Our flight out of New Orleans was running late due to some bad weather in Newark, which made for some nerve-wracking moments. But we made it to Newark on time, and Paris, and finally Prague. It was a haul. We were able to check our luggage through to Prague, even though we were flying CSA. Since they are a partner with Continental, there was no problem with that and we were thankful for it. We did have to pass through both customs and passport control in Paris, but it was very fast. I hurt my back right before the trip and was concerned about the plane trips, but it held up pretty well.
This was our first time on Czech Airlines and we actually liked the food. Amazing! It was nothing extravagant, but a nice, light refreshing couscous salad with slices of ham, turkey, smoked gouda & a roll. Very nice and friendly service from the flight attendants, too.
The weather in Prague was pretty dreary, but our room was ready so we unpacked, showered, and got ready to start discovering a new city. We chose the Hotel Salvador, a three-star hotel in the Old Town and liked it a lot. The exterior was cute, the room was small, but clean, and the bathroom was larger than many we’ve had in Europe. It was about a 5-10 minute walk to the Old Town Square. The rate was 2000 Czech crowns (payable only in cash), a steal at about $80 a night.
The first thing we did was walk to the Old Town Square – in the rain. It’s an amazing site. Not quite like the Grand Place in Brussels, but similar in its enormity. The rain was getting harder and harder so we sat outside at a café, which was covered and had space heaters. I had a hot mulled wine with cinnamon and Tom had a coffee with brandy. It warmed us up well, so se walked around some more, looked at some souvenirs at the stalls near the Old Town Square and headed back to the hotel to rest before dinner.
We went to dinner early – about 6:00. Jet lag strategy. We went to U Tadease, which was a small, cute place on the same block as the hotel. Only a few tables were full and a sweet, little girl waited on us. Everyone speaks English here – everyone. And no one makes you feel bad for not speaking Czech. We said ‘thank you’ (although different people told us how to say it differently, so who knows what we were saying!), ‘good day’, etc, but for the most part, we spoke English everywhere throughout our stay.
My first night’s dinner started with “warm smoked meats,” as it said on the menu, which turned out to be two slices of ham, with horseradish and mustard. They like their pork here and by the end of the meal, I realized ham was going to be the food theme of the trip. Not a bad theme, I suppose…
Tom started with a good chicken consommé with noodles and veggies and then had a mixed grill of beef, pork and ham (ahem). I got a turkey steak topped with…you guessed it… ham. But also onions, olives, and red bell peppers. Come to think of it, there were lots of red bell peppers on this trip. I was curious about where they came from since they sure weren’t in season here! Anyway, both dishes had a nice light brown sauce and were pretty tasty. They came with so-so chips, but good red cabbage and coleslaw. Dinner cost less than $20, including a bottle of Frankovka, a nice red table wine, for both of us.
By this time, we were nearly crashing, but decided to have an after-dinner drink at the restaurant located in the hotel. We were told there was a nice bar in the hotel (how did we miss this? Oh yes, it was our first day!) and were taken to it by the hostess in the restaurant. The “Sport Lounge,” as it was called, consisted of tables and chairs and a big screen T.V. No bar in sight, but the minute we sat down, a server came and took our order. There were some little British boys watching a soccer game, drinking beer, and really get into the cheering. We had a couple Pilsners, smoked a couple cigars and crashed by about nine o’clock.
We decided not to set an alarm today and slept until 8:30, really late for us (especially on vacation), but I think we nipped jet lag in the bud. The breakfast room was actually last night’s “bar.” With a less foggy head, I got a chance to look at some of the interesting posters on the wall – American movie posters (in Czech) and other, colorful ones that I couldn’t even begin to understand. The Czech language is not an easy one to figure out.
Breakfast was a buffet with hot and cold items. Ham, of course, and cheese along with some fruit, cold cereal (great granola), wonderful yogurt (I love European yogurt), and eggs (called fried, but they were poached) and sausages, which looked like hot dogs and which neither of us would touch throughout the trip. They looked like “dirty water dogs,” which any self-respecting New Yorker knows about. 'Nuff said.
