Prague

December 2016-January 2017

After two and a half days at work, we were on a plane again, to Prague to celebrate New Year 2017. We also had a few friends heading to Prague - Stacey and Blair, Steve, Ben and his girlfriend Laura.

London had been very foggy in the days bewteen Christmas and New Years, and our flight was delayed by an hour and a half. We spent the time in the Wetherspoons pub in Stansted, and ran into Steve there as he waited for his later flight.

We finally took off, and also had foggy arrival in Prague at 10pm. After checking into our hotel we went out for a late dinner and a walk. We found a bar at about 11:30 where I had beef tartar, Rach had potato soup, and we washed both down with some good Czech pilsner. The tartar is not something I've previously been a fan of - being raw beef mince on toast - but I enjoyed it. Potato soup was a Czech dish, and Rach enjoyed that too.  

Beef tartar

Good Czech pilsner

We also went for a walk across the road to the famous Charles Bridge and were lucky enough to explore it without the massive crowds that are there during the daytime.

Charles Bridge

Saturday

We started the day with an Old Town walking tour with Steve, Ben and Laura. Prague is a big city with a huge history, and like most in Europe has its stories from World War II. But the most chilling part was when our guide told us why the old Jewish Quarter and its Old New Synagogue was still intact. Most other cities' Jewish areas were destroyed in WWII by the Nazis, but Hitler had a fondness for Prague; he also wanted to preserve the Jewish quarter as a future monument to an extinct race of people.

The Old New Synagogue

The main square by day...

After the tour, we went to restaurant/beerhall U Flecku, where the five of us joined Stacey and Blair for lunch. U Flecku served only its own brewed beer - a tasty, rich dark lager. The five us of from the walking tour decided to do a pub crawl for New Years Eve later so afterwards we napped.

...and the main square by night.

We had a great night. The pub crawl itself was terrible value for money, and only went to two pubs then a "Fashion club" for the "afterparty" (which we skipped). But it was a great night due to the company. 

It was a fairly cold night too, getting down to -4 degrees. And as we left the first pub, it started to lightly snow. 

Steve

We went to one of the bridges on the river for the midnight countdown, and the crowds were huge, even though we weren't in the old town, and were two bridges away from the central Charles Bridge. Not sure where it came from but we even got to experience a touch of tear gas! Just like Rome, people in the crowds had their own fireworks to set off - but there were lot more and a lot louder in Prague. There were also "official" fireworks shooting into the sky which were good. Three-sixty degree fireworks. Amazing.

Afterwards we tried to find somewhere for a couple of quiet drinks. In one restaurant, the waitress bought over a bucket of mojito that we hadn't ordered and tried to get us to pay for them. We left the place - after being shouted at by her at the top of her lungs in front of many customers. We found a place nearby for some tasty potato soup then headed home. 

Sunday

We had breakfast in our hotel then headed to Pivni Laznev, where Rachel had booked us in at 11:30 - 1:30 for a beer bath as my Christmas present. It was so cool: we had a private room with a bath of hops, yeast and beer. There were also two taps next to the bath for a light and a dark beer - unlimited beer for the two hours. We made the most of the beer which was probably one of the better ones we tried in Prague, and I really enjoyed pouring them to get the right amount of head. 

Me in a beer bath, pouring beer

Prague obviously has a reputation for good beer, and the Czech people drink more beer per capita than any other country in the world. I would say that the beer in Prague is very good, even though I'm not generally a lager drinker. It might not be the most varied beer (Brussels has the greatest variety of beer I've ever experienced) but Czech beer is very good quality, and I particularly enjoyed trying dark lagers which I've not really experienced before. 

Anyway, back to the beer baths: there was also a private sauna and a comfortable straw bed to lie on. After we finished our two hours, we were able to have unlimited beer in the reception area of the complex, so we also had a couple there while we planned and messaged friends.

We met up with Blair and Stacey across the river - we hadn't been able to meet up with them the previous night - and walked up Petrinksa Hill. There were some cool views of the city from Petrinksa Tower, and because the hill was relatively high there was still a covering of snow on the trees and the grass, making quite a sight.

View from Petrinksa Hill

Afterwards we had a light dinner and drinks with them. Because we were still relatively tired from the night before, Rach and I decided to have a relaxed night at our hotel. Because it got dark by 4:30 it made you think it was a lot later than it really was. I ventured out to buy some snacks from the minimart but apart from that we chilled out and were asleep by 9:30. 

Monday

After breakfast, Rach and I walked up to Prague Castle and looked around the complex. It's not a traditional, medieval fortress-type castle, more of a huge complex of buildings at the top of the hill big enough that the St Vitus Cathedral is inside the complex. As we were there, it started to snow. Having never seen proper snowflakes, this sent Rach into fits of delight as she set about trying to catch and study each of them.

Wonder of snowflakes, near St Vitus Cathedral

We left the castle and looked at the Lennon wall - its a graffiti wall which is quite odd because John Lennon never visited or had any affinity with Prague.

Trdelinik 

I also managed to try some Trdelinik - dough grilled on a stick, covered with sugar - with white chocolate inside. Delicious!

Old Town Square

It continued to snow and we met Steve in the main Old Town Square square for lunch, just as it really started to snow. Prague took on a whole new character with the heavy snow. We had a few drinks and lunch at at a pub called Lokal, where we ordered pork cutlet not knowing it was actually pork schnitzel - it was exceptional. After that we went to a Hotel U Prince, a rooftop bar (covered, mind you) where had an amaxing view of the main church spires overlooking the main square. We had a couple more drinks and some cheese, and Ben and Laura joined us.

We went back to get our bags from the hotel and had little bit more time than we thought, so had a final drink at the bar next door, oddly enough called The Sad Man's Tongue bar. It was probably the only place in Prague where we had friendly service from the waitress/barmaid - every other restaurant or bar we went to in Prague had rude or indifferent service.

We took the train and bus out to the airport, and managed to get a few bottle of good Czech beer in duty free for home.