Prague, Czech Republic
We landed in Prague coming from the Northern Highlands in Scotland with ten days to explore the city. We had spent the last week in the car and staying in single room B&B so we were all looking forward to a break from the car and having a bit of space to spread out. Ten days was perfect as Prague is known as one of the most beautiful cities in Europe with its’ seemingly hundreds of spires and architecture that survived untouched from WWII.
We rented an apartment in the Vinohrady neighborhood (District 2) which was a few minutes metro ride from the city center. The location ended up being a bonus for us as the neighborhood was hosting a seasonal wine festival one weekend we were there. It also had several large parks right there, perfect for Zach and the Nerf football.
When we entered the historic city center the next day after we had landed, our jaws dropped. Our pictures will not do the city justice in how different and overwhelming it is. With our time here, we had a chance to travel the city and visit nearly every district. This was very easy as Prague has one of the most convenient and fastest public transportation system we have ever seen. Obviously, we are easily entertained as just getting into and out of the metro stations was like an amusement park ride to us that we never tired of. The escalators are crazy steep and it seems like you are going straight down forever. We timed an escalator ride at over 2 minutes at one of the stops. Trains run every 3-5 minutes, so we never waited long. I looked it up as this system is very impressive for a city of just over 1M+ people. Quite an interesting story as the system was started back under the Soviet rule and the politics that played a part are a story to itself.
A couple of our favorite events during this visit stand out that are best explained with the pictures and captions below:
One story with some more detail is the Sunday morning soccer game that we attended. The stadium was a few blocks walk away and though we don’t follow soccer, we figured it would be a great way to get a taste of the local culture. I bought our tickets from the first gate and we walked into our section behind the goal. The entire section was enclosed by a steel fence with netting above that and the gate to the field entrance was chained up. No way folks are rushing the field here. We were on the visitors’ side and there were less than a hundred people in the section behind the goal. Of this group, perhaps 90 of them were directly behind the goal cheering and yelling non-stop led by someone who had climbed the fence to stand on it and lead the section. This was non-stop cheering, that got slightly louder when something major happened. Trish left us at half-time for some “Trish-time”. Zach and I stayed to cheer for the visiting team, who became our adopted team for prudence sake.
Sometime into the 2nd half, Zach mentioned he saw smoke in the stands next to us where the majority of the section was sitting. I then noticed that a handful of police officers had showed up and where pulling on black face masks and riot gear. Uh oh. That was a bit unnerving and I started to figure out how to get out of there. Two firemen headed up into the stands with extinguishers and after a minute or two they waved the police back. Crisis adverted. Apparently the fan(s) who started the fire helped put it out and made peace. At least that was my impression based on the gesturing and pointing from nearby. As I looked around, I don’t think anyone else was as nervous as I was. Most fans were not even paying attention to the police geared up and ready to come up into the stands. I can only guess that these types of things are common place on Sunday mornings as the fans take even B-league games very seriously.
We thoroughly enjoyed our time here. The architecture and views were amazing throughout and this is one of the cleanest cities we have ever seen. However, when we had a chance to get out into the neighborhoods, it was the relaxed and extremely polite vibe of the people that impressed us the most. We are looking forward to our next visit.
Some pictures of Prague itself are below, as best as we could capture it.