Since it was raining yet again, we thought it would be a good museum day. There are many museums in Prague, but we decided on the Trades Fair Palace, the major art museum. Since it was considered “on the outskirts” and was off the maps in our guidebook, it was a bit challenging to find it, but Tom did a great job getting us there. We took the metro as close as we could get and walked the rest of the way. The building was nondescript and actually looked like an office building. In fact, we walked right by it initially! But the works of art inside were very impressive.
We started on the 4th floor and worked our way down, beginning with older European paintings, then onto French paintings, and finally, modern art on the 2nd floor. We never made it to the 1st floor (temporary exhibits) and were there almost the entire day! Generally, we’re both good for about 3 hours in a museum before we totally burn out, but we decided to break up our visit, have lunch, and come back.
Lots of restaurants in this area were closed on Sunday but we found Restaurace Corso right across the street. This place was dark (and bright) & cozy, with lovely stained glass windows. We sat right below one and had alternating moments of brightness (the sun was actually out at this time) and dimness. Very pretty.
Tom had a delicious carp done “Jewish style” as the menu said, with bacon. Huh? ;-) Anyway, I had gnocchi in tomato sauce. The gnocchi were good, but I swear the sauce was Campbell’s Cream of Tomato soup. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I was hoping for something else. But still, with a little carafe of red, it was a very satisfying lunch and I was ready for more museuming.
Before we left the museum, we stopped in the gift shop and I picked up a book for my collection. We found a tram to take back to the hotel very easily. All forms of public transportation are very user-friendly, we found.
We made a pitstop at a supermarket called “Albert” right by our hotel. I love going to grocery stores in other countries. I just like looking at the packaging and seeing what kinds of different products they have. We bought some water for the room and a couple beers.
We were winging it for dinner tonight so we decided to ask at our hotel for a recommendation. Tom asked a gentleman who works there and told him we don’t want to go where the tourists go, we want to go where you go. The guy’s response: “I go out in the suburbs!” Well, since that wasn’t going to happen, he did recommend a place in the Municipal House, and told us how to get there and precisely where it was since there are several restaurants in this building. When we got there, we noticed it was dinner and a show, and all tourists, and we just weren’t in the mood. We heard some great jazz music coming out of a restaurant upstairs, so we decided to go and eat there. It was called Kavarna Obecni Dum. It was not the smartest thing to do since it was very touristy as well, but the room was gorgeous and the music was good, so it just about made up for the mediocre food, which frankly, isn’t worth mentioning.
After dinner, we decided to walk to the famous Charles Bridge. We walked a little out of the way, but ended up walking by the National Theatre, which is an imposing, yet beautiful building. Walking along the river, we saw the Charles Bridge and it’s easy to understand why it’s such an attraction. It really is breathtaking. It was a lovely night – not cold at all and not windy and there were quite a few people out. It was too dark to see all the statues that line the bridge, but we knew we’d be back during the daytime.
We walked to the other side of the bridge and stopped at a darling little café for some hot red wine. I don’t know the name of it, but the sign said “Garden Inside,” so we took to calling it the Garden Inside Café since we were to pass it many times after that. Back to the hotel at about 11:00.
Today we started off with a 90-minute walk that Tom found in our "Eyewitness Guide" that ends at Prague Castle. We began right by our hotel with the Powder Tower, named because it was used to store gunpowder in the 17th century. Then it was off through the Old Town Square, along bustling Karlova Street and across the Charles Bridge. We admired the statues in the daylight, including the famous crucifix called “St. Luitgard,” sculpted by a 26-year old in the early 18th century. After that we walked through the Little Quarter with its picturesque squares and streets along with St. Nicholas Church (one of many in Prague). We stopped and bought postcards and wrote them out at a small tea parlor. I had some rose blossom tea – can’t get enough of those hot drinks!
We continued the walk to Prague Castle, where we were lucky enough to just catch the changing of the guard. After that, we visited St. Vitus Cathedral, which was truly amazing. No pictures inside (even though lots of people were ignoring this rule) but the stained glass windows were very unique: many different styles, different colors, different themes.
We did, however, take pictures from Prague Castle. After that, we wandered around looking for a place to have lunch. We ended up at Restaurace 3+3+3, a nice, casual cozy place with tourists and locals. I had a very good grilled salmon with béarnaise sauce and sautéed vegetables – lots of veggies, very nice. Tom had roast duck with cabbage and bread dumplings, another good dish. I tried a Czech white, which was perfect with the salmon and Tom had a Pilsner. Total price was about 550 Crowns, or $22.
