Scenes From Prague
It was supposed to be a romantic four day weekend celebrating five years from the day we got married. Prague was the city where we first met in person after months of emails and Skype calls from one side of the Atlantic to the other. And even though the weekend itself was actually pretty great, the aftermath was a nightmare.
Attacked in our sleep
It turns out the hotel we stayed at, or at least our room, had bedbugs.
I recently told you how our tastes in hotels have changed and we no longer feel comfortable staying at cheap, crappy places. So in Prague, we stayed at a nice hotel. It was over 100 euros a night and located right in the center of the city. But bedbugs don’t care if the hotel is super luxury or a total dump.
Apparently bedbug bites don’t show up for a few days, so we didn’t even know until the day after we got home when tons of bites started appearing all over my body. In the end I had at least 50 bites, and they itched so badly I had to get cream (like what you use for chicken pox) and an oral anti-histamine that made me drowsy. Fun times. Andy got a few dozen bites as well, but his didn’t itch as much.
But enough about that. We did actually have some fun times in Prague.
Czech beer and tapas
On our first night in the city, we signed up for a craft beer and tapas tour. The guide took us around to four local pubs to teach us about beer in Prague, and each set of beers was accompanied by tasty Czech food. From amazing homemade potato chips to Camembert cheese with onions and chili peppers marinated in oil, we didn’t go hungry. Oh, and pork. There was lots of pork.
Eating in Prague
I told you over here about our Prague food tour but seriously, it was a fantastic weekend of food. Aside from all the great Czech food I mentioned in my last post, we also went to a restaurant that features bagels on their menu (can you tell I was ignoring my dietary restrictions that weekend?) and a cafe with an eternally running chocolate fountain.
I ate chicken and guacamole on a bagel, and Andy ate an egg bagel sandwich along with a pancake. Because he has a hard time resisting good pancakes. At the chocolate place, Andy got a chocolate covered waffle, I got a white hot chocolate, and we split an order of pretzels with dipping chocolate. Yum.
Views of Prague
We love seeing cities from above. There’s something special about climbing up a few hundred steps (or luckily sometimes taking an elevator) and being rewarded with a spectacular view of your surroundings from a higher elevation. Prague has lots of places for such views, and we checked out several of them throughout our visit.
>>Read more about 5 places where you can see Prague from above here.
Early morning Prague
Charles Bridge is one of the most famous sights in Prague, and it’s a pedestrian bridge, which means it’s incredibly crowded with people. Neither of us liked the idea of going over there in the middle of the day to take pictures with hundreds of people crowding around.
Since we weren’t sleeping well anyway (uncomfortable pillows, lots of street noise from drunken stag parties) we decided to get up early on our last morning and go check out the bridge at sunrise. We wandered through the near-empty main square and the quiet streets until we reached the bridge just before 5am and took lots of pictures. Eventually we reversed our route and went back to the hotel for a nap before checking out. I am NOT a morning person, but this was totally worth it.
Bedbugs aside, it was an enjoyable trip. Prague is a gorgeous city if you can ignore all the annoying stag parties in the summer, and I’d definitely recommend visiting at least once in your lifetime.
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- Itinerary for 3 Days in Prague
- How Much We Spent Traveling in Prague
- Should You Visit Ostrava, Czech Republic?
- Scenes From Tallinn, Estonia