Old Town Square (Staromĕstské Námĕstí)

Old Town Square, or Staromĕstské Námĕstí in Czech, is perhaps one of the prettiest squares in all of Europe, in a totally non-biased opinion. It feels as though it’s been plucked out of a storybook and placed in the middle of Prague.

Old Town Square connects Wenceslas Square and the Charles Bridge so it gets very crowded. But thankfully, it’s a huge square so the crowds never really detract from the beauty. It started in the 10^th century as a main marketplace but has since evolved to house many political and social events as well as historical buildings.

This square is very unique in Europe in that it’s home to three distinct styles of architecture that somehow all work together: Baroque, Rococo and Gothic. Here’s a quick spin around that shows them all…for about .25 seconds.

We start on the north side with St. Nicholas Church, a gigantic Baroque church from the 18^th century.

The entrance opening into the square is quite elaborate, however, this is technically the side entrance. The main entrance faces west, but that also faces the Jewish Quarter. In anti-Semitic Europe of yesteryear, apparently you didn’t want to “waste” the beautiful entrance on the Jewish side. Absurd to think that was their mentality!

And speaking of ridiculous anti-Semitism, apparently Hitler loved Prague and it remained largely unharmed in terms of architectural damage during WWII. The Jewish Quarter is also relatively in tact, with many old synagogues still standing, which is fairly unusual. Hitler wanted to use the Jewish Quarter in Prague as a “living museum of how an extinct race used to live”. Again, just absurd.

Franz Kafka is one of Prague’s most famous children. He was actually born in the building attached to St. Nicholas Church.

Moving east, Pařížská Ulice jets off. This is better known as the most expensive street in Prague, home to affordable stores such as Prada, Bulgari and Dolce & Gabbana. It’s the tree lined street on the left in the picture below. How could you possibly shop Prada without a bit of shade to protect you as you walk into the store?

Continuing around the square, we have the Jan Hus Monument, a religious icon from the 14^th century who has come to symbolize Czech independence.

Next is the Rococo style National Gallery.

And finally, our trifecta of architectural styles, the Gothic Church of Our Lady Before Týn.

I could stare at this church all day, and in fact, have many a pictures trying to capture its beauty…

…which is basically impossible. Rumor has it that it’s one of the buildings that inspired Walt Disney while building Sleeping Beauty’s Castle.

Here’s a nice little flashback pic of Mikela and I in front of the Týn Church: at 20 in 2006 and now at 30 in 2016.

Right in the middle of Old Town Square is the Astronomical Clock, however, that warrants its own blog post, so more to come on that.

There are many cafés surrounding Old Town Square and while it’s slightly more expensive ($4 for a beer? Noooo!) it’s worth it for the atmosphere and people watching. Jillian and I enjoyed a beer right next to the Astronomical Clock…

…and Mikela and I went to Hotel U Prince’s rooftop bar to enjoy a drink with a view.

Old Town Square is equally impressive at night, although no pictures can do it justice.

Between this month and my study abroad, I’ve spent a significant amount of time in Old Town Square. And every time I walk into the square, I’m still blown away by its beauty, charm and almost magical feel.

Charles Bridge (Karlův Most)

Probably the most iconic place in Prague is the Charles Bridge. Built in the 14^th century, it’s still an impressive site. I can’t imagine what it must have been like coming from the countryside on your horse drawn carriage, seeing this massive, beautiful bridge leading up to the castle on the hill.

The Charles Bridge, or Karlův Most in Czech, spans the Vltava River and connects the Old Town with Malá Strana. Although it’s packed with tourists most of the time, it’s so beautiful and there’s so much to see, you almost don’t even notice. Aside from great people watching, there are street performers, artists selling their work and musicians.

Here’s a video of the band above as well as another musician.

There are 30 statues “protecting” the bridge.

According to lore, if you rub the plaque on the statue of Saint John of Nepomuk with your right hand, it will bring you good luck and you will return to Prague. Worked for me when I rubbed it 10 years ago!

The plaque is actually of a man being thrown off the Charles Bridge. Those ancient Czechs were brutal!

On the castle side, the bridge ends right at the base of the street leading up to the Prague Castle. When I studied abroad and my parents came to visit, we stayed at a wonderful boutique hotel just steps from Charles Bridge.

The best street performers were actually situated right here.

