Well well well, what have we gotten ourselves into?!
If you follow me on Instagram, you will already be well aware that I was in Prague this past weekend – because I posted about 5 times, almost in a row. Apologies for that, by the way!
On Friday, me and Ireland got on a 6:15am train to Prague! The whole trip took just over 6 hours and 3 different trains, but only cost 21,50 euro, or about $35CAN. That’s wicked cheap, in my opinion.
The train ride itself was pretty uneventful, except for during one of our connections Niamh lost her phone. We arrived in Linz, and had 20 minutes to get to the next train. So we went to the small grocery store in the station to grab something to eat for breakfast/snacks for the train. We got on the next train to České Budějovice, and were just sitting and chatting, when Niamh went to grab her phone from her bag and couldn’t find it….
We searched her bags, her coat, the entire train segment’s floor – nothing. We couldn’t find it. We think it must have fallen out of her pocket on the previous train or in the Linz train station. So that put a damper on the trip. But we pressed forward and ended up in Prague around 12:30 pm.
The Prague station looks more like an airport than a train station. It was a little intimidating to walk in because its big and shiny and there are signs and boards pointing in all different directions.
We figured, just looking at a map, that it would take us about 20 minutes to walk to our hostel. I booked the hostel earlier in the week, and we lucked out as far as price was concerned. The hostels I was finding were pretty expensive if you wanted a private room (25euro+ a night each), and if we decided to just stay in a dorm, it was 15euro+ a night each, so much more expensive than any other city we’ve been too (inclding Vienna). So I was getting frustrated with the hostel search, until Ii found the one that I eventually booked. We got a private room for the 3 of us for 36euro a night, meaning 12 euro each. So for the 2 nights, each of us spent about the same IN TOTAL that we would have if we stayed 1 night anywhere else. So we booked that pretty quickly because it was the best deal I could find.
The trainstation was placed almost in the exact middle, between our hostel and Old Town Square, where most stuff was located. So while it was on the wrong side, we figured we could always use the excersize.
Ha. Ha ha. Oops.
It took us almost 40 minutes to walk to our hostel, and it was an uphill climb the entire way. I began to really question my “save money” logic with our hostel choice, and began to understand why it was cheaper than other places – its far away!
We eventually made it and checked in. The lady at the front desk gave us a very thorough run down of the city and how to get places – including the bus routes to take into the Old Town. A bus ticket costs 24Kc, which is less than 1euro, so less than $1.50CAN, so we bought enough for the weekend from a small convenience store across the street from the hostel. The desk lady was actually really helpful, gave us really good advice and a good map, wrote down/circled the bus stops we wanted to get off at, how to validate our bus tickets, everything. So I felt much better about the hostel choice because it was really easy to access with the public transport. And the buses were really easy to understand and the stops were right outside the hostel.And it was pretty cheap. So everything worked out just fine.
The hostel was also pretty awesome.
This was our room:
At first we were worried because there were 6 beds, and we had booked a room to ourselves, so we were concerned that other people would be showing up sometime over the weekend to share the room, and the hostel didn’t seem to have any lockers or places to secure our stuff during the day. But the lady at the desk told us that they don’t do dorms, so this was the room available when we booked, and we got it all to ourselves. So that was pretty luxurious haha.
After taking a short break at the hostel, we hopped onto the bus into town. The bus is just like the ones at home, so I was the pro of the group haha
We got off the bus at the last stop, which was half a block away from the Jewish Quarter of the city. We decided to do the Jewish Quarter on friday because the Synagogues wouldn’t be open on Saturdays (for obvious reasons), and I had caught wind that Sunday was a special Jewish holiday, and the sites would most likely be closed then as well.
We first had to find a bank machine to take out some CZK, and then started our tour at the Pinkas Synagogue. This 1st Synagogue is actually really intense – on all the walls of the rooms, hallways, etc. there are inscribed the names and dates of nearly 80,000 Jewish Holocaust victims from Prague and surrounding areas. It was a very overwhelming experience to see those names and dates. Such a visual representation is quite moving – we all know that millions of Jewish people were killed during the Holocaust, but sometimes those numbers are hard to imagine. Walking through room after room, being able to read their names, really changes how you think about that part of history. It’s right there in your face.
Side note: in these museums you had to pay extra money if you wanted to take pictures. I did no such thing. All pictures of these exhibits are brought to you by the Sneaky Photo Club, made up of 3 individuals trying to save money on unreasonable extra photo-taking costs. We literally had a system – Hazel would watch behind me, Niamh would stand just in front of me and watch the front, I would take the picture, and then we would move on. Not all the rooms were “guarded”, which made things easier haha.
