Prague

Outside Prague Castle

We decided on Prague as a whim when searching for a place that we could meet my Trey’s aunt on her way to Turkey. It was a short 4 day trip that turned into 5 day because the airline canceled our flight. For some reason neither of us could get super motivated to plan or pack but we got it done. It was our first time flying out of Saudi Arabia and I was worried about the horror stories. We were pleasantly surprised when we got to the airport and because our cute blond haired little girl we got moved to a new line and rushed through. Pays to have loud cute kids sometimes! After a lovely 6am wine indulgence in Istanbul we were on our way to Prague. 

We got to Prague and meet Bertha in the airport, it was so nice to see her after such a long time. We took the airport shuttle to the main train station and it all kinda went downhill from there...about two hours and three forms of public transport later we finally arrived at our apartment ready to pull each other’s hair out. After a near breakdown and call to the owner we finally got inside. Trey crashed immediately while Bertha and us headed out to survey the neighborhood and find dinner. We stayed in a residential area of Prague call the New Vineyards, it was easy access to Metro and walking into the old town area. We found a cute little grocery store and a butcher both speaking no english and made a nice meal of sausage at home. We stayed up until 7pm which was quite the accomplishment seeing that we don’t sleep on airplanes and had been up for almost a day and a half. 

Bright and early the following morning we started our city tour. We left our house and walked to the old town where we saw he National Gallery, Wenceslas square (which is really more like a median on a boulevard), the Franciscan’s monastery and the Church of Our Lady of the Snow (i’m such a sucker for an old church). Also found out interesting Prague facts like over 70% of the country is non-religious making it the least religious country in all of Europe. Next we saw some of the palaces (which are really underground shopping stores and restaurants) along with a funny spoof statue of a saint on a dead horse, I could get used to this town’s humor. We wandered into the Jewish quarter and saw the oldest synagogue in Europe (13th century) and the Cemetery where people are buried 12 layers deep! We made our way up Pařížská Street into Old Town Square and finishing our morning tour at the Astronomical Clock. After parting ways with our wonderful guide we went to a Mexican restaurant that was recommended to us by friends, Las Adelitas. It was wonderful, cheap and the frozen margaritas can’t be beat! After lunch we headed shopping for our souvenirs, we got our ornament from a  shop that only sells items made in the Czech republic. We walked back to the house and stopped at the oldest permanent outdoor market in Prague to grab some snacks and goodies. We finished our day with a mini-date between Trey and I while out finding dinner and I got to try some Czech wine, we have to sneak alone time when we can!

In front of National Gallery

David Cerny's statue of St. Wenceslas riding an inverted horse 

Artwork in Library made of over 8000 books

Old Town Square

Parizska Street

Family pic in Old Town Square

Astronomical Clock

View from our apartment window

The church in front of our apartment

The next morning was day two of our private tour of Prague, we had a different guide today so we made a plan and got moving. We started with the Charles bridge and Old Town Bridge Tower along our walk we heard all the stories of the statues and city history. We walked our way through lesser town and up the hill to Prague castle grounds. After a delicious local lunch in the castle gardens with a view of the Royal Summer Palace we headed to St Vitus Cathedral. Some religious building has stood on this spot since 930 although the current cathedral wasn’t finished until 1929 (love old religious facts!). During our tour of the cathedral we learned interesting facts like that they moved the wall to the side to add to the church and only St. Vitus left arm is actually buried in the church. We wandered down into the gardens and relaxed awhile before making our way down the Old Castle Steps into Lesser Town. We rushed over to Old Town Square in time to hear the Astronomical clock chime on the hour, a Prague rite of passage. We meandered around Old Town Square enjoying the street vendors before headed to the black light theatre for our show. I’ve decided to try and start adding a little culture to our trips to let Maddy experience all these countries in a new way. Normally our evenings tend to be a little boring because we are so exhausted but we decided to do a show here in Prague. I wanted to take her to the ballet but of course the season closed right before we got there so we decided on black light theatre. We had a fun time at IMAGE with their Best of Image show. Maddy’s favorite part was the mime sketches that filled the time between set changes, she talked about it for days and was laughing every time she remembered it. I say success on our first infusion of theatre culture. We headed to a late dinner at Chestr, a steakhouse that only uses local ingredients including Czech beef. 

Old Town Tower over Charles bridge

view of Prague castle

Charles bridge

Charles bridge

Lesser Town Bridge Tower 

Kampa Island - "little Venice of Prague" 

30 statues on bridge ranging in age from 1683 - 1714

St. Nicholas church in Lesser Town

View from gardens of Prague castle 

Royal Summer Palace

side view of St. Vitus cathedral from gardens

entrance to Prague Castle, flag shows President is in residence 

St. Vitus Cathedral

silver tomb of St John of Nepomuk - 2 tons of Silver total

view of Lesser Town from Prague castle

view of castle while walking doing castle steps

Royal Summer Palace gardens

Maddy has decided she wants to be a "master builder" when she grows up so she decided to try her skills fixing the cobblestones outside the castle. She told me "hold on mom I have to build something"

watching the clock chime on the hour

On our final family day together we decided to head to Terezin Concentration Camp about an hour bus ride outside Prague. At first I was torn to take Maddy or not worrying it would be too complicated to explain or scary for her. In the end I decided that it was important for her to see all parts of history, before we went I talked to her about how some people are mean to others because they are different. I explained that the people that had to live here were put here because they believed something different in their heart. We talked about how it’s wrong to bully people because being different makes you special. It seemed to make sense to her and as we walked around the town we kept  talking about us all being different and special. Overall I think it was a positive that she got exposed to it. We toured the Small Fortress, the Jewish museum - in addition to the history they have multiple paintings and poems from the children of the camp and the Magdeburg Barracks - barracks set up as living quarters and areas dedicated to different artists and propaganda campaign along with recording of the opera the camp put on. We took a super cramped bus back to Prague and decided to head back to the apartment to relax. Trey headed out to Hooters to watch the World Cup finals and made some Prague friends while Bertha and I stayed in and had some wine and chatted. It was a wonderful end to the short visit together. 

entrance into Terezin 

traditional Czech lunch at a little cafe in Terezin

The next morning Bertha headed off to the airport while we moved to our new hotel for the night. This is our bonus day because our flight got cancelled so we decided to do something for Maddy. Once we got settled in our new hotel we headed to the Zoo. Prague has a huge zoo that is super hilly, not really what we are used to and not for the faint at heart to attempt on the final day of vacation! We spent a couple hours wondering the animals and enjoyed a mild weather family day. Most of the exhibits are open spaces which is different from the US. Maddy’s favorite part was the giraffes (her bestest animal ever!) and riding the horse. After the zoo and a quick dinner we headed back to hotel for much needed R&R. Our final morning in Prague we grabbed some pastries from the store and then took a cab to the airport. Prague was fun and the perfect short vacation from the Saudi heat!

Maddy with her Hazelnut wafer