Jillian and I stood for a long time trying to figure it out. Our final hypothesis: the arms are fake and attached to a steel rod. The top “arm” is attached to a ledge upon which the man sits and the bottom “arm” is attached to another steel rod and platform that the bottom guy sits on, supporting the whole thing. Still, really impressive!

I crossed the bridge many times over the month and each time, I was in awe looking out over the sides…

 

…or up towards the bridge from either side of the river.

Co-working, Prague Style

I think our “office” in Prague is my favorite of the four. It’s a 15-minute walk from my apartment, although it’s straight up a nasty hill. We’re at Locus Workspace-Vinohrady, a fairly large shared space with several different levels. On average, there are about 25 people working at the office throughout the day, but there’s plenty of desk space and the way it’s laid out, it never feels too crowded.

We’re on the 4th floor and while waiting for the elevator, you can admire the Žižkov TV tower…

…or this beautiful sunset.

I had a few late nights of working this month but I never wanted to be the last one at the office…talk about creepy! One night, when Ciara got up to leave, I figured I’d leave with her and just finish up my night at my apartment. We turned off the lights and headed to wait for the elevator. A few moments later, a man came through the doors to turn the power back on; we didn’t realize someone was still there and the poor guy had to find his way downstairs and through the office in the complete dark to come turn the lights back on. Sorry sir!

Home Sweet Home (for September)

When I studied abroad, I lived in Prague 3, also known as the Žižkov neighborhood. It was a working class area and was definitely built up during the Communist area. This time around, I’m living in Prague 10, the Vršovice neighborhood, and it’s worlds better than Žižkov. The buildings are all 150+ years old, have tons of character and are brightly painted.

There are tons of people walking around, an awesome park right across the street…

…filled with kids riding scooters, and plenty of grocery stores, shops, restaurants and bars all within a few blocks.

Although I love my neighborhood, I’m the only one living in the area. Everyone else, along with our coworking space, is a little more than half a mile away. Which would be fine, except it’s straight up a gigantic hill! Although this is mosaic wall keeps me company for a block.

As Mikela said, it looks like “Aaahh, Real Monsters”, the 90s Nickelodeon show.

My apartment itself is fine. It’s definitely the worst of my four, but it’s livable.

Those closets are the best part!

My bathroom is TINY but the shower is bigger than every other apartment, and the water pressure is incredible. Please also note the rope flusher in the top left.

It feels a little like it’s been cobbled together, like maybe it wasn’t a separate apartment originally. There is also no place to sit other than the kitchen table or my bed. But the weirdest part is the complete lack of decoration. I have 15-foot ceilings and the bedroom and kitchen are both fairly large so with minimal furniture and nothing on the walls, it’s all lot of white space.

Oh, I also have a kitchen loft.

Yep, a random bed overlooking the kitchen. Looking at this beautiful white wall.

Since I’m living by myself this month and my apartment isn’t the most comfortable, I pretty much leave in the morning with all of my stuff and don’t return until it’s time for bed.

Although I have the worst apartment of our group, I lucked out with my landlord, Martin. He and his fiancé live on the floor above me and invited me to dinner one of my first nights in Prague. His family actually owns the building, having built it 150 years ago. After WWII, the Russians confiscated the building and returned it to his family 4o years later, although it was in disrepair. They fixed it up and now the building is a family affair: he and Mischa live on the 3^rd floor, his sister and her boyfriend live in the apartment next to them, they rent out the apartment on the 2^nd floor (mine) and Mischa’s sister lives on the 4^th floor.

Initial Thoughts of Prague…This Time Around

I have the most incredible memories of Prague from a decade ago. I knew going into this month, the Prague of 2016 was most likely going to be much different than the Prague of 2006, but I was hoping I’d still be equally in love with the city. I’m happy to report that, yes, while some things have changed, it is still completely magical and if possible, even more gorgeous.

From the first steps on Prague soil, I knew it was going to be a good month…it was cool!!! I mean, it was still 80 degrees, but considering the mercury wasn’t hovering near 100 (ahem, 40, since I’m in Europe) and there was no humidity, we might as well have walked into the arctic.

Our next impression of Prague was equally as rewarding. Driving from the airport to my neighborhood, Prague 10, required us to drive right through Old Town. And as soon as we pulled onto the cobblestoned streets and the bright colored buildings along the Vltava River were visible, everyone in our bus had their faces pressed against the windows trying to take it all in. Yep, definitely still magical.

