Czech: Part 1
We left for the airport in Doha early in the morning on 31 Oct. to catch our flight to Prague. We had breakfast at the airport, and had a smooth flight, watching a couple of movies and peaking out the window every now and then to see the landscape changing from the flat desert of the middle east to the green mountains of turkey. Then we flew over the path we would take over the next couple of weeks, past Budapest, Vienna, Brno, and finally landing in Prague.
We landed right after an EasyJet flight from the UK, and were stuck in the back of the customs line behind a crowd of eighteen to twenty year old brits out for a quick party trip to Prague. Despite the noise, we could feel that we were in Europe, and we felt very comfortable that we know what to expect and how to travel through this part of the world. We took an Uber from the airport, and arrived at our Airbnb at about 2 pm, tired and hungry. Once we got everything in, we ventured out to find a convenience store where we could grab some snacks. The Airbnb host had left some instructions on where we could go for these things, and once we had a snack, we could spend a couple of hours in the room recovering from the travel day. Our Airbnb was this nice little studio apartment on the suburb just outside of Prague’s old town / downtown. It was close to everything we wanted to see, but also just outside of the noise and congestion of the busiest areas. It was perfect, and we celebrated this with a short nap.
We had changed time zones again, but we managed to make it until about 6 pm before we ventured out for dinner. We looked up a local pub and had a fifteen minute walk through this quiet Prague suburb to get there. It would have been a really enjoyable walk, but we were in shock from the sudden change in temperature from thirty two degrees in Doha to single digits here. But when we walked through the door at the pub, it was warm and welcoming. The bartender greeted us with a ‘dobry den’ and told us to have a seat. We have been enjoying some really nice meals with good but rich food over the last few weeks, so it was really comforting to be in a warm pub with goulash, sausages and a 0.5L Czech pilsner. We were exhausted from the travel and the time zone change, but we were so content sitting in that bar, drinking beer and eating Czech comfort food. The bartender was very kind, and when he found out that we were from Australia, all he wanted to ask is if we listen to Hilltop Hoods. We confirmed that we are fans, said thank you, and before leaving the warmth of the pub and braving the cold on the walk back.
We had a twelve hour sleep to try to cut through the jet lag and still woke up early for Europe – 8 am. This allowed us to have a slow morning, where we found a nice café right near the pub from the night before, and spent about an hour there having a nice coffee, a croissant, and doing some work.
We didn’t make it out of the apartment to start exploring Prague until about 11:30 am and when we did finally leave, we didn’t have an actual plan of where we were going. It was still colder than Doha and Maldives, but it was a beautiful sunny day, and we were happy to wander around and just enjoy the city. We got off the train on the south end of the old town, and there were these massive butterfly statues with bodies of old war planes on the side of the building in front of us. These statues were from an artist named David Cerny, and there were other public artworks of his scattered around the city. Since we didn’t have a plan, we just decided to walk towards the river, and when we emerged from the side streets onto the riverfront, we were in awe of the view of the castle up the hill across the river. Even though we didn’t have a strict plan of where we were going, we did have a few things pinned on the map that we wanted to see, none of which were along the river. But when we saw that view, with the midday sun shining down on everything, we decided to walk up the river, across Charles Bridge with a hoard of tourists and tour groups, and back down the other bank, back to where we started.
Prague Castle up on the hill, across the Vltava river
After this bit of wandering, we decided to make an actual plan of what we wanted to see that afternoon, and that plan started with a second coffee. We backtracked all the way back to where we got off the tram earlier, before continuing through a small alleyway that opened up into this courtyard garden between the old buildings. We did a quick lap of the garden, enjoying the greenery, and the colours of autumn in the trees, then went through a door on the other side of the garden and into a small café where we had a second coffee and a bit of lunch. We chose the café for the coffee, not the food, and lunch ended up being a piece of cheesecake.
We finished this just before 2 pm and set off for the next point on our itinerary, the rotating Kafka head statue, another David Cerny artwork. We didn’t know much about it until we arrived about five minutes to 2 pm and found out that it rotates only during the first fifteen minutes of each hour. Somehow, we had timed it perfectly, and we waited until 2 pm when all the individual, mirrored slices of this giant head statue started rotating out of sync with one another, reflecting the sun and the surrounding buildings. We sat there for ten minutes with a big crowd of people, just watching this giant head rotate back and forth. It didn’t have any cultural significance or direct ties to Kafka. It was just a piece of visual art out in the city, but it was visually fascinating, and we had a great time watching the head slowly rotate back and forth, taking photos and videos from every angle.
Franz Kafka rotating head sculpture by David Cerny.
The next stop on our makeshift Prague walking tour was Wenceslas Square. This was a short walk through the maze of city streets, and we found our way to the top of the square. It would have been a remarkable sight up this street lined with so many old buildings and capped with the National Museum on the hill on the other side, but there was a huge section of road construction right in the middle of the square, and a few of the buildings were covered in scaffolding. I think November is the quietest month to travel Europe, and it’s when they get most of the construction done on their historical sites. We still took a few photos, but we didn’t linger for too long at the end of the square, instead continuing our walking tour up to the old town square.
National Museum on the other end of Wenceslas Square
By this point, it was getting close to 3 pm, and the sun was starting to get low with golden hour light filtering through the autumn leaves, creating an orange glow through the square. We took a moment enjoy the different churches, the fountain, and the other old buildings lining the square, taking photos of everything through the orange filter of the trees, but we were also starting to get hungry. We had a single pastry for both breakfast and lunch, and it wasn’t enough to sustain our walking tour. They were setting up these little wood huts in the middle of the square, and some of them had food, but none of it was gluten free. These wood huts turned out to be something we would see a lot of in the cities of Eastern Europe, as everyone was setting up their Christmas markets. I won’t rant about this now, but a Christmas markets rant is coming in a future blog. Anyway, we walked through the square, taking our photos, then trying (and failing) to read the astronomical clock.
Prague Astronomical Clock
This photo was taken just after 3 pm on 1 November 2024 if you want to try to figure it out.
The final stop for the day was another Instagram hot spot, the public library has a book tower with mirrors inside that they call the infinity book tower. The library was just outside the square, but when we came around the corner, we saw a line running out the door and down the street. We were getting hangry at this point, and went to find a convenient store for a snack rather than wait in line for something we didn’t really care about. We got our snack, and made our way back toward the river where we found a bench out front of the four seasons, where we could sit under some bright yellow trees and look out at the castle and the city across the river. This was infinitely more tranquil than the infinity book tower, and we had no regrets about skipping this last item on our itinerary for the day.
Golden hour eating snacks on the Vltava River, watching the crowds of people crossing the Charles Bridge.
After enjoying our snack under the trees on the side of the river, we made our way up the river a bit further where we could catch a tram back to the apartment. It was still relatively early, but we had some down time in the AirBnB, catching up on work and doing some laundry before dinner. We had picked this AirBnb mostly because of the price, but I think we were enjoying it more than if we had paid double for a nice hotel closer to the attractions in the old town. The neighborhood was filled with quiet streets and lined with old European style apartment buildings, and we were at the back of the building where we had a view over this small courtyard filled with trees, gardens and terraces. It was so quiet and calm that we were very happy to spend a bit more time in the room. We enjoyed the last colours of the sunset, went out to a sushi restaurant for dinner and had an early night again.
