Today’s mission includes:
Find Prague Castle (not really that hard since it is
completely visible up on the hill)
Take the Mozart Library Tour (since books define our lives)
Try to find the Vinohrady district area (to do, you know,
the hipster thing because that’s what we are…not)
The possible hindrance to these endeavors? Its Sunday. Things are closed. Included
churches unless we want to pretend to be Catholic locals.
Since we went to bed so amazingly early, we found ourselves
ready to go around 6AM. So 6AM became the start of our one full day in
Praha! One of the secrets of Prague (or
pretty much anywhere else of any sort of importance in a famous city) is HIT
THE STREETS EARLY. You’ll be pleasantly
surprise at how awesome it is….
See the castle in the distance??? That was our goal. With some slight detours along the way of course…
Like the COMPLETELY EMPTY Charles Bridge:
It AMAZED us how empty it was after the mad house it had been the day before. Correction, the evening before with everyone and their mom roaming the so famous location.
Extra large doors of course EVERYWHERE and narrow winding alleyways all hopefully leading to the castle...
People, I introduce to you your local scooter squater! She will continue making appearances around the globe. Be on the look out!
Stairs, stairs and more stairs (its like we’ve trained for
this all our lives!)
Entrance
Finally within the castle walls!
MISSION ONE ACCOMPLISHED.
Now, lets find Zlata Ulicka (the Golden Lane), it sounds
amazing!
But first…more stairs…
So what is the Golden Lane? Apparently a street WITHIN the Prague Castle (as we found out after much wandering) that was legended to house alchemists who took up residence there with the sole purpose of the creation of gold. Completely fiction it turns out but you can always dream right? And unfortunately there is a fee to get to this fabled road of tiny colored houses blocked ONLY by a small rope spanning the entrance. Have we not trained all our lives for moments like these??? Years of hopping fences to access hot tubs not to mention pre-season conditioning, season, and spring workouts??? But it was not to be. We were being watched like a hawk by one of the local business owners/designated rope guard. We may have skills but invisibility is not one of them. We decided to reject that idea and begin our hunt for a breakfast location as our lack of food was beginning to weaken our exploring spirits.
Down the castle hill we go.
With more detours of course…
We like to find random things almost on accident. It makes for the best kind of discoveries. Especially
as no one is awake to invade our views.
Then we found CAFÉ SAVOY.
Initially, the reasons we stopped was because of Christy’s
association of the name “Savoy” with THE SAVOY in London and, even more so, the
fact that it was close to Lennon Wall and therefore us and our hungry stomachs. But once we opened the door to enter, we knew
it was the right choice. In my opinion,
it was the Angelina (of Paris) of Prague.
I felt so classy walking in and being given a seat right next to where
they were cutting the loaves of fresh bread.
With plates upon plates of delicious looking food floating by carried by
waiters that looked incredibly happy to be serving there, beautiful glasses of
freshly squeezed orange juice, and monstrous cups of cappuccinos passing
continuously, I was so completely content to just sit, watch and soak in the
atmosphere. It sounded like there was even live piano playing coming from the
second floor level of seating. It was
perfect.
Then our food arrived.
Yes. That is all for us. They brought me the wrong plate at first BUT we snapped a picture before
they took it away and brought my princess looking soft boiled egg resting on
its stand. L-O-L. The other plate definitely
looked way more amazing so we kept that photo.
Now satisfied we step back outside and guess what? Its snowing.
No joke. Those beautiful blue skies pictured above had given way to a
blustering wind that swept clouds onto the scene and those clouds brought
with them rain resulting in snow flurries lightly hitting us. A jacket and short break was needed before we
continued…
Stopping to regather and figure our next plan of action with the internet, we realized the Jewish quarter is a huge part of old town Prague. Lets go!
Stopping to regather and figure our next plan of action with the internet, we realized the Jewish quarter is a huge part of old town Prague. Lets go!
Everything is closed due to it being Sunday AND a Jewish
Holiday so standing in awe outside the doors of these centuries old structures
is all we get to do today.
Since we’re close to the one of the main metro stops, let’s
get a ticket to check out the Vinohrady district! Turns out again, a
lot of stuff is closed on Sundays. Go figure.
But the neighborhood was so beautiful and relaxing, we found a nice park
with lovely benches and took a nice break like the hobos we sometimes are…
Once rested, more wandering was in store around this area
before we began to head back to meet one of Christy’s Belgian teammates at a coffee
shop in Old Town Prague.
The Coffee Shop. Our host recommended this location in her list and Christy's friend was familiar with it so we figured it would be a nice meet up location. We figured right. :) To find this little coffee shop you must first enter a courtyard that happened to be blocked by loading trucks moving OLD OLD doors to who knows where (take me with you!). You look up and there it was tucked away in the corner. With a patio sitting area outside loaded with bikes and a smaller interior filled with university students, we found a gem. Again, the staff were very sweet and caring working with us in broken English but really, when hand motions and broken language of any sort are coupled with politeness and a smile, you can get very far in communicating.
Yet the only picture I took while there was this hallway to the
bathrooms...sorry. But who lines their hallway with pianos?? I LOVE
IT. If I would've had some sheet music, I may have sat down and serenade
the bathroomers; as it was, I settled for attempting to remember Jon Schmidt's
rendition of For the Beauty of
the Earth. The whole of a page that I have memorized... hope those
bathroomers enjoyed it...
Heading back to the
apartment, we sprinted between overhangs as it had begun to snow again.
Sprinted with 4 large adults and one stroller. It was great.
We finished up the
day with an fantastic meal at a little pub/brewery just down the street from
where we were staying. Wooden benches and tables and a guitarist playing
for free beer all set the scene of our dinner and it was excellent.
The flash on the
camera was not excellent though....But look at that food! Strips of meat
on top of potatoes and everything smothered in a spicy gravy spread. It felt like I was back at home eating a Thanksgiving or Christmas meal. My
Opa, dad and brother would've loved it.
Day two closed and complete. Could we have fit anything more
into the day? Probably. But I think our feet were thankful that we did
not. : )
