I have an interesting history with Prague. In college, I was a Political Science major, and one of the honors levels courses being taught by my favorite professor was called “Architecture and Politics,” and it was one of the more fascinating courses of my college career.
It was in this course where I first discovered Charles IV for my term paper, and this is also where I fell in love with Prague, though I wasn’t able to visit it for the first time until 2018.
As the Czech king and later Holy Roman Emperor, he is responsible for most of the classical architecture that makes Prague a destination for many, and even though it took me 20+ years to get there, I had immersed myself in so many of those pieces of architecture, coming to Prague in 2018 seemed like sort of a homecoming.
I had very little time in 2018 to really visit, and so when my next trip in 2024 came around, Prague was on the agenda again for more time, and I probably didn’t need to go a third time. However, Prague was a good stop off point between Budapest and Berlin, and it removed the need for me to research a whole city again for another short stop off.
Leaving Budapest, I had a good seven hours on a train, which, due to all the walking the day before, was a godsend. I had booked first class again on a very quiet coach, and I was able to get caught up on blogging for most of the time in transit.
We got to the Prague main railway station around 3pm, and I hopped on the subway to get to my hotel. It took me a little bit to get acclimated because I had never taken transit out of the station before, but I was quickly on my way to Hotel Lippert, which is a historic hotel on the UNESCO designated Old Town Square, aka tourist central.
I have stayed in this hotel all three times, and while it is a quite charming, the structure is from the 1400s, and the inside is somewhere around early 20th century Slavic meemaw. It is a very affordable hotel, and you cannot beat the location. However, the beds are pretty bad, and I can barely fit in the shower. I’m sure I will be back to Prague, but this might be the last time I stay in that particular hotel. I won’t even get into the whisper of AC it has. Luckily, it was cooler in Prague than it was in 2024, and I was able to open my windows with a view on the square.
Once I got settled, since it was so late in the day, I decided to walk out of Old Town up through Wenceslas Square to find some food. To call it a square is a misnomer, because it really is a bustling rectangle of retail, food, and tourist trap businesses. Once again, with all the failing retail in America, Europe continues to show that the retail store is not dead.
Since the restaurant I had put down on my itinerary ended up not being one I wanted to try, I just picked a Czech fast food restaurant, called Bageterie Boulevard, which is sort of like a cross between a Subway and McDonalds. I know, I know, I should have tried harder, but I had eaten there before and liked it.
I walked back to the hotel, with a stop off for sunset on the Charles Bridge, and I got some spectacular pictures. Before I got back to the hotel, I guess the sweet tooth finally took over because I stopped off a touristy candy store where you can buy mass varieties of bulk candy, and I picked up some of my favorites. Then outside the hotel, I succumbed to the clarion call (and smell) of the trdelník, an ice cream filled chimney cake that seems to be all the tourist rage in both Prague and Budapest.
Since I knew the next day would be a busy one, I decided to just call it a night and went to bed.