After lunch, we were on a hunt to find the Palffy Palace, a fine restaurant recommended to me by my friend Daniel in New York. While they have a website, you can only reserve for five or more people (at least that’s what I *think* the Czech pop-up window said!). I tried emailing them and calling them from home and we could not get through. Finally, we tried calling them from Prague – and still couldn’t get through! Well, we found it: upstairs in a massive, old building. We went upstairs and asked a guy holding a ladder (they were doing some work) if we could speak to someone who worked there. Turns out he did, so he took a mental reservation for us for 8:00 that night.
After that we did some shopping at Blue, a ubiquitous glass store in Prague. I bought a few gifts and while we were there, we encountered our very first Ugly American on the trip. Some woman was accusing a worker there of ripping her off. Might he have been? Maybe, but did she have to be so loud about it?!
We arrived at the Palffy Palace at 7:50 and they did indeed have our reservation. We were seated at a table by a heater – very nice, especially since the high that day was all of 5 Celsius. Our table was also next to a window, which looked up onto Prague Castle. The room was grand: high ceilings, beautiful paintings, sparkling table settings, and well-spaced tables to allow for privacy. The service was simply excellent, top notch, and what you should expect – and get – at a place like this.
We started with an amuse-bouche of roasted garlic which was served with a choice of several different breads. It also came with butter, but we didn’t even touch that – the garlic was delicious. I started off with a glass of Piper Heidsick champagne and Tom had a martini, which they did well (he’s quite picky about his martinis).
My appetizer was sautéed foie gras in a Sauternes sauce. It was out of this world, but as is typical with foie gras appetizers, there’s just never enough! Tom had a great appetizer of calamari & baby octopus on mixed greens. The calamari was grilled, en brochette, and the squid was marinated with vinegar & herbs. It was so tender, just delicious. I had roasted cheeks of monkfish, the poor man’s lobster, one of my favorite fishes. They came with a wonderful sauce along with some barley risotto. Tom had the venison medallions, which he ordered medium, but got medium rare. That’s OK because I got to have the rarest piece! It was done in a cherry sauce and came with quenelles of mashed potatoes sautéed in herbs, oriental peas and pear poached in wine. Delicious. We had a 1999 Czech cab with dinner. For dessert, chocolate sorbet with fresh strawberries – very good – for Tom and caramel ice cream with apricot purée for me. I guess the heater did its job since we both ordered something cold for dessert!
Tom had what was called a “regular” coffee, which ended up being a triple espresso. Needless to say, he was a happy camper! I had a café au lait, which was layered beautifully, with layers of milk, espresso and foam, served in a tall, glass cup. Gorgeous. I should mention that all of the dishes were nouveau in presentation, but we did not leave hungry.
It was a wonderful meal, a little pricy for us and very pricy for Prague, but nothing compared to what we were about to encounter with the Euro in Paris! The bill came to 4,135 Crowns, about $170.
While we were there, a little girl came in (college age), desperately trying to speak Czech to one of the employees. I really felt for her, remembering struggles with French in the past (and present). At first, I thought she was looking for a job, but after one of the managers came out (and they quickly switched to English), they began going through menus. I think she was planning her wedding – how wonderful!
After dinner we stopped at a little cafe for some red wine (not hot this time) and a beer and walked back to our hotel. It was another lovely night.
We started off the day with breakfast and walked to the Jewish Quarter. The weather was simply awful today. Rain, wind, cold, and even some light snow. Yuck!
The Jewish Cemetery was amazing. Our friends Harold & Ula in New Orleans told us it was a must-see and it really was. Apparently, for a very long time, this was the only area in Prague where Jewish people could be buried, so bodies are stacked 10-12 deep and tombstones are quite literally one on top of the other. We also went into two synagogues. In the Pinkas synagogue were thousands and thousands of names of Jews who died in the Holocaust in Prague. Very moving. We couldn’t take any pictures outside in the cemetery, which was very disappointing. We did, however, take one from the outside and seem to have captured a ghost on camera. We went into another synagogue where we saw antique and modern objects for the various religious rituals.
