Prague, Czech Republic - Day 3

Location: Outside our room, Hostel U Melounu

Hii! I'm pretty sad that today's our last day in Prague, despite the first day's weird experiences. We saw some of Prague's most beautiful sights today.

Started off by getting breakfast from the hostel, and taking a tram to the Old Town, as we'd decided last night. So we've got a glimpse of the night life and the day life at Staré Město. We walked from the tram stop along the same road that gave us those brilliant shots of Prague Castle last night, and so we decided to stop and take some daylight photos of the castle.

Me with breakfast and Krups with the guide book, and Prague Castle

Staré Město was as busy as it was last night. In fact, they were getting ready for a big anniversary celebration of something, which I couldn't understand. But there were lots of costumed people and we even saw a wedding about to take place there!

The whole square (Namesti) was surrounded by tourist spots. On one side was the Church of Our Lady in front of Týn. One side had the St. Nicholas Church, which we entered for free. And the other side had the famous Astronomical Clock. On the sides of the clock were Vanity, The Miser, Death and The Turk. These came out when the clock struck and performed different actions. There were also the mobile 12 Apostles above the dials. The dials themselves were very informative, showing us a calendar, solar movement, lunar movement, the equinoxes, etc. We couldn't really figure them out, unfortunately :(

Neela and I at the Church of Our Lady in front of Týn

The huge gorgeous crystal chandelier in St. Nicholas' Church

Astronomical Clock

Me pointing at the roadsign, which translates to Old Town Square

Right next to the Astronomical Clock was the Old Town City Hall and its tower. Paying a small fee, we got to go up the tower and get a lovely panoramic view of Prague.

Prague Castle in the background

Prague's Old Town Square


Another Angle

Once we were done with the panorama (and it was quite chilly up there!), we decided to head to the majestic Prague Castle which we'd seen from so many angles but not up close! We had to cross a bridge, on the other side of the Charles Bridge this time, and we got a different view of the Vltava river and the castle.

Czech tram and Prague Castle

Right before going up, we spotted a little stall that sold Fried CHEESE which we'd been dreaming about since our first day here! And it wasn't too expensive. So we sat ourselves down along the stairs up the castle with a nice view of the tourist going up, and had a little picnic :P

Neela, Krups and Fried Cheese in bread!

Unfortunately, it wasn't as good as we'd dreamed it would be :( Couldn't really taste the cheese! But we were pretty hungry so we managed to finish it all up. The taste kinda grew on me after my third bite actually. I wish we'd gotten a chance to try it at another place. Anyway, we continued our walk up and first thing we saw was the beautiful St. Vitus Cathedral, which is what is so prominent from all over the city. And the building on the other side was the St. George's Basilica.

Krups and I in front of the St. George's Basilica

St. Vitus Cathedral

We were really upset about the construction going on, which definitely spoilt the beauty of the cathedral. Hopefully it's not like this wherever we go, but so far in Vienna, there was always something blocking our view of the different places we went to. Sigh. Bad timing I guess. Anyway, we went into the cathedral and it was really huge. Managed to get another view of Prague! And a nice group photo.

Prague's panorama from Prague Castle

After that, as we were running out of time, we went directly to the Golden Lane which was made up of little houses and really nice shops, selling very interesting things like marionettes and puzzles.

Along Golden Lane

After that, we went to check out the famous Prague pubs. And I made use of the free toilet (too much info, sorry :P) We were the ONLY ones there! Too early for drinking I guess :P

Inside a pub in Prague

After that, we walked back really slowly to the tram stop, stopping at the souvenir shops on the way. I did lots of souvenir shopping here. The slogan "czech me out" seemed popular among all the stuff here so I thought it was perfect for teenu :D After all that shopping and a quick dinner, we stopped by at another pub near our hostel, to finish up our spare cash. This time, the pub was full and they ALL majorly stared at us coz like I said, Indians are REALLY rare here! We only saw a few at the castle. About 5 or 6. I hope it's better at other places! Neela's mom just told her that Switzerland's FULL of Indians so guess the Swiss will be more used to us heh.

Anyway, after we got home, we were informed by our Canadian roommate that the only tubelight in our room is fused! So I have no idea how we're gonna pack up for tomorrow morning. I'd better go now. Looong bus journey tomorrow so need to be well-rested! Goodnight.

Terezín and Prague - Day 2

Location: Outside our room in Hostel U Melounu

Hii! We had a long but lovely day today. So we were supposed to leave our hostel at 7.10am but we got a bit carried away by the really good (free) breakfast - incredibly soft bread with creamy cheese. We packed up as much as we could for brunch and left only around 7.20. So once we reached Florenc Bus Station to take the 8am bus to Terezín, we had to rush to get tickets as it was already 7.55! And the guy at the office refused to give us the 8am tickets, insisting that we would miss the bus anyway. So we had to wait at that awful place for an hour. Awful coz there was nothing much to do around there and very few benches and LOTS of smokers. So we just found one corner and dozed off/had breakfast. Boarded the bus at 8.45 and reached Terezín around 10.

