I first knew about Prague in Sec Sch when choir had this trip to Prague and Vienna during the December holidays. The trip was supposed to happen once every two years, so I decided not to join in Sec 1, but wait till Sec 3 instead. Unfortunately, the trip was cancelled in Sec 3!!! :( I guess... at least I saved some money haha.
Prague is home to many many historically significant architectures that survived the World Wars and other acts of violence in the 20th century. The main population that made up Prague in the past were the Jews, Germans, and Czechs. After the World Wars, the Jews were exterminated and Germans moved back to Germany or to the borders of Czech and Austria. Much of the grandeur of the city we see now was bestowed upon by the works of King Charles IV. He was quite a visionary leader I believe. As you know, I'm not a history expert, so if you want to find out more, head to Prague to find out for yourself! Or maybe Wikipedia will do the trick if you're broke ;)
Prague has really low costs of living, compared to other places I have been to. You could get a really big meal for about 6-8 euros. Some shops also have really cheap clothing and shoes. I saw a pair of boots that was selling for only 99Kč (less than 4€)! Definitely take some time to do shopping there.
Prague has plenty of money changers and they have good rates. Some of them do not charge any commission. So definitely change money in Prague instead of in Germany! However, do not change money with random people on the streets who may offer you 1€ = 30Kč since you have no guarantee that the money you get will be real... It doesn't make sense that anyone is willing to give you 30Kč if the actual exchange rate in the market is not even 27.5Kč.
Most people in Prague cannot speak English at all, and Czech is impossible to understand because it is so damn different from English, unlike German or French, so be prepared to get lost if you're not good with directions :P
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31st October 2014
We stayed in Plus Hostel, which has a swimming pool and sauna. I didn't have the time to use them though! The hostel is pretty decent, and has comfortable bed. There is buffet breakfast, included in my trip, which was pretty good! Toasts, sausages, hams, baked beans (my favourite!), scrambled eggs, cereal, yoghurt, coffee, milk, juice, water, etc. So the first thing we did after getting off the bus was to fill up our stomachs :D I didn't have much food though, because I was feeling sick again.
We headed into the city for the 2-hour city tour immediately after breakfast because we could only check-in at 2pm. We had a Czech lady as our tour guide. She was good, but her accent was really strong, so it was a bit difficult to catch what she was saying sometimes. Anyway, I heard that there are a lot of free walking tours in Prague, so be sure to join one if you are there!
Our first stop was the Prague Castle, of course.
The views from the castle was great, but it was a cloudy day and extremely foggy.
After about an hour at the castle, we headed to the Charles Bridge, which connects the Prague Castle and the Old Town. I personally did not find the bridge very charming, but the walk from the castle to the bridge was really great.
I had a 300ml Bernard 11° for 32Kč (1.15€), and a Schnitzel (special lunch menu for that day) for 99Kč (3.57€). Really cheap right?!! She had a Pork Tenderloin marinated in garlic and rosemary, potato dumplings filled with ham, stewed cabbage with apple. It costs 199Kč. The potato dumpling was more like 馒头 with ham inside haha! Quite special.
We got a bit lost after lunch, and tried to ask around for directions but none of the locals spoke English. Finally found the tram 24 after walking 2 rounds and took back to our hostel for check-in. When we arrived, there was a crazy queue that extended outside the building... Apparently, we had to find all our roommates first (we filled in our names on a Googledoc for rooming arrangements prior to the trip) before we could check in. How crazy was that? We didn't even know the people we were supposed to room with and there were like 200+ people there... Anyway, it turned out that someone messed with the document and we had to find new rommies. Very fortunately, I met the 3 Taiwan girls who were supposed to be in my room (I chose that room because everyone was female :P). We decided to form a group of 6 and checked in at about 3.30pm. Finally!!
I was so tired from the bus journey, although I somewhat fell asleep. Felt so good to finally sit down on the bed. I sat there and played my phone for at least half an hour without moving haha. Later, the Taiwan girls decided to go explore the city a bit and take a look at the flea markets they saw earlier when they took the tram back to hostel. Since the Maltese girl was going to the pubcrawl in the evening, I joined the Taiwan girls and we headed back to the Old Town!
The market was quite small, but there were a LOT of local snacks that I wanted to try, but I was still very full from lunch.
We shared 2 of those dumpling-shaped stuff that cost 50Kč each. One cheese, one chocolate. They were nice, but the cheese filling was pretty salty.
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| Prague Castle :) |
We only arrived at our hostel at almost 11pm. Such a long night! I was only prepared to walk for about 2 hours. Didn't expect myself to be able to handle such a long walk :P It was a really fun day for me nonetheless. The four of us played the Never have I Ever game during dinner, just that we turned it around and said "I have..." (is there a name for this version?). For the sake of winning, we dug out so many 陈年往事, which made me realise that I was quite a weird kid last time HAHA.
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1st November 2014
After an early breakfast, we headed to Kutná Hora, which was 2 hours from Prague by train. We wanted to see the Bone Church (Sedlec Ossuary), which is literally decorated with real bones from an estimated of 40,000 - 70,000 human beings...
We planned to reach at about 12pm, but unfortunately, we encountered train delays that pushed back our schedule by 1.5hrs! Apparently, the train system in Prague is less reliable than bus. :/
Well, I've got to say, it's the most unusual church ever! The church was really small though, so be prepared to finish looking at it in 10 minutes haha.
Initially, we wanted to get back to Prague at about 4pm to do some shopping, but having wasted so much time on travel, we stayed a little longer in Kutná Hora. We visited the Katedrala P. Marie, which was very close to the bone church, then took a bus to the city centre to see the St. Barbara Cathedral. It was really beautiful, and the weather was wonderful as well!!
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| Katedrala P. Marie |
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| St. Barbara Cathedral |
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| For dry/sensitive skin; normal/oily skin; acne and problematic skin |
I was feeling so exhausted yet satisfied when we got home :) Everything was great, except the train delays... T.T
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2 November 2014
I wanted to see the town a little bit (and find a toilet), so I walked pretty fast into the main town area, and found a perfect area for picnic. Beautiful day.
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