After the Jewish Quarter visit, we had to make a café stop. It was just so cold. We both had a couple coffees and got good and warm before heading back out again. Incidentally, we knew it was going to be cold and we were ready for it with lots of wool layers, hats, scarves and gloves. But we both bought hats while we were here and sometimes, the layers just didn't seem to be enough. I actually doubled up on socks one day - it's been a long time since I've done that!
We’d been shopping around for glasses – they’re just lovely here – and finally found some at a place by the Old Town Square. Neither of us are shoppers, but the display windows in Prague are just beautiful, especially the glass and crystal shops with the many different colors of glass catching the indoor and outdoor light just perfectly. We would have loved some wine glasses, but didn’t want to take the chance of them breaking in transit, so we bought some stout, sturdy glasses, similar to the ones we’d had for hot mulled wine and like the ones you sometimes see French people drinking from in a casual, neighborhood café.
We went back to our hotel to drop off our purchases and dry out some! We decided to have lunch at a Chinese place we passed every day on our street called Macao. There were pretty much all locals in there, with several people looking like they were having business lunches. I had chicken in Thailand sauce (coconut sauce) which was very tasty and spicy and Tom had fish Szechuan style: little pieces of fried, battered fish in a spicy sauce. Both dishes were good and spicy. Pilsner and dark beer; bill came to 510 crowns, a little over $20.
After that, back to the room to pack up since we had to leave our hotel at 5:00 am the next day.
That night we had tickets to a Dvorak opera at the National Theatre. We left early so we could stop at Cream & Dream, an ice cream place that friends of our friend Marian in New Orleans recommended. Apparently, these folks went there every day during a recent trip to Prague. It was cold, but it was toasty inside, and I had a very good coffee gelato and Tom had an amazing dark chocolate and pistachio. The dark chocolate was rich and fudgy – different from the dark chocolate at Berthillion in Paris, but not better or worse – just different. Both are excellent.
We got to the National Theatre early, so we stopped in the café/restaurant across the street and had yet another hot wine. I loved the mulled wine so much, it prompted me to buy mulling spices when we got back to New Orleans – for those two days of winter, I guess, that may or mat not appear sometime in January.;-)
The theatre is really an amazing building. Oh, I should mention that I bought the tickets online beforehand at The Czech Opera site. They deliver them to your hotel the night before; there’s no will call, no printing out tickets at home, and I believe there was a shipping option, but it was pretty pricey. We also opted, through the opera company, to get two bottles of Czech wine delivered at the same time. For 18 Euro, we got a bottle of red and a bottle of white, which came in a nice carrying case. We enjoyed the Czech wine here – not fine wine, but very good table wine.
OK, back to the opera. Well, it was “Kate & the Devil,” a story about a fat, awkward, gawky, uncouth gal, who finally gets longed-for attention from an unexpected source: the devil. Tom kept calling it goofy, and it was, but I really enjoyed it. So did he. Lots of children there, which was great to see - well-behaved and well-dressed ones, I might add. Actually, people were much more dressed up than in the U.S. We only saw one pair of jeans. We had great seats – about 11 rows into the orchestra section right in the center. There were English supertitles, for which we were thankful.
After the opera, we went to U Flecku, our first beer hall of the trip. It’s a large space with communal wooden tables and there are no choices of beer: just dark beer. We sat down initially with a couple from Germany, an older man from Prague, and a younger guy from Brazil. The Czech man was the first unfriendly native we encountered. He didn’t seem happy that we were at his table (Tom agreed, so I know I wasn’t being paranoid) and when the Brazilian brought up our election, the Czech man was quick to quip: “Well, that’s your problem, not mine.” Okey dokey. Those folks left and were quickly replaced by a dozen or so women from Norway who were on a girls’ only trip. They were having a ball and were very friendly. We had a few beers and walked back to the hotel. It was a nice night. We didn’t get to bed until about midnight and had a 4:00 wake-up call. It was actually a wake-up knock since the rooms at the hotel had no phones!
We had arranged the night before for transport to the airport (same as when we got here, too) and got there pretty quickly with no problems. The hotel packed us a breakfast to go, which was nice of them: ham, salami & cheese sandwiches, and apples. Had it for breakfast at the airport and it hit the spot.
We loved Prague. I’ve been to London and Paris in November many times, and would go back to either in a heartbeat at that time of year. But Tom and I both agreed that a second visit to Prague is a must, but not in November!
Check out our trip pictures here.