After quickly dropping off my stuff at my apartment, I met Jillian for lunch. One thing that 2006 Prague severely lacked was good food. There were not a lot of options besides traditional Czech food and what options you did have, were hardly satisfactory. Luckily, 2016 Prague is much different!

Jillian and I enjoyed a very traditional meal for our first lunch in the city…a hamburger and french fries. We made up for this with a lovely mug of Pilsner Urquell, the original pilsner beer brewed in nearby Plzeň. Enjoyed outside on a patio, on a beautiful, quiet street in Prague – I was in heaven!

Besides the more extensive (and much more enjoyable) food options in Prague, here are a few other things I noticed that had changed over the last 10 years:

• English is spoken on a much wider scale. While it was fairly common in the city center when I studied abroad, as soon as you got out of the downtown area, you were almost completely reliant on sign language. Now, almost anyone under the age of 50 speaks great English, no matter where you are in the city.
• Public transportation is much newer and cleaner. There are still a few nostalgic trams…
  

…but most are sleek and updated, with air conditioning! (Our initial fallish day was a bit of a tease. We had two more weeks of very hot weather before it finally cooled down and we enjoyed two weeks of truly cool weather)

• The city center is waaaaayyyyy more crowded. Be prepared to fight your way from Old Town Square over to Charles Bridge at any time of the day. Luckily, as soon as you get a block or two off the main streets, you ditch the crowds.
• Pretty much all of the stores in the city center are now just tourist shops. This part is actually a little sad as I remember finding a ton of cute, local stores around the river and Old Town. But now, they all sell the same cheap tourist crap.
• What Prague now lacks in independent stores, they make up for in independent coffee shops and bakeries. I’m a-ok with this trade.

I was worried my wonderful memories of Prague were going to leave me feeling disappointed upon my return. Thankfully, despite some expected changes, it’s still one of the most beautiful and storybook-esque European cities I’ve ever visited.

Adios Barcelona, Dobrý Den Prague

For the first time this trip, I wasn’t devastated when my month came to an end. Because to be honest, I didn’t love Barcelona, so the month spent here didn’t fly by like my months in Split and Turin.

Whenever you mention Barcelona, everyone’s reaction is “Oh, I just love Barcelona!” When I didn’t immediately fall for it, I kept thinking that I must be missing something. So for the first week or so, I tried keeping an open mind, withholding judgment on the city until I figured out what exactly everyone loves about Barcelona.

While I did find plenty to do here (paddle boarding, Gaudí exhibits, reading on the beach, EatWith, a delicious food tour) my final consensus? Barcelona is ok. I actually think visiting the city for a long weekend would be ideal; a month was just too long. There is plenty to see and do but after three full days, I think I’d be ready to move on.

I’m still scratching my head as to why everyone loves Barcelona, but here’s the main reason I wasn’t a fan: It feels like you’re in NYC or LA. I’m in Europe, I want to feel like I’m in Europe. And walking down the street in Barcelona, you can grab coffee at Starbucks, you can get a green smoothie or an acai bowl or fresh squeezed vegetable juice. Nothing has a ton of character and it all feels relatively new. I might as well be walking down Park Avenue in NYC or heading to the beach in LA. Jillian actually wrote a blog post about this same topic. And speaking of her blog, she wrote an awesome post on some of the harder aspects of traveling with a group for a long period of time – you should check it out.

And the crowds. Oh my gosh! There are one million inhabitants in Barcelona…and 50 million visitors a year. So it’s no wonder everything feels so touristy and there are swarms of people everywhere you go.

My favorite part about traveling and exploring a city is simply walking around and taking in the views and local vibe of a neighborhood. Barcelona didn’t really offer this. You were either fighting the crowds (see above) or the area just wasn’t that interesting.

While I’ve clearly hated on Barcelona a lot in this post, my month here wasn’t all bad. I mean, just look at this sunrise!

But more than anything, it taught me a really good lesson. You aren’t going to love every place you visit. But that doesn’t mean you have to sulk around, have a bad attitude and waste your time there. You simply have to dig a little deeper to find things that you’ll enjoy.

With all that being said, I’m off to Prague (kind of…I’m obviously a little delayed in all of these posts) and I couldn’t be more excited! I studied abroad here 10 years ago and it was an absolutely magical experience. Actually, I’ll be arriving almost 10 years to the day after arriving for my study abroad trip. So, adios Barcelona and dobrý den Prague!