Mary Meets Budapest: Mary Meets Prague

About a week ago, sweet pickle Sarah and I were sitting in our kitchen talking about our plans for the weekend. That night, we booked a hostel and looked up information for our last minute trip to Prague. On Friday we were off to live the Praha life for the weekend, and what a good life it is.

From Friday to Sunday, Sarah and I saw every major attraction possible. We were on our feet for hours at a time, eagerly finding tram stops or walking from place to place, taking in the city and it's breathtaking buildings and views while experiencing things I'll remember for a lifetime.

Sarah all tucked in!!

Power posing in front of the
Charles Bridge

To put it mildly, Friday was a bit of a blur. We arrived in the city in the late afternoon, and went straight to our hostel to check in...at the Czech Inn (we thought it was hilarious). From there we got lost and explored random areas of the city, and even accidentally found the Dancing House, which is a contemporary building that's just plain weird to look at. From there, we fumbled our way all the way over to the Charles Bridge, which is a pedestrian bridge that we walked across and back. From the Bridge, which is beautiful itself, it’s possible to see the Prague Castle, at night it’s difficult to put in words exactly how amazing this view actually is. Realizing that we were starving, and that we were falling over ourselves at this point, it seemed like a good idea to get some food. It was. We both had delicious chicken and shared French fries and onion rings! This meal was especially enjoyable because our table was situated in a way that allowed us free entertainment for the night: extremely drunk Australian men chanting (at us) U-S-A! U-S-A! Their “leader” was especially appealing, donning a neon orange morph suit (basically, a shiny spandex uni-tard with long sleeves), which flattered his beer belly nicely. After dinner, we luckily found the subway stop we needed to take us back to the hostel, where we took a pit-stop at the bar for a beer before we tucked ourselves in for the night.

The night view of the Prague Castle from the Charles Bridge!

View of the City from
Prague Castle

The Palace Guard

Cathedral at the Prague Castle

Saturday was a long and amazing day. After seeing the Prague Castle at night we decided to go straight there to see it in person. I’m so glad we did. We bought tickets for the short tour of the castle grounds, which gave us access to an amazing cathedral, one of the oldest basilicas in the Czech, the Old Royal Palace, and Golden Lane (which was where the servants lived, right up against the castle walls).

Amazing stained-glass!

There was so much to see and so much to take in, imagine the Newport Mansions on steroids with about 500 more years of history. The architecture was impeccably executed; it’s impossible to imagine how these huge buildings could have been built so long ago. What I really love is that no detail is ever spared in these extravagant places, and the renovations are maintained so well that you can imagine people of these time-periods walking around the hallowed halls.

Old Royal Palace

St. George's Basilica

Golden Lane

Tagging the Lennon Wall!

After the Prague Castle excursion, we went to the Lennon Wall, which is a wall covered in graffiti dedicated to John Lennon as a protest to Communist rule (it’s been there for a while…). Something that I’ll always remember from this trip is that I even had the chance to contribute to the wall, based on good timing I guess, as a man left a spray can there for anyone to use. I wrote M&S with a heart around it. I really loved this place and everything that it stands for. I think John Lennon really impacted the world in a positive way, so it meant a lot to me to see this place.

Art of Can

Lunch was bagels (!!!) at an amazing and cute restaurant, and when we walked back over the Charles Bridge and into the Jewish quarter. We ended up seeing more contemporary attractions here than the Jewish synagogues that we had intended to, but I’m not complaining.

Prague Fashion Weekend!

We found a Red Bull exhibit called the Art of Can, in which people had submitted sculptures made entirely out of Red Bull Cans. It was awesome! Further down the street we ended up at Prague Fashion Weekend, to see the new talent competition. The designers were awesome and the runway (the longest in Europe) was in the middle of the street, with some seating for those who paid, but with a huge crowd around it where you could stand for free. It was definitely an experience I’ll never have again! Fashion week(end) in a European country? Unreal. We liked it so much, we ended up going back at night to see the gala show, which was Obsession presented by Nina Ricci. Fashion Weekend was conveniently in Old Town Square—a huge tourist attraction and centrally located to everything! We took a pit stop for wine (from a stand in the middle of the square), and then walked the 100 meters to the Old Town Tower to see the Astronomical Clock. We decided to slowly make our way back to the hostel so we could replenish our energy, and on the way we ended up buying “Czech Me Out” shirts (my goal for the weekend), as well as absinthe ice cream—which was less than a shot, and probably a million times more delicious. Before actually making it to our hostel, we took yet another detour to see the largest equestrian statue in the world in the museum district, another cool area of the city.

Absinthe Ice Cream!

The Astronomical
Clock on the Tower

Gala Show at
Fashion Weekend

Dinner that night was local food that we again bought from stands in Old Town Square: wine, sausage, and potato pasta with potatoes, ham, and cabbage. Delicious. Like I said we saw the gala fashion show and then discovered another free thing to do…the astronomical clock had a projection-type presentation that played directly on the tower and told of the history of the tower, which began in 1410. It doesn’t take a nerd to like this presentation, there were about 2000 people standing under the building to see it. Realizing how beat up we were from the day’s activities, we called it a night.

We like food!

Playing at Vysehrad!

Ugly Baby Tower.
These babies were about
as big as horses in real life.

Sunday, Sarah and I went over to Vysehrad, which is a huge green space where there are buildings sprawled across, including an amazing Cathedral. Vysehrad was where the very first Czech kings resided, so it was a really cool place to be. After a quick and delicious lunch, we relaxed and reflected on how amazing the trip had been. With about an hour left till our train left, we spontaneously decided to take a quick adventure to the Prague Tower, the ugliest tower in the world (my opinion). To our surprise, the tower was covered in huge naked babies crawling all over it (art). And with that, we left, satisfied that we had done everything we wanted to in Prague: eat like queens, see all the major attractions, relax and enjoy the good life for a little while. We even managed to stay under budget—$200 for travel, shelter, food, and other activities.