From the Pinkas Synagogue we moved into the Prague Old Jewish Cemetery, which was a site to see! This cemetery is known for how it is layered – in some places there are coffins stacked 12 deep. It is home to 12.000 tombstones, but many more burials. Some of it was demolished (I think) so it is no longer its original size. There are tombstones that date back before the 15th century!
I think the really powerful part of this for me was how broken it looked. Headstones were broken, leaning in different directions, often right on top of each other. Even the vegetation was not what I expected. The cemetery is very old, yet there isn’t much grass or even weeds that have grown – I would have thought it would be overgrown with weeds, but they were small and short.
After the Cemetery we went into the Ceremonial Hall where there was an exhibit with relics and items found, as well as details about early Jewish culture in Prague.
Next was the Klaus Synagogue. This had an exhibit with relics about everyday Jewish life, traditions and customs, holidays, etc.
This one was tricky because as we walked through, I noticed a lady who kept pacing around, but never really looking at anything. And she was doing it for a while, but wasn’t there when we first got there. I suspected she was a “watcher”, and so I was much more stealthy with my picture taking. She seemed to be watching/following me around…. At one point we decided to go to the top floor to see the rest of the museum, and she followed us out, so I was very suspicious. But when we got to the top floor she didn’t come up behind us. So I figured I was just being paranoid. In fact, I was in the process of telling Hazel and Niamh about my suspicions as we climbed back down the stairs, only to shut my mouth mid sentence when I saw standing with the lady at the desk checking tickets. My suspicions were correct!
The next stop would have been The Old-New Synagogue, but it was closed that day, so we weren’t able to go in. This is what the outside looks like:
We headed next to The Spanish Synagogue. And this place blew me away!
Sorry for the crappy cellphone camera quality – its hard to take sneaky photos with a big camera that makes noise every time you focus it. But the details were amazing! You can bet that it took a really long time!!
Outside The Spanish Synagogue is this famous statue – the Franz Kafka Monument. Its dedicated to Franz Kafka. Obviously.
Our last Jewish Quarter stop was the Maiselova Synagogue. This one had more details and relics about life in Prague.
After several hours, we left the “gloom” of the Jewish museums and headed into the main part of town (finally!)
We decided we would go to the Powder Tower next, since the sun was starting to go down. We wanted to take some nice pictures of the city from the top as the sun set!
This tower is pretty massive. It’s a hike up to the top for sure – not as bad as the tower in Enns though, for sure. These stairs were made of stone and were solid haha.
The view is pretty incredible too.
After the Powder Tower, we HAD to finally stop for some dinner. Personally all I had eaten that day was some chocolate, water, and a small package of salad from the grocery store in the Linz station. it was getting close to 18:30, so we needed to stop!
We ended up going to a restaurant just off the main square, and picked it because it was advertising cheap prices haha – pizza, pasta, chicken, and Czech Specialties. So we figured it was as good a place as any! Turns out it was a medieval style restaurant, just like in Cesky Krumlov.
I decided to be adventurous, and ordered the Chicken and Spinach Gnocchi with Parmesan Cheese and garlic.
It was actually really good – a bit too much Spinach perhaps, but I ate the whole thing very happily. I also ordered a Pepsi (I always order water because pop is more expensive) because I was needing a little caffeine, and the waiter poured it into a wine glass for me haha! I have never felt so fancy while drinking something so bad for me!
After dinner, it had become dark outside, and we decided to walk through the square and across Charles Bridge, just for fun.
While on the bridge we were playing around with the lights and the long exposure settings on my camera. It was fun!
Afterwards, we decided it was time we stopped here:
THE CHOCOLATE MUSEUM!!
SCORE.
I decided I was all in, and ordered a fresh Belgian Waffle with chocolate, strawberries and whip cream.
Niamh and Hazel were behind me in line, and decided to order waffles as well. Niamh was right after me, and the lady at the till told them that I had ordered the LAST WAFFLE!
Sorry guys – again.
So they just got waffle cones with ice cream, and we went to eat our treats on the square.
After relaxing on our bench, watching tourists running around, we decided it was best we tried to find the bus stop and go to the hostel – it was around 22:00!
We made it back fine, and ended up in bed around midnight. We all fell asleep really quick – we were so tired!
DAY TWO
We got out the door later than we originally planned on Saturday – we were moving a little slow haha.
