’t feel anything but welcomed! That was especially true in the way that food was cooked and presented.
Czech food wasn’t on my travel bingo card to love, but it’s was my biggest culinary surprise in Europe! Potato and bread dumplings were always soft and plump, especially when swimming in hot and savory mushroom sauce. Nobody cooked it all better than U Kroka! That little neighborhood restaurant just south of central Prague was a knockout that was so so good that we went back again to try new dishes. For $20 we got two beautiful plates of food with drinks included! The value of eating out in Prague is tremendous and tastes as good as anything in Europe. By the end of our time in Prague we were basically drinking goulash thanks to generous serving sizes and fantastic broths. Turns out there were also lots of vegetarian options in Prague!
I bet you don’t think “falafel” when you think “Prague”. Imagine our surprise when we ate the best falafel in Europe on a street here!
At some point we decided that we also needed something sweet to follow these thick savory meals. Our friends in Vienna had told us of this magical desert called a chimney cake - it was supposed to be a hollow cone of dough filled with ice cream and topped with pretty much whatever you wanted. They probably knew that as Americans this sugary dough tower would be right up our alley. What we were handed after ordering was a miracle the size of Chandni’s head! It was even better than we were told. The dough cone was state fair perfectly fried and held soft serve that was as decadent as anything back home. See that wild smile on the left? That’s not a smile saying, “Hooray, we finally found it”! That’s a smile because cone number 3 was making her (and me!) just as happy as cone number 1 did three days earlier! Seriously, we must have averaged one of these monsters per day. We regret nothing!
By now you’re probably getting the idea that we basically just jumped between meals and snacks while in Prague. I mean, you right… However, there were some moments that we actually explored parts of the city outside a restaurant.
We spent lots of our time in Prague exploring parks to take full advantage of peak fall colors! Nobody ever told us Prague would be so colorful but it came as a wonderful surprise. The old fortress Vyšehrad was our first stop. The historic graveyard and cathedral still stand, but the remaining open spaces of the fort have become a city park. Walking along the old fortress walls gives panoramic views of Prague from every angle over the river. The best single view is down a staircase above the river. The stairs act as a leading line into the river which then leads into Prague Castle and St. Vitus Cathedral. It's a view that I had never seen photographed but that became one of my favorites! Sometimes I feel excited about a city photo but then I wonder why nobody else had popularized the view. It’s a question of, “why did nobody else take this shot”? This was one of those times, and it’s still one of my favorites from Prague.
Ho
w about that, I made it through a whole paragraph without mentioning food!
Our next stop was Letna Park which is a must visit when you travel to Prague. We spent hours overlooking the city while walking between colorful trees through hiking trails, a skate park, and eventually a restaurant. There’s a pretty steep walk to reach the top but it’s worth the experience. When sunset rolled around the cloudy sky was beaming with color.
Magenta burned the clouds and hit the city with a wonderful glow. The photo on the left is actually not the photo I planned to take. Another photographer had already setup in the limited space available to capture a similar view from a popular overlook in Letna Park. It felt like a bummer that I didn’t get the spot I wanted, but that just meant I captured something slightly more unique which I am always okay with! Orange by day, magenta by night, Prague was constantly smothered in color. The colors were a perfect contrast to the dark brick that so many of the buildings of Prague are made from. That was never more apparent than climbing the Powder Tower in historic central Prague.
I’ve never seen the Powder Tower on any “Best Of Prague” list, but I visited thanks to a travel photographer’s video praising the view. The tower became a priority for me based on that video alone. Each floor of the tower had a few exhibit pieces while the roof had the best view of Prague! St. Vitus Cathedral and Church of Our Lady before Týn were basically practically begging to be photographed from that roof. Both are beautiful churches, but Týn also looks like an evil villain’s headquarters. Tripods weren’t allowed so I ended up steadying my camera on a stone ledge to get this shot. Photographing is fun, but that hobby also takes you to gorgeous views like this one where watching sunset over the city was perfect.
Traveling in Prague never made us felt anxious or like we didn’t fit in thanks to a language barrier. It was a city we enjoyed as much as expected plus some! We didn’t have as much interaction with the locals as usual thanks to our constant chewing, but when we did they were kind and accommodating. It’s pretty clear why so many travel bloggers and sites recommend travel here for Americans. We believe everyone would have a great visit - if you get the chance, make sure to take it! And bring us back chimney cakes.
