Wednesday 29 September 2010

Prague Day 1

Charles Bridge, Kafka Museum & Prague Castle
We arrived in Prague on the Sunday evening, our flight getting in around 11pm, our taxi driver Ihab from bohemiantaxis was fantastic, recommending the best times for visiting the Charles Bridge (after 10pm or before 10am) to avoid the tourists, as well as a few bars & restaurants to try. Arriving at Miss Sophie's around 30 minutes later we checked into our ultra modern room - but not before the guy on reception gave us a map of Prague and highlighted the places nearby we could get food/room supplies. Miss Sophie's could be filed under the heading 'Boutique Hostel' with its ultra modern & minimalistic design. Whilst there are several dormitory rooms, there are also apartment style rooms (self contained with kitchenette) and en suite rooms - which is what we chose.
Miss Sophies Room 13
Our room included a fabulous wet room style shower with an enormous powerful shower head, as well as a fridge - handy for keeping the beer cool. We had full use of the kitchen facilities in the basement along with a lounge area complete with record player (and records!) and DVD's.
Monday morning we took a leisurely stroll towards the Vltava River, which was about 10 minutes away from the hotel. We wandered up towards the Charles Bridge and crossed over it and on to the Kafka museum which was one of the best museums I've visited, as well as objects of Kafka's and his life story, there were also rooms that were built upon his worst nightmares. Outside is another oddity in the form of a moving statue/sculpture of 2 men urinating. Not far away was the Lennon wall, a John Lennon inspired graffiti wall as well as a bridge with hundreds of love padlocks attached – a fast growing declaration of love across many cities.
With the day still young we then opted to climb a very tall tower at the end of the Charles bridge - with amazing views over the city, from here we tacked the steep hill up towards Prague Castle. At the Castle there are some guards with cute pastel blue suits, although they must have been sweating their socks off in the heat! There was also Prague Picture Gallery within the Castle, that thankfully has free entry 4-6pm on Mondays, as it was pretty disappointing and personally didn't think it was worth the £5 entry fee!
Vltava River Weir
Vltava River

Pissing Men
Sculpture outside the Kafka Museum

Lennon Wall
John Lennon Wall

Love Padlocks
Love Padlocks

View over the Charles Bridge
View from the tower at Charles Bridge

Little Boy Blue
Guard at Prague Castle


After all this we walked back to our hotel exhausted, we thought we'd check out one of the local micro breweries recommended as somewhere good to eat also. Pivovarský dům was literally 2 minutes away from the hotel and served lots of different beers including coffee and cherry varieties. We had a lovely meal with some great beer, highly recommended, after this we went back to our room for a well earned sleep!