Terezín is basically a former fortress and concentration camp. It was named after Maria Theresa of the Habsburgs. There were a coupla museums there and the concentration camp which we got a free tour of. Pretty depressing place so I took hardly any photos there.

The gallows, and the fortress walls

We finished around 2 and took the bus back to Prague to go up Petrin Hill. This place is across the river from the main city centre so the bridge we took to go there gave us a beautiful view of the Charles Bridge and the Prague Castle. And the water here's a deeep blue.

Petrin Hill and the bridge we took to go there

Lovely architecture of the National Theatre in the city centre

Prague castle! The photos don't do it justice

Us three with the castle and bridge in the background

Petrin Hill has an observation tower which is built like the Eiffel Tower. But it wasn't too spectacular or high so we decided to give it a miss. Btw, the toilets here in Prague cost about 10 crowns (roughly 90c)! And they're not even that clean. Anyway, we went to the Mirror Maze/Hall of Mirrors after that. It was ok.. More for kids. But we being nuts, took mad photos too. This one's my favourite :D

Alien fingers hehehehe. Cheap thrill :P

We were done with Petrin Hill pretty quickly. On the way down, due to lovely clear skies, we were granted with a beautiful view of Prague. But the photos didn't come out too clearly as they were mostly blocked by trees. We'd taken the funicular up so the walk down was really nice. Once we reached the city centre again, we just walked around and saw plenty of souvenir shops and Bohemian crystal shops. Bought some stuff for Navarathri golu and a magnet.

Random Prague alley

We saw SO many food stalls and got so hungry that even the non-food stalls somehow reminded us of food! Guess we were really starving. And we'd decided to treat ourselves to a slightly more expensive restaurant in the Old Town, and we were really looking forward to good food. So we quickly walked along the Charles Bridge, which was extremely crowded but was scenic.

At the start of the Charles Bridge

Took a nice group photo along the bridge

We reached Staré Město (Old Town) around 7ish, starving, and went directly to the restaurant, with promises that we would return to check out the old town thoroughly tomorrow. It's really pretty and so far it's been my favourite part of Prague. Dinner was great. While waiting, we took ridiculous photos which I refuse to put up here, but well, it was fun :D Had FILLING pasta after a long time! I was stuffed. Really needed a nice walk but it was pretty late so we had to go back quickly. While walking to the tram stop, I was awestruck by the night view of the Prague Castle. It beat the daytime view hands-down!

Prague Castle at night

I couldn't tear my eyes off it and took millions of photos which unfortunately didn't come out so clearly. I loved it so much that I didn't even feel the fear I felt yesterday while walking back to our hostel!

Ok, gotta sleep now. Showering was a bad experience again. Anyway, goodnight!

Prague, Czech Republic - Day 1

Location: Hostel U Melounu - outside our dorm.

Hello from Prague! This place is absolutely scenic. And I think we haven't even seen the best part yet! Looking forward to our next two days here, and hopefully they'll be better than today!


Anyway, we reached Prague around 1330, after a short stopover at Brno (these Czechs seem to find vowels redundant!). Had nice breakfast on the bus - delicious methi thepla, from Krupa's Aunt, with yoghurt! And 'mullu thengozhal'/முள்ளு தேங்கோழல் and other snacks from Neela. And the hot chocolate and other drinks which were really good. Had a good rest too so we were all refreshed for the next part of our journey.

Unfortunately the rain followed us all the way from Vienna so the weather was quite gloomy when we reached. Also, it's quite a long walk in from the metro station to our hostel and we got lost a little, so walking with our heavy backpacks in the rain was not a pleasant experience! People we met on the way did try to help but they didn't really know where the hostel was. Finally we understood the numbering system of the apartments on the street and found our hostel. The sign was barely visible! And it seemed slightly cramped when we went in. So basically my first impression of Prague wasn't too great.

However, the receptionist was nice and though she wasn't particularly enthusiastic, she did answer all our questions nicely and patiently! So I thought that maybe Czech people are generally nice but they don't really show their emotions so readily. She informed us that there was a computer with free internet - much to our glee - and that they would lend us towels. Both firsts on our trip so far!

Our room's quite nice. It's a 7-bed dorm.

Neela and I in our dorm

Our room was empty when we went up. We quickly locked our bags up and left for lunch, after finding out, to our delight, that there's an Indian restaurant that's walking distance from here!!

