Note: If the photos don’t show up, please reload the page. There seems to be an issue with Photobucket. If that doesn’t work, please view the photos on Flickr.
Remember how last month I went on a trip to Prague? No? Well, I guess I can’t blame you seeing how it’s been five weeks since I came back and I have still not blogged about the trip, with the exception of that unfortunate accident that cost me my camera. Let me refresh your memory. Be warned, this post will be long & picture-heavy, but they’re all of beautiful places, so bear with me.
In early September, I went to Prague for a few days with my mom. It was a sort of graduation-type present; my mom had expressed the wish to go on a trip somewhere with me this summer as a mother-daughter thing. Now, our relationship is not quite picture-perfect, and as expected, there were a couple of fights, but all in all, it went well. I am probably not the only daughter who has issues with on the one hand being the daughter but on the other hand being an adult, not a child.
But that’s not what I wanted to blog about. So, back to Prague. I loved it there. Honestly, everywhere you look in that city, you’ll find yourself staring at gorgeous architecture and clicking away on your camera like there’s no tomorrow. In fact, that is how I broke my camera. I was so distracted looking up at this gorgeous building that I didn’t look where I was stepping. The rest is history.
We were really lucky with the weather. It was rainy the day we got there, and still cloudy the next day, but every day after that was absolutely gorgeous with not a cloud in the sky. It was a new experience for me to travel to a place where I do not understand a word of the local language. With the exception of Turkey in 2005, all the places I have been to, they either spoke a language I speak very well, or one that I understand a little, despite not speaking it very well (such as French and Italian). But Czech is neither a Germanic nor a Romance language (all of which I can at least read a few words of due to knowing German, English, and Spanish) so I didn’t understand one word. Luckily, many people there speak English and/or German, so with the exception of a few situations we got by just fine with those two languages. And on the occasion that we didn’t, we just resorted to gestures to make ourselves understood.
I took so many pictures on this trip, and while they took forever to sort through, it is an indication for how much I loved Prague; I don’t think I’d ever taken so many pictures on a trip before.
We were also so lucky to be there at the time of the wine harvest festival, where we had some young wine and typical Czech snacks.
Our hotel was right downtown, in walking-distance from many of the sights there, and I cannot tell you how nice it was to be staying at a 4* hotel instead of a hostel for a change. Not to mention the breakfast buffet. I probably ate enough for two meals for breakfast and we actually did end up skipping either lunch or dinner a few times.
I loved this old library at Strahov Monastery. Unfortunately the other room of the library was under reconstruction, so you couldn’t see any of that room’s beauty. Isn’t it amazing? I have a penchant for all things books, so it was really breathtaking to see all these old books and the beautiful room they’re kept in.
Unfortunately, in a lot of the places that you had to pay to see, they either didn’t allow you to take pictures at all and quite frequently, they would charge you extra for a permission to take pictures. I was quite surprised at that. I had never come across this practice anywhere else and thought it was a little outrageous to charge extra for photos when you already paid for admission. I may or may not simply have sneaked in a few pictures here any there anyway. I had heard that Prague is not as cheap anymore as it used to be, but I was surprised at how expensive it was.
This is the picture I was trying to take when I missed a step, fell, and broke my camera. My mom took this one for me. Can you see why I wasn’t looking at the ground? (And I actually had a couple more near-encounters with the pavement in Prague after this accident.)
I loved this garden. There were peacocks walking around the entire garden among the tourists and the atmosphere was just really lovely. Such a peaceful place away from the hustle and bustle of Prague, and it’s right in the city. This was also where I decided that no, I cannot wait till I get home to buy a new camera.
One of the things that actually disappointed me a little about Prague was Charles Bridge. I know! It’s probably the most famous sight there. And don’t get me wrong, I did love seeing it from afar. But when you are on the bridge itself, it is so incredibly crowded with tourists that it’s hard to really enjoy being there.
On my last day in Prague, after visiting the garden, I went to see the synagogues and the Old Jewish Cemetary. As I spent roughly two hours on buying and charging my new camera, I spent the day by myself (my mom didn’t really approve of my buying a new camera, you see). Unfortunately, I had to make a choice between buying the camera and doing a boat tour but in the end I wasn’t too sad to have missed that. I do wish I would have had a little more time to look at the synagogues but it is what it is. The synagogues were all really beautiful, as was the cemetary. It was really interesting to see all these really old gravestones, and to think of how many people, how many generations are buried there.
On our last night in Prague, my mom and I went to see a black light theater performance of Aspects of Alice which was really a unique and amazing experience. If you ever get to Prague, I can absolutely recommend this. If you are curious, or just cannot imagine what black light theater might be, you can watch some excerpts from the show here (video is NSFW!).
Afterwards we went to the Charles Bridge again (the theater was right beside it) to take some photos of Prague by night. As you can imagine, the bridge was nearly as crowded at night as during the day. But I did get this lovely shot and a few more and that made it worth it. Aren’t shots of cities by night always a little magical? I love all the lights and how they reflect in the river Vltava.
If you want to see more of my pictures from Prague, you can find a bunch more here. It was so hard to select the photos to put on Flickr, and then narrow those down for this post. It is really a beautiful city to visit for anyone who is into European history and architecture.
I was so happy that I got to go on a short vacation this year after all, and on this trip I absolutely caught the travel bug again. I cannot wait for my next trip, wherever it may take me.
