Living in a fairytale - PRAGUE

Hello hello! It's been an insanely wonderfully amazing weekend here in my crazy European life. Thursday was a day to rest, get some homework done, and pack up for my trip! Friday morning Ashley and I started our travels at the break of dawn towards the lovely city of Prague, Czech Republic.

view from the airplane.
snow? what?

And I'm not kidding when I say the break of dawn. I woke up at 4:55am, grabbed my stuff, and was out the door just after 5. Ashley and I took the metro to Termini (the main terminal), then grabbed a train to Fuimicino airport from there - a 30 minute express train that takes you right where you need to be. So convenient! Got to our plane just in time. I slept the whole way (mind you, the sun's rising as we're taking off), and when I opened my eyes as we were approaching Prague there was snow. Everywhere. It was so beautiful, but I wasn't expecting snow to be covering the ground!! Should have brought my boots...It was a beautiful view even from the plane, though. Cute little buildings on cliffs covered in snow, I was in love already.

We got off the plane and could see our breath (AH)! Followed the convenient and easy directions to our hostel (via bus, metro, then tram - the public transportation in Prague is awesome!), and settled in our dorm room there. We stayed at Little Town Hostel..highlyyyy recommended for anyone thinking about traveling to Prague. It was super affordable but also really nice - clean, friendly, and free linens/towels! Plus it's the perfect location. Perfecto.

our tour starting in Old Town Square.
Wait...are we in Disneyworld?

We wandered around the city before our free tour at 2, and got a nice Czech lunch at a little cafe near our hostel. It was sooo yummy I got Czech sausage with veggies and Ashley went for their specialty - goulash soup. And of course, I had to try their famous drink in Prague: hot wine. Oh. My. Goodness. I've found my home. We left our great meal and headed across the Charles Bridge to meet up with the free tour group that we'd heard about. It was great! The tour guide was hilarious, and took us all around. It's a really awesome program that they have - the company offers tours all throughout Europe for free because they think that everyone (no matter their budget) deserves to learn as much as they can about where they're visiting. Pretty sweeeeet.

can we stay forever?

It was absolutely FREEZING that day, but soo beautiful. We walked by the last place that Mozart played in ever, the famous astrological clock, Old Town Square, Wenceslas Square, a bunch of churches, etc. etc. etc. SO PRETTY. Half way through the tour we had a break at "Bohemia Bagels," which was a really cute bagel/sandwhich/coffee shop. My toes were completely numb (bad decision only bringing TOMS when snow is melting on the ground AH notwaterproofohno), so it was nice to get warmed up. Ashley and I left the tour after the bagel stop because the final stops were the castle and the Charles Bridge, which were both only a 2-5 minute walk from our hostel. We headed back to our place to shower and get ready for a night out on the town!

astrological clock

Our tour guide told us about a bar crawl throughout Prague that seemed legit (and cheap), so we signed up. The plan was to meet at 8:15 under the bell tower in the Old Town Square. It was still really chilly out, so we headed over dressed warmly from head to toe! We met up with the group and walked to the first bar - where we had unlimited drinks for the first couple hours before starting the actual crawl. It was so neat! The bar was inside of an old church, with tapestry hanging on the walls, a HUGE statue of a random face, hookah, foozeball and ping pong tables, and a hopping dance floor in the middle. Ashley and I were the first ones there (hey - we had to get our moneys-worth!), so we sat down and had a few drinks. People started to wander in and sit around us, until eventually there was about 20 of us sitting in a big circle in this old church-turned-bar. We met people from Brazil, Kuwait, Germany, Switzerland, London, and sooo many other places! It was so neat interacting with all these different people. Everyone was so nice.

me and ashley with the rando head..

After a couple hours at the first bar, we headed out for the crawl. The second place we went was so fun - a big dance floor with good music! We met some more people there (one in particular, a certain "Antonio" who we got a picture with haha - new bff!) and chatted it up with everyone. We learned some interesting facts about Prague that night, perhaps I'll save those for another day... :) After the second or third bar Ashley and I decided that we had enough - this city is crazy! We stumbled walked home, and made it safely back, not before grabbing a pint of Ben&Jerry's to split before bed. Prague is beautiful at night by the way! It was so cool crossing the Charles Bridge and seeing everything all lit up. I LOVE IT HERE.

Lennon Wall

We woke up early, reading for an exciting day of site-seeing around this beautiful city. I haven't even explained it yet to you ah! Simply put: Prague = Fairytale. Prague = Disney movie. Prague = incredible. I never want to leave. "It's a Small World After All" was stuck in my head all day because I literally felt like I was inside the ride - everything's so colorful and decorated and beautiful! AH! One of my favorite cities ever for sure. Definitely a must-visit destination...put it at the top of your list. ReadyGO.

