The Best of Prague in 2 Days

This was our first big trip together – we would be exploring 4 countries in Eastern Europe over 14 days. You can read all about how we planned this trip in full detail here. I’ll also link the blogs to the other countries we covered in this trip towards the end. Our first stop was the beautiful city of Prague, the capital of Czech Republic (or Czechia as it is now known).

We took Air Dolomiti from Munich to Prague – a regional airline. It was our first time on an Embraer aircraft! It was a short flight and there was only enough time for them to give us a snack of lemon fills. As the plane neared Prague, we got a bird’s eye view of the city. We couldn’t wait to get started on our trip! 

In this trip, we had a checklist of all the things we wanted to do in each city. We kept the sequence flexible so that we can roam around a bit freely. There were two parts to the checklist – one of sights and the other more important one of food.

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Getting to the city from the airport

We took bus AE from Terminal 1 of the airport to Hlavni Nadrazi in the centre of the city. Nam clearly remembers how I kept saying “NO JAYWALKING!” – the roads were empty and it was easy to forget that we couldn’t just cross the road anywhere. We reached our Airbnb much before the check-in time so we took our bag and walked around Wenceslas Square which was very close to where we were staying. This is the biggest advantage of travelling light – we only had two backpacks and one bag between the two of us.

Trying some Trdelnik chimney cakes

We saw a lot of stalls scattered around the square selling Trdelnik – a traditional chimney cake (though there is debate on how “traditional” it really is). I find the “authenticity” and “traditional” debate quite pointless – as long as it tastes nice, just enjoy the experience (like Maggi in hill stations!). In this case, paired with Nutella, it tasted great!

We headed back to our room at 12 and met our host Dmitry who was a student. He had taken up this apartment in a prime area of town and was setting off his expenses and fees by giving it out on Airbnb. Smart! We checked into our room, settled in and left soon. 

Exploring the Old Town

We walked towards the Powder Tower. This used to be one of the old city gates. In later days, it came to be used as a storage for gunpowder which led to its current name.

We followed some narrow paths till we reached the Old Town Square – one of the iconic tourist spots in the city. On one side of the square is a church of “Our Lady before Tyn”, on the opposite side is an Astronomical clock. There are horse carriages running around the square, vendors creating giant bubbles and kids running behind them, cafes and restaurants spilling out on the footpaths and a lot of tourists. 

We ate some sausage from one of the stalls there (it was tasty but expensive). We continued walking along another narrow lane towards Charles bridge (we had offline maps downloaded and were using that for reference). We saw an interesting store called Captain Candy and entered – there was candy of all kinds here and we picked up some that looked like an octopus, human teeth, a cola bottle and berries. They were mostly jellies of different flavours.

Charles bridge seemed beautiful but we could hardly see it even though we were walking on it – it was jam packed with people. There were painters and vendors sitting on the sides which made it even more congested. We decided to keep walking towards the castle on the other side.

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The other side of the river

There are different routes you can opt for to explore the castle complex. We picked the route which included the castle, St. Vitus Cathedral, the Golden Lane and St. George’s Basilica. 

The Cathedral was beautiful – the windows had stained glass and we saw a huge pipe organ on one side. We got some good city views from the castle as it was on a hill.

The Golden Lane was interesting – there were many houses there which originally belonged to the workers and helpers of the castle. There were homes of a seamstress, a psychic, a guard, a goldsmith and even a herbal doctor. Towards the end, there were stairs leading down to a torture chamber – that’s where the non-compliant ended up!

We had lunch at Strahov Monastic Brewery – it was a 13th century brewery. We had local food – Goulash soup, Czech dumplings (which were nothing like regular dumplings) and two types of beer. We generally don’t have beer but you can’t not taste beer when you’re in Czechia!

After lunch, we walked down Petrin hill and reached the Lennon wall – as usual, there was a singer performing in front of the wall. Nothing spectacular – just a tick-mark on the checklist.

We had reached the Vlatava river again and spent some time in the park next to it. There was a small island in the river – we crossed over to it and watched boats go by. On the way back, we passed by the Dancing House – a funky looking building and Wenceslas square and finally reached our room.

Morning walk in empty Prague

We started the day really early at 6 am as we wanted to beat the crowd. We saw the same sights as we did the previous day minus tourists – Powder Tower, Old Town Square, narrow streets. The best part was Charles Bridge – except for a wedding photoshoot that was happening, it was empty! Absolute peace and quiet and we really enjoyed it for what it was. We stood on the bridge and watched the swan and ducks floating on the river.

The Jewish Quarter

The next stop was the Jewish quarter – Josefov. We were hungry with all the walking – we picked up some croissants and cream rolls with coffee at a bakery which had only just opened.

There were plenty of synagogues and a cemetery in this quarter. As we were walking along one of the inner streets, we got the warm and welcoming smell of freshly baked bread. We followed it and reached a shop called Pernikuv Sen – we picked up some gingerbread men and continued walking as we munched on them.

For breakfast, we ate an open faced sandwich (called chlebíčky here in Prague) with salami and cheese at a place called Sisters’ Cafe. We also had eggs benedict. It was a nice little cafe.

We walked back towards the Astronomical clock and saw it striking 10. It was really fascinating with the little parts moving in patterns. We were really looking forward to entering the Klementinum library – it looked like something out of a Harry Potter book. But sadly, it was closed for maintenance. 

Trying some Czech dumplings

We continued walking, visited the Lady before Tyn church, picked up some gelato, saw the clock striking 11 and then went for lunch at a restaurant called Lokál Dlouhááá. We had some meat and veggies which was washed down with the local beer.

We picked up some bread on the way back to our room. It was time to leave – we checked out and walked over to the main train station of Prague, Hlavni Nadrazi. That’s why we had picked this room – it was super close to the train station and only a 2 min walk away.

The train out to Austria

Our train to Linz in Austria was waiting – this would take us to our connecting train towards Salzburg. You can read all about it here.

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