We headed for the castle first thing – we wanted to make sure we did as much as we wanted, without worrying about time. So we got of the bus and walked across a different bridge slightly closer, and climbed the stairs to the castle.
Side note: why is it always stairs? I hate stairs.
The castle was crazy busy already, and people were everywhere! I have never seen so many tour guides and tour groups in one place before! It took us forever to find the ticket office, and eventually bought our tickets for the museums.
Rather than breaking it down into the various sections, I’m just going to group the pictures together to save effort.
These pictures are also brought to you by the sneaky photo club, because everywhere in Prague makes you pay for absolutely everything. It is actually quite fun and funny to make a sneaky photo system. It keeps you on your toes, for sure! haha.
We also went into St. Vitus’s Cathedral, which was also SO PACKED!
As far as churches go, it was nearly as ornate as I would have expected. This church is pretty hyped, and you can see it from almost everywhere in Prague because of its placement within the castle walls and the hill the castle is built on. So I was expecting to be blown away, and I was surprised how plain it was. It is ginormous though, so that adds some wow factor, for sure. I suppose the relics and statues also add to the ornate-ness as well.
I also took a TON of pictures in and around the castle grounds. The Prague Castle complex is actually the biggest in the world, so there was tons to see and take pictures of!
We spent WAAAAAYYYYYY more time at the castle than we had planned – but we knew that would probably happen haha. Eventually it came to leaving the complex and heading back into Prague’s Lesser Town. There we walked around, looked at some churches, stuff like that.
We ended up at one of the places I had been DYING to go!!
The John Lennon Peace Wall!! And man, was it cool!! I actually found a Canada flag painted on the wall, which I thought was awesome.
That morning, we stopped in the small corner store by the bus stop and bought some permanent markers. We were prepared for the wall!
One other awesome thing about the wall was the people we met there – I bet you can’t guess who they were!
These missionaries walked up right behind us, and were talking about how they wished they brought pens to write something. I turned to see them, and my heart was instantly lightened! I immediately went up to them and talked to them. I asked where they were from, how long they had been out, etc. They asked me similar questions. My Irish companions, not being LDS, were a little confused that I was talking to this group of strangers. I offered them our markers for them to write on the wall too.
I was actually overjoyed to see them – something familiar, and like home. They made me miss the missionaries I knew back home. And it also made me feel really grateful that I had just found 5 new friends who shared my beliefs and values, and understood who I was a little bit. It felt nice to be among members after being away for so long. They were super nice and really friendly, and I really enjoyed chatting with them!
From L to R, they are from: Washington, California, Arizona, Utah, Utah. Actually, the Sister on the end is going home this week!! How exciting!
After the wall we had to head back across the river to the Old Town again. It was here that we went for dinner because AGAIN we hadn’t stopped to eat anything all day. This time we were less adventurous, and picked a burger joint that was inexpensive and didn’t seem too busy. It was also super good!
After dinner, we explored more around the Old Square, but the weather had turned and it was raining and cold. We decided to head back to the hostel a little earlier than the night before, because we were cold and tired, and had another full day ahead tomorrow!
DAY THREE
Sunday we packed up and headed into the Old Town to ride a train! We had seen this tour train driving around the sights all weekend, and thought that it would be a nice way to spend our Sunday morning. So we hopped aboard!
It took us through pretty much everything we had already seen, but it was fun and we learned some new facts about some of the places. Overall, it was just nice to do – sometimes traveling doesn’t have to be “go go go!” Sometimes its nice just to sit and ride a train.
We had to catch our 1st of 3 trains home at 13:30, so we took the long way back to the train station, stopping by the National Museum and the Jerusalem Chapel (closed due to the Jewish Holiday).
We got to the trainstation, and I used my last few CZK to buy a sandwich for the trip.
We got on the train from Prague to Linz and the train was absolutely PACKED! We couldn’t find a compartment and ended up walking from 1 end of the train to the other! We ended up squeezing into a compartment with 4 other people. So it was not going to be a relaxing 5 hour train ride… 😦
Things changed as we went – our train was supposed to go all the way to Linz, so we didn’t have to change. However, there was construction on the tracks between 2 of the stops, so everyone had to get off and take a shuttle bus to the next town. That was stressful because there was limited room on the shuttles, so we practically ran to the buses. 45 minutes later, we arrived at the next station with 5 minutes to catch our new train!
