Kristabella: Full of Snark Since 1977

Posted By Kristabella on December 3, 2013

I decided to maybe skip the rest of the trip seeing as I’ve been back over 2 months and still haven’t finished telling you about my trip. But I wanted to document it all for myself, so here we go. I only have like 3-4 more posts to write. I can do this.

Our only full day in Prague started with actually sleeping in a bit, partaking in the free breakfast in the hotel and then sightseeing.

I think I mentioned before that Alli had been to Prague before, so she had done the walking tour and seen all the sights. She had the day to herself while Melissa and I did all the touristy things. We did a Prague in a Nutshell tour, which showed us a lot of the city and then took us to Prague Castle and the Charles Bridge.

This tour was on a bus until we got to the castle. I would have preferred a walking tour and still, for the whole trip, I think my favorite tour was the free walking tour in Budapest. Do these tours anywhere you can!

After driving in rush hour traffic in Prague, we got to Prague Castle. From there the rest of the tour was on foot. Most of the group was leaving us after the castle. Melissa and I and two other women did the long tour, which included lunch and a boat ride.

Prague is so pretty. Hands down the prettiest city we went too. Prague Castle is huge and like 100 buildings set into a fortress. In the middle of it all is a very pretty church that was like a billion years old.

The only thing I remember from the tour about the church was that a) it was really old and b) there was a sculpture on the front of the front door with some dudes presenting a severed arm on a tray. I, of course, took a photo of it.

We could have waited in a huge crowd to see the changing of the guard, but our wise tour guide told us that it wasn’t worth it and that we could see them marching as we got further into the castle. It was pretty neat!

After walking through the Castle, we had lunch overlooking the whole city. Lunch was good and there was a salad, which was so lovely since we hadn’t had vegetables in a long time. And then my main course was goulash, because of course it was!

After lunch, we headed down to this garden. This was the prettiest. There was this giant pond with these giant koi in there. And also just hanging out are peacocks, including the famous albino peacock. They were just chillin’. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a peacock, not even at the zoo!

We walked around some more through the gardens and the grounds and made it to the Franz Kafka Museum. We didn’t tour the museum, but got to look around the gift shop, which was enough for me. I don’t know enough about Kafka, except for that book from Bridget Jones’ Diary, Kafka’s Motorbike. (One of the greatest books of our time! Well at least in the top 30.)

Outside the museum, though, is a statue of two guys peeing. They move and supposedly write out quotes in the water. Our guide told us it was supposed to be Stalin and Hitler peeing on the Czech Republic. (I cannot find anything online to support this.)

Then it was on to the famous Charles Bridge. The bridge is old and is only open to foot traffic. The biggest story I remember about the bridge is that back in the 1600s, 27 Protestant leaders were beheaded for not being Catholic and their heads were put on spikes at the entrance to the bridge, warning people who entered Prague that they did not mess around. (DULY NOTED, PRAGUE!)

After we crossed the bridge, it was on to our boat ride. It was just an hour cruise, taking in the sights of Prague from the Vltava River. The city is even prettier from the water and there were swans everywhere! All these zoo animals just hanging out in Prague!

We cut the tour short after this because it was going to Old Town Square and we had seen all of that the day before just walking around. We wanted to get in a nap and change before we headed out for the night on our ghost tours.

The first tour was an underground tour by lamplight. The guide freaked us out, telling us that it was pitch black and underground and that if you were at all claustrophobic, not to go on the tour. Melissa and Alli freaked out as soon as we walked into the pitch black hall. And at that point we were still above ground.

So they skipped it. I wasn’t going to miss out, so I stuck with it and it was pretty fascinating. I’m pretty sure the guide was being dramatic about all the paranormal activity and how it made her get winded and short of breath. I didn’t notice anything. It was dark and we seemed to go pretty far down, but it was fine. I’m just glad a boogey man didn’t jump out of the dark because I may have then murdered someone with my screams alone.

This building was the dungeon and torture chamber, back in the day, including back in the 1600s when there was that huge massacre. There was a room that served as a holding room before the prisoners went out to get executed. There are all sorts of carvings on the wall from these prisoners, which is creepy, but cool. It even includes things from the 1400s and 1500s and people who just etched symbols because they didn’t know words.

After this tour, we had an above ground ghosts and legends tour. This was really interesting about different myths and legends from around Old Town Square, but behind all the hustle and bustle. Our guide was from New Jersey and really loved his job. I really liked him, until halfway through the tour when he jumped out from behind something and grabbed me and made me almost shit my pants! (The worst part was I mentioned to him how I saw this happen with another tour and he was like “we don’t do that on our tours.” LIAR, LIAR, GHOSTY PANTS ON FIRE!)

He took us to an old hospital that is known to be haunted. It is also a place that has been known to have orbs photographed due to ghosts or whatnot, so we all stood around taking photos of this building looking for orbs. This was the best I got.

After the tour, it was still early, so we decided to check out the English pub right in the square to have some of Prague’s Budweiser. (It is so good!) (Actually, come to think of it, we only went in here because the bouncer told us how pretty we were and said we could get a free drink. Which was a thimble full of something.)

After that, we decided to check out what is supposedly the oldest pub in Prague, which someone had told us about. It was like a good old beer hall with Pilsner and pretzels, so we were happy as ghosts in a graveyard.

We then called it a night and headed back to the hotel. We had a long train ride the next day to Munich, and we knew we would not be so lucky to get a train car to ourselves on a train heading to the heart of Oktoberfest.

See the rest of my Prague photos here.

Categories: A Day in the Life of Me, Europe 2013, Travel
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