We are all back in Germany after our trip back to the U.S. and spent the week catching up on sleep and things around the house.
MLK weekend is another four day weekend for the base and we had originally planned to go to Tromso, Norway, but our flights ended up getting cancelled. This was pretty upsetting since it was a big bucket-list item for us but it probably was a good thing with all of the Covid drama going on. We decided that we still needed to take advantage of the long weekend and planned a last minute trip to Prague.
We dropped the pups off at the kennel Friday morning and made the five hour drive to Prague. Luckily, our room was ready and they had upgraded us to a suite. We got settled into the hotel and decided to take a walk around the Old Town, where our hotel was.
First stop was a late lunch. KFC seems to be really popular in the Czech Republic and we passed about 1000 signs for it on our drive in. By the time we arrived, we had been brainwashed into wanting it. Luckily, there was a huge mall across the street from the hotel with a big food court. Ryan hates KFC so decided to try Nordsee instead, which is a European fast food chain with a seafood buffet. While this sounded like a terrible idea to me, Ryan loved it and it has since become his new obsession. There is a Nordsee at just about every rest stop on the autobahn so Matt and I have to hope he’s not looking each time we pass one.
After our lunch, we set out on our walk. Prague’s Old Town is so cute, partly because there was no bombing during either World War. Because of the bombings, most European cities have their architecture broken up between older styles, with cheap, block-style, post-war architecture to replace bombed buildings. Prague is really different in that the older styles of architecture; medieval, baroque, rococo, etc.; are all still surviving next to each other.
We walked all the way to the Charles Bridge, which is the iconic place you have to take a picture of yourself in, in Prague. It’s normally super packed, but in mid-January, during a semi-Covid lockdown, we had the place almost to ourselves.
After we got our pictures in, we stopped for Chimney Cakes. These are the iconic Czech pastry, pretty much pieces of dough, dipped in butter and sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar. You can choose glazes for the inside like caramel or pistachio, and then fillings like whip cream, ice cream, or fruit. The chimney cakes are cooked on round pieces of wood that are manually turned over a fire.
After our walk, we headed to U Pavouka, a Czech restaurant that does a medieval dinner show. There were multiple acts including music, belly dancing, jesters, and fire breathing. The dinner was five courses and even thought none of food blew us out of the water, it was still good. The dinner was so fun though and much better than our usual, McDonald’s. The funniest part is that due to the dim lighting, we didn’t see silverware sitting on the far end of the table so we ate the first couple courses with our hands because we thought it was “medieval style.” Luckily our waiter found the silverware when he brought us the soup course.
Saturday morning, we got up and walked to Prague Castle. Google maps said it would only be 40 minutes, but with stopping to take pictures and taking the super steep hills into account, it was almost an hour before we got there.
You could easily spend a whole day at Prague Castle. Inside the complex is not only the medieval castle and renaissance palace, but St. Vitus cathedral, a chapel, and several other out- buildings, restaurants, and stores. Relatively speaking, we had the place to ourselves. Looking back at so many pictures that we got, it looks like no one else is there. Travelling during Covid is definitely a challenge, but it is so nice to not have to deal with the usual tourist crowds.
We did not need to stay at Prague Castle all day. The lack of people allowed us to move quickly between all of the buildings. Afterwards, we walked even further uphill to the Strahov Monastery. The Monastery was started in the 1100s and its library once had what was considered a huge collection of books and manuscripts, some of which are on display. The oldest book dates back to the 800s when all books were hand-written, with pictures drawn in the margins by the monks.
At this point, we were all starving and my family refused to go to any other site until they had eaten. We stopped at a pizzeria on the way back to the hotel and got some of the best pizza we’ve had paired with Czech beer.
We timed our walk back to the hotel just in time for the Astrological clock to chime. I had really talked this up to the family and of course they were bored out of their minds watching a clock chime. But, I really enjoyed watching their reactions. 🤣
We got a good nap in back at the hotel and then had a quick dinner at the mall food court. This time was a ramen restaurant, picked by Ryan. Afterwards, we headed to Municipal House, Prague’s main concert hall, for a concert. Prague is apparently, the “cheapest place” in Europe to hear classical music so everyone recommends you see a show when visiting. We heard an orchestra play Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Again, the hall was about 75% empty so it almost felt like a private show. At only an hour, it was the perfect amount of time for the kids (and the adults too).
Sunday morning, we got up to do our own walking tour of the parts of Prague’s Old Town that we hadn’t seen yet. We didn’t make it far before we got some shopping in- this must be a serious hobby here. There are shopping malls on every other block, with street front stores filling in the gaps in between. We are not “shopping people” by any stretch of the imagination but it was hard to resist with all of the opportunity. I guess after years of being part of Cold-War USSR, the Czech republic is enjoying its commercial freedom.
After we got even more shopping done, we walked to Wenceslas Square, which is kind of like Washington’s National Mall. It’s where people gather during “times of national celebration.” At the top of Wenceslas Square, is the Czech Republic’s National Museum.
Afterwards, I wanted to walk over to Dancing House and took what looked like the most direct route, but ended up looking like the seedier part of town. Ryan even commented, we need to get out of this ‘civilian’ area and get back to the touristy side. 😂
We made it to Dancing House, and then continued back towards our hotel along the river. We grabbed lunch and then one more nap at the hotel.
Sunday night, we headed to the Original Beer Spa. They provide a one hour session of soaking in their “beer,” which sort of has the same effects of an oatmeal bath. It’s not 100% beer, contrary to what we thought- apparently just soaking in beer can get you pretty drunk. So, it’s a mix of mostly water, 10% beer, hops, barley, and yeast. It did have an unlimited beer tap next to the tubs though and unlimited beer bread.
Ryan was so afraid to get into the beer because he was afraid of accidentally drinking it, and afraid the smell would make him sick. Once he was in though, we could not get him out. The spa felt awesome. At this point, we had walked over 20 miles and all of us were complaining of various aches and pains but most were resolved by the end of our session. This was definitely the highlight of the trip and we could have probably stayed another hour or so.
We got showers in the Beer Spa and then had dinner on the Market Square and then had one more walk back to the hotel, checking out the buildings lit up at night.
Monday morning, we had breakfast and headed home to get the puppies. I would be remiss without mentioning that this was probably the best Marriott stay we’ve ever had. I already mentioned how we got upgraded on arrival, but on top of that, we had access to the hotel’s M Club which had a never-ending supply of water, sodas, snacks, happy hour, and the biggest hotel breakfast buffet we’ve ever seen. On top of that, everyone was nice and could not stop asking us what more they could do for us. We would definitely go back, just to stay at the hotel again!
Links:
Marriott: https://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/prgdt-prague-marriott-hotel/
U Pavouka Medieval Dinner: https://upavouka.com/
The Original Beer Spa: https://www.beerspa.com/en/
Gilcrests Abroad 