You know how sometimes you just "click" with a city? It's just a feeling. I had the same reaction the first time I went to NYC, and I felt it again in Prague. This has always been a city that I've wanted to visit and have heard great things about. However, as I've been speaking to people while traveling it seems that it also has another thing in common with NYC - people either really love it or they don't. I, of course, am one of the former.
My first full day there I did two back to back walking tours - I continue to realize how out of shape I am when I was sore after just 7 hours of walking. That said, I think this was probably the best of the free walking tours I've done - it really hit home how recent some of the history was. For example, our tour guide told us that his grandfather had lived in 7 different countries in his life - without ever leaving Prague. Now, I vaguely remember the text books changing to show the Czech Republic instead of Czechoslovakia, but hearing the actual reason and story behind it was pretty interesting.
How much I enjoyed the city is fairly evident in the number of photos I have from there. I was there 3 nights and 2 full days and took nearly 350 pictures, none of my other stops (with the exception of the week in Croatia) have come anywhere close to that so far! Below are just a sampling so you can get a sense of the city:
On my second day, I explored on my own and actually found myself at an outdoor beer garden inside old castle walls with an incredible view of the city! Also, the best part about it was that I was the only non-local there! Love places like that, that said - my Czech skills are lacking a bit, so I once again had to point and act out what I wanted.
mmary of one of the most famous sights in Prague. My first evening there, I got in with just enough time to really walk through the main square and have dinner before the evening activities began. What I came across when I got to the old town was a huge group of tourists staring at the clock tower. I checked the time, 5:54pm - so not having heard of this before, I assumed there was something really cool about to happen at 6:00pm. So I waited. This is what happened at 6:00pm:
When I took the tour the following day, it all made much more sense, but the guide did mention that it was ranked in one of the top 5 most disappointing tourists sights in Europe. I think that's fairly impressive. So what they did in the last few years was add a trumpet player at the end to spice the show up a bit - it worked, he got very loud cheers from the crowd below.
Lastly, I am glad that I am traveling alone - because I came across the below in a park while I was walking around. I watched this thing for a good 30-45 minutes, what can I say, I'm easily amused:
