Prague - A White Winter Wonderland

We arrived in Prague around 3.30 in the afternoon, so it was almost starting to get dark by the time we got off the train. After haggling down the price of the cab by 250 crown, we took our taxi to the hotel and checked in.  We stayed on the outskirts of the Old City in a quaint little Best Western hotel called Hotel Kampa which is where we stayed last time we were in Prague.

After checking in we walked across Charles Bridge into the Old City and the city square, which is where Prague’s main Christmas market is located. We stopped in at the Mirror Chapel and enjoyed a wonderful classical concert. I never realised that a pipe organ could have such a subtle sound, there were a couple of moments I might have shed a few tears.

After the concert it was time for some wine, or in this case some very yummy honey mead, so off to the market we went.  I have to say, the square was packed! I don't remember there being so many people in Prague last time, and we were there at the same time of the year.  This time it was full of young drunk teens and early twenties, obviously it’s the student destination of choice.

Side note… It’s taking forever to write this blog entry as the views into and out of Salzburg is just breath taking!  Back to Prague…

The winds were strong at night and the Old City Square has a massive Christmas tree in the center that is lit up with lights, but was in serious danger of blowing over!  In fact the very next night they had the whole tree area roped off so that you wouldn’t be crushed by a falling branch!

We walked back across the bridge and found a small restaurant Pod Vezi, where we had an incredibly delicious meal of lamb shank and pork knuckle. For a restaurant so close to the tourist area it was so good to find such a lovely place to eat. Thank you Trip Advisor. 

From there it was back to the hotel and an early night’s sleep.

We woke in the morning and had breakfast in the large dining hall lined with suits of armor.  We then walked to the funicular rail car to carry us up to the top of Petrie hill and the Petrin Tower where there is an observation deck to get a stunning 360 degree view of Prague.

We then walked down an unpaved woodlands track to the back street of Prague to reach Prague Castle.  Let me explain the deadly path for what it was… We could have died any number of ways, tripping on the invisible ice or frozen mud, eaten by wolves or stabbed by muggers, luckily none of these things happened, though there were a few almost moments when we could have broken bones on the ice mud.

And then it began to snow….

Snow, I’ve never seen snow in my life and this was just wonderfully magical.  I know it seems like a little thing, but I was like a giddy kid in a candy store who’s just been told he can have unlimited candy. It was a light delicate snow and I was in heaven, I got my white Christmas in Europe!

We finally wound our way through the back streets to Prague Castle in time to see the changing of the sexy guardsmen out front of the Castle. We spent of the day inside the various areas of the Castle, and left just as the military were conducting some sort of presentation, in which there were many more sexy guardsmen about. Happy times.

So we wandered our way back down the hill to the Old City, in the cold snow to a little café called Per Lei, which is a previous jewelry store, where we sat in the front window eating a yummy goulash soup in a bread bowl as the passes by looked on.  After warming up again it was time to head back to the Christmas market for some night shots. By this time the snow was starting to become more like rain and the wind was blowing a true gale, so it wasn't long before we headed back to the hotel for the night.

In the morning it’s off to Vienna…

"Let the mind be enlarged to the grandeur of the mysteries, and not the mysteries contracted to the narrowness of the mind." - Francis Bacon