Czechperts - Prague

We have spent the past two days exploring the beautiful city of Prague! Everywhere you look in Prague there are gorgeous old buildings and yet another spectacular church. The city is full of history and amazing views.

We flew from London to Prague on Tuesday night. Getting from the airport to our hostel was an adventure with the language barrier and public transportation. We are staying at the Mosaic House Hostel in New Town Prague. It is a new sustainable hostel established in 2010, it is modern, clean and the staff is very helpful. We are staying in a 6 person dorm... For the first two nights we had 2 Australian girls and 2 American girls, both of whom were so nice. Now we have 2 boys from Brazil and 2 from Chile. It is so fun to meet other travelers and hear about their adventures.

We walked for 9 hours yesterday and managed to see just about every historic building, statue, bridge, church, square, etc. We partook in a free but amazing walking tour with a guide named Kathryn. Kathryn was an awesome tour guide.... Captivating, informative, a wealth of knowledge, funny and an English speaker! We learned a lot of history (my dad would have soaked it all up)... The city of Prague has been invaded and taken over by outside forces for most of it's history. Kathryn's grandmother who lived in Prague her whole life (from 1911 to 2002), lived in 8 different counties because of how many times the city was taken over. The history is very complex and extremely long, so I will spare you. We saw way too many places to list but the highlights were: Old Town Square, Jewish Quarter, St. Virus's Cathedral, Old-New Synagogue, the Loreto Church, Prague Palace and Charles Bridge.


Today we continued our walking trend but explored on our own. We wandered the streets, shopped, and went back to the places we missed yesterday. We started by exploring the Botanic Gardens, amazing architecture is more of the Czechs forte rather than gardening. We went to the Patagonia store here for a little taste of home. We splurged on lunch and had a completely authentic Czech meal: beef dipped in cream, beef goulash, and some unidentifiable food that tasted a little like stuffing in block form. We walked across Charles Bridge in the pouring rain and got soaked. St. Nicolas church was our protection from the rain until the storm past.... It was beautiful! We have enjoyed a more relaxing evening.

We have still managed to spend very little money... Food in Czech is very cheap which makes it much easier to stay in budget. We ate breakfast for $2 total this morning. Jorie is obsessed with looking for meal deals...

Interesting things about Prague:
- Czechs drink the most beer per capita than any where else in the world... And we have found that every waiter, no matter what time of day offers you beer multiple times. If you say no they look at you so funny. Also beer is significantly cheaper than water.

- There is a clock in Old Town Square that has every day of the year and a Czech name to go with that day. According to law, you are suppose to name your child the name on the day of their birth, however this is no longer enforced.

- The oldest synagogue in Europe is in Prague.

- Czech's invented the microwave.