We made it, and ended up sharing the compartment with 1 other guy. We talked quietly while he had his headphones in so we didn’t bother him. As the train carried on, he opened up his bag and pulled out a bottle of Rum and a carton of Apple Juice. All three of us gave the others some funny looks. He opened both the bottle and carton, and began taking drinks from both, alternating between the two. He then held the drinks out to us and asked if we wanted any, which we obviously refused (politely). He proceeded to offer us some chocolate cracker sweets, which we also declined. He then tried to talk to us.
He didn’t speak any english, and after about 10 minutes of him acting out and waving his arms in various gestures, we understood a few things about him. His name was Martin. He speaks German, Slovakian and Czech, but of course he would end up sharing a compartment with people who only speak english. How ironic.
Most of the conversation we didn’t understand, and just kind of shrugged and waved it off. I kept saying “It’s okay, don’t worry about it” when he struggled to communicate what he wanted to say – I was trying to get him to leave us alone mostly. Eventually he let us know he would be getting off the train at the next stop. He then packed up his drinks, kissed our hands in farewell, and left the train.
We sat in stunned silence for a solid 30 seconds before bursting into laughter. We decided that from here on out, every time anything random or crazy happened, we would call it a #ClassicMartinMoment. Thankfully we only shared the compartment for about 30 minutes, and we had the compartment to ourselves for the remaining 1,5 hours to Linz. We played cards mostly, and ate snacks.
We got to Linz and had to rush to grab our next train. It was a really fancy train on its way to the airport, and was pretty full too. According to the OBB app on my phone (the train company), the train was scheduled to reach St. Valentin 15 minutes after leaving Linz. We needed to transfer trains in St. Valentin in order to get to Steyr.
Well, it turns out that the OBB train schedule lied to me about the platform/train we were supposed to get off at. The train we got on was a fast train direct to the airport, meaning that it only made 3 stops, and went over 200KM.
And it wasn’t going to stop in St. Valentin.
It was going to stop in St. Polten, 45 minutes past St. Valentin.
Well then.
That sucked.
The train conductor was very unimpressed with us when he checked our tickets and found that we were not supposed to be on this train. He told us, very annoyed, that we must get off at St. Polten and pay for a return ticket to St. Valentin.
Obviously that’s what we were going to do – I had no interest in going to Vienna!
We eventually arrived in St. Polten and got new tickets to Steyr. Tthey weren’t that expensive, and it only delayed us about an hour in total. So it wasn’t horrible. We were lucky we were in Austria because we could use the regular OBB ticket machines and our OBB student cards for discounts. If we were still in Czech, we would have probably run into a similar problem as we did in Bratislava. But we had been to St. Polten before when we traveled to Vienna, so it was okay. We eventually got on the right train to St. Valentin, and then again to Steyr.
And then I had to walk 20 minutes uphill home. In the cold.
I was glad to finally get home!
I’m going to end this post with a mass collection of some of the remaining pictures I took in Prague. It is a really beautiful city, and every street was photo worthy! I also have probably 100 pictures taken from different angles of the Old Town Square!
Some of the city view pictures, you can see why Prague is called “The City of 100 Spires”. There are SO MANY CHURCHES! There’s one every few blocks it seems. It was impossible to see all of them!
Prague on the whole was absolutely amazing. We had some hiccups in the beginning and at the end, but the city was absolutely worth it! I had some real fun there – it wasn’t all about seeing everything as quickly as possible, because we knew we wouldn’t be able to do it. So we joked around and did some fun stuff just because we wanted to! And I think that’s really important!
It should also be worth mentioning that we put Niamh in charge of the selfie stick on saturday and sunday, since she didn’t have her phone to take pictures in the city. Practically everywhere we went, if we stood in one place for more than 2 minutes, she would say “lets take a selfie!”. We also had fun taking some random and goofy pictures as well – you only live once, right?!
Enjoy!
Final thoughts?
I’m exhausted. It didn’t help that I stayed up until almost 2am on sunday night and then had to wake up early to finish some homework I had left to finish. And now its almost 2 am again and I have class at 10:30 tomorrow (today, technically). This post took about 4.000 years to write! uuggghhhhhhh…….
I think an afternoon nap is in store for me tomorrow – after class, and I go buy groceries, and I do research for this weekend’s plans, and finish a presentation for friday, and do some laundry, and clean my room, and work on a group project.
I’ll probably be up until 2am again tomorrow. Such is the life for a student!
Have a wonderful rest of your day, and I hope you have a good week!!
emma.k
Wandering Miss Emma.K 