Ashley and I decided to grab Bohemia Bagels for breakfast because it was soooo good the day before. It's so weird to not really drink coffee here - I've traded coffee in for hot wine! Fine by me. Anyway, we got breakfast then headed out. It was such a beautiful day, not as cold as we'd expected. Everyone told us we came the perfect weekend. All the snow had melted by the time we headed out on Saturday, and it was probably 45 or 50 degrees (we were expecting 20s!).

dancing building

First destination: The John Lennon Wall. It reminded me of Juliet's wall in Verona - everyone just wrote quotes about love, Beatles quotes, etc. all over it. Check out the pics! After that we made our way to the Fred and Ginger "Dancing Building", which was really cool looking. The architecture here is so neat! Since the country has changed powers/rulers/names/whatevs 8 times (at least) in the past century, there's so many influences and styles. I love it.

Ash and I heard of a "Beer Garden," so we decided to scope it out. Apparently "beer garden" doesn't mean what it sounds like. We walked FOREVER to try and find it and when we did it was just a park haha. It was a gorgeous view though! We were worn out, so we took a bus back to Mala Strana (where our hostel was - near Old Town) and looked for a place to get a pick-me-up. We walked up this big hill towards the famous Prague Castle and wandered into the CUTEST little coffee shop. It was so homey and cutely decorated. I got a hot wine (duh) and tried the goulash soup. Not my fav. Definitely not as good as Camp Mont Shenandoah goulash! :) So I opted for some banana bread/chocolate instead. Ashley got hot wine and a hot dog. Yum.

Made our way even further up the never ending hill and eventually made it to the Prague Castle! It was sooo big and pretty and colorful OH MY! I was glad that I brought my new manual camera thingy that my professor gave me, I think I got some great pictures with it. I'm so excited to develop my pictures from this trip on Monday in class! This part of Prague was just a 10 minute walk (or less) and it seemed like a whole new place. It's crazy how different the sections of Prague are! (Old Town and Mala Strana are my favorite). We walked inside the castle and the stained glass was absolutely incredible. It was soo many colors. It was weird because it was colder inside the castle than outside - I don't really get it. Oh well.

Charles Bridge

We were feeling pretty good, although our feet were tired from all the walking, but we still had a few destinations we wanted to check out before calling it a day. By this time we'd been walking around the city for about 6 hours or so. Luckily the last 3 things we wanted to find were all really close to eachother, so that made it easy.

We stopped by the "crawling babies" statues then the "peeing men" statues (which was actually pretty funny - they spell out famous Prague quotes in the water beneath them. Interesting...), and ended up on the Charles bridge right around sunset. It was so beautiful. It's neat because the statues and art here are so different than in Rome. They use bronze instead of marble, so it has a more Gothic feel than Classical or Renaissance. I loved it! Even the little putti (the chubby angel babies) looked different. Putti are my favorite :)

interesting statues in prague..

We went back to the hostel after hours and hours of wandering Prague and were ready for a rest. It was funny - a few girls staying in our dorm at the hostel go to our same school in Rome! They were here with a big group of people, so we got home and there were tons of people in the room. They headed out soon enough and Ashley and I got some rest.

We woke up around 7:30 and walked to Old Town Square for dinner. We found a classic Czech cuisine restaurant and settled in for a great dinner! It was so good. I know I say that a lot, but everything is so new and exciting and wonderfully great! I ordered the chef specialty - duck with cabbage in some special sauce or something. I figured I'd try a classic Czech dish. It was great! Ashley went with a chicken steak with mango sauce and pears. Yumyumyummm. We split a cheese cake with fresh berries than were on our way. It's SO cheap in Prague. We had a big full course dinner with specialties of the house for 15 euro. That's legit.

We were tired from our long day (and night before), so we spent the night wandering through Prague and trying out some Prague-specialty cookies. They have the craziest statues here (I mean, hence the crawling babies and peeing men). At one point we were walking down this smaller alley-ish street (it's safe here, don't worry), and it was dark out, probably around 10 or 11. I glanced up and saw a man HANGING from a pole. I freaked out. I screamed and made Ashley look up - what do we do???!!! Ashley laughed and said "Oh yeah I've seen that" and kept casually walking down the street. I was completely freaking out until Ashley finally explained that she'd read about that STATUE online. WHYYY would you make a statue like that?? I need to look up the history behind that. There has to be a reason it's there - other than to freak out tourists.

view from the airplane of the alps!

Today we headed home to Rome. It was a longgg day. Tram, Metro, Bus to the airport, then 2 hour plane ride, then express train to Termini in Rome, then metro to our stop. Sighhh. It was so nice to be back! I got in a good solid looooong yoga session that was much needed. My body was craving some strengthening and stretching - next trip I need to pack less clothes so I have room to bring my mat! Somehow it was one of my more flexible days which was surprising since it'd been a couple days. I guess I was craving yoga so bad my body would do anything to make it happen haha. Who knows!

Anyway...I'm obviously exhausted hence the rambling and rambling BUT it was the perfect weekend in Prague. I am SO happy that I went! What a wonderful experience:) Now another week of classes and adventures! Here I come, world.

Ciao! Much love! :)