Inside the restaurant! They refused to pose or smile

Had a very filling thali which cost 88 Kc (8 SGD). It consisted of rice, rajma, PANEER!, raita, soup/kesari and salad and we couldn't even finish everything. Paneer in Prague! So I immediately had to call home and tell them heheh. Then we made our way back to the hostel to refresh and dress up for the evening - a show at the Black Light Theatre!

We met one of our dormmates when we went in this time - a Brazilian dude who looked 26. He was very keen to tag along with us as he was backpacking all alone. We spent about 20 minutes insisting that he'd feel bored as we were planning to go shopping and for a concert (made it sound very artsy and as girly as possible) so he was crestfallen. We tried to tell him nicely but I don't think he understood us very well so he might've been hurt! I hope not. We have to stay with him for 2 more days. But anyway, we changed to really nice, pretty dresses and looked non-backpacker-ish so he should've gotten the hint. So we said byee to him and told him to have fun and left.

Took a 'free' tram to the city centre and got off at the National Theatre. It's a beautiful building. But we didn't have time to take photos as we had to rush and buy tickets for the show. Anyway, we'll be going there tomorrow as well so I'll take some photos then. But I managed to take a general Prague street photo anyway..

A typical street in Prague

Once we oriented ourselves, we went to Lanterna Magika to get tickets. Unfortunately, we learnt that the show that was on today wasn't really making use of Black Light and was more the circus kind. So we went to the other place recommended in our guidebook and luckily this was what we wanted. But on the way there, we were kinda followed, and that was a bit unnerving. Thankfully it was only 7pm and still daytime. He was a shabby-looking oldish man who walked when we did and stopped when we did. And of course we caught on to that so we walked very briskly to the theatre and made sure we lost him on the way. Quite an experience!


And of course my impression of Prague just worsened then. We were also rather dressed up as compared to many others so everyone was staring at us and this was not doing us any good either! We thought it could be coz of the severe lack of Indians in Prague (we had yet to see any! Even the Indian restaurant had none!) and girls with black dots on their foreheads probably looked exotic to them :P


Went for a bit of shopping to kill time till 8pm and I bought myself nice slippers! Neela was so close to buying herself a pair but the crazy shopkeeper practically kicked us out as it was 2 minutes after closing time! She'd rather go home early than make a sale. Nut. So we walked back to the theatre early and took photos heh.

Before the show started!

A scene from the show

The show was amazing. I've never seen anything like that before. It had a story which revolved around life and death but more important was the talents of the 6-person crew and 2-person cast. The whole show took place in black light and made use of fluorescent props that glow in the dark, like in the above photo. These props seem to move about on their own when actually the black-clad crew, which is completely invisible to us, is responsible for it. The motion is so perfect that it was very hard to imagine anyone behind it! I think my explanation doesn't do it justice. If any of you get a chance to watch something like this, I highly recommend it!

After that, we left for our hostel. And it was nighttime (9ish) and after our earlier experience, I was a bit worried. But of course, nothing happened. The hostel's in a very residential area I think, so it was rather quiet. We got back safely, and met our other dormmates - a Canadian couple and a British guy. They're all nice and decent and all around our age. And Brazilian guy didn't look angry with us. So it's all good.

Oh and the bathrooms are all shared among lots of people and okayishly clean. BUT! There's a crazy system which they employ here which makes use of light sensors. So just now while showering, the lights went off suddenly! And I waved around madly until they came back on. And this happened a few times! Crazy nutters. So I don't like these bathrooms at night. Ok I'm off to sleep now! Terezin day-trip tomorrow. Goodnight.

Travelling to Prague

Location: Student Agency Bus from Wien to Praha

Hi! This bus is awesome. It's so comfortable. And they're showing the lamest Czech movies on the screen. AND there's free hot chocolate/coffee/tea/water and a WC inside and an attendant who periodically checks if we're ok! Best part is, it's only 6€ each! Compared to the train which costs about 30€ usually! The journey started at 0835. Actually we had no idea where this bus station was. So we asked whoever we found walking around at 7.30am (not many people!) and most of them didn't know english. AND it was (and still is) raining horribly and we only have one umbrella to share among us. So finally Neela found some very nice security guard and asked him. He gave us directions, took my umbrella, and then started crooning "I'm singing in the rain" and even did a little dance! hahaha! Nice fellow.. So we went to the bus stop and were packed with a whole lot of people all going to Czech Republic. Finally our bus came after an hour of waiting and now we're in it. Both Neela and Krupa are fast asleep as usual :P

Thought of putting up some photos which I forgot to before!

The three of us at a fountain in Volksgarten

Stephansplatz at night.. really pretty

We got a free drink each at Wombar - Wombat's basement bar

Ok, I'll write next from the Prague hostel - U Melounu!