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Published: February 12th 2017
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Prague
View from Prague Castle Can we believe I've already been in the UK for 6 months!? Because I sure can't! It's gone extremely quick, which both saddens yet excites me. There's still so much left to do on this side of the world, so much to see that I fear I'll run out of time because of how quick it's going. And on the other hand, I've been lucky to do and experience so much in such a short amount of time. Which brings me to Prague - another bucket list city ticked off the list. One city I was a little sad wasn't included on my Contiki tour and one I've heard so many say good things of. So when the opportunity for cheap flights came up (thank you Ryanair!), I jumped at the chance to go for my first holiday of 2017. After booking, I also realised I'd unintentionally selected the date marking my 6 month Londonversary - any excuse to travel, right?
I left home on the 6th January at ridiculous o'clock (4:30am) after a night of barely any sleep to get my bus to Stansted Airport. Thanks to no traffic on the streets of London, we got there quite quickly
Powder Tower
One of the original city gates separating Old Town and New Town - used to store gun powder and I went through security and found a spot to sit and await my flight. Boarded for the flight to leave at 7:30 and although I attempted to read my book, I ended up sleeping away the entire flight. Until we were just about to land - thankfully because as I looked out the plane window and saw the snow covered land, I was excited to see it. Not so excited for the cold temperatures I was about to experience. For the duration of my stay, there was nothing but minus temperatures - with one day getting down to -13! But I am prepared to suffer through the ridiculous cold as long as I get some snow in return. Apparently, London has yet to get this memo. Getting from the airport to my hostel was relatively easy and straight forward - shuttle bus from the airport then change to a tram to my hostel. Once I'd settled in, I set out to start exploring for the couple of hours I had left of daylight however, it resulted in me getting lost and walking around in circles as well as playing in the snow. Therefore, once it started getting dark I
headed back to the hostel for an early night to refresh from the ridiculous early start of the day.
Woke up, ready and roaring to go so set off on the 15 minute walk to Old Town - which is where I was trying to get to the afternoon before however, kept taking a wrong turn and walking around the same area before giving up. Turns out, it was a pretty straightforward walk so I just blamed the day before purely on lack of sleep. After getting a quick breakfast, I started my exploring by taking a free walking tour of the city - I've actually never thought of doing one of these before (apart from the ones organised for us on Contiki) however, they're a brilliant way to get your bearings in a new foreign city as well as learning abit more of the history and being shown sights that you may not have known about or bothered to see. The walking tour took approximately 2.5 hours and took us past the Astronomical Clock in Old Town Square, through the Jewish Quarter, and past the Powder Tower and Charles University all whilst giving us the history of the
City of a Hundred Spires. After the walking tour, I set off on my own to stroll over Charles Bridge, a pedestrian bridge which crosses the Vltava River and lined with statues. On the other side, I paid a visit to the John Lennon wall before making my way back to the Old Town to get lost in the many alleys and have some beef goulash. Before heading back to the hostel to get ready for the night festivities, I stopped back by the Astronomical clock to watch the hourly show of the animated figures around the clock, which I wish I'd taken a video as despite having a reputation of being an overrated tourist attraction, so many people flock to it every hour.
That night, I decided to head out and participate in a pub crawl as being a solo traveller, the idea of hanging in bars and clubs alone isn't always top of the list and I wanted to experience Prague's nightlife so figured a pub crawl would be fun. The night contained 3 bars, with a happy hour of drinks at the first one and a shot upon entry of the other 2, and ending at
Karlovy Lazne, Europe's biggest dance club spanning over 5 levels, where me and some new found buddies danced the night away. I managed to lose my beloved snood that had spent many days keeping my neck warm, presumably at the last bar as halfway to the night club, I noticed it was no longer tied around my handbag. Unfortunately, only 2 levels of Karlovy Lazne were open however it was still an incredibly fun night - even if I did wake up the next day a little worse for wear.
The next day, I slept in and was feeling a bit ordinary following the festivities of the evening before however, by the time I showered I was feeling much better and ready to continue exploring Prague for my last day. First stop was somewhere for food - as it was nearly lunch time, I decided to stop at an American themed diner for fried food to soak up the last of the hangover. After lunch, I wandered around the Jewish Quarter before making my way up to Prague Castle. It was such a freezing day with temps getting as low as -13 degrees! But the castle and the views
of Prague from the castle were definitely worth being out in the cold. Spent some time walking around the castle grounds before making my way back down where I stopped for a hot chocolate to get out of the cold. Just before the sun set, I made my way over to Charles Bridge to get back into the Old Town for one last wander. By the time I got to the other side of the bridge, it was dark however, I noticed a few specks of white on my shoulder. Within minutes, snow was coming down heavy and yet again, the ground was covered in snow again. It was extremely magical and I couldn't have asked for a better ending to Prague. My first snow fall = one very happy Aussie. After walking around like a loon in the snow - there may have been twirling involved as well as a big grin on my face the entire time - I made my way back to my hostel for an early night as yet again, my flight the next morning was at a ridiculous hour.
My transfer to the airport picked me up right on 4am - unfortunately, no
public transport was running at this time so I ordered a shared transfer to the airport and got to share with a drunken Londoner from Camden Town, who talked the entire time from picking him up from his hotel all the way to the airport. Quite the experience, I must say. Slept again on the way home, plane got delayed by 20mins due to ice on the wings - I had booked my bus home, giving me just over an hour to get through border control (coming back from Barcelona, I had allowed for almost 2 hours between landing and the bus and was at the bus station within half an hour). However, due to the delay, I re-booked the bus for a small changeover fee to a give myself another half hour rather than potentially miss it completely. Which is exactly what happened anyway because border control was an absolute nightmare and took forever! So I had to buy a new bus ticket, which thankfully I could do easily on my phone - minutes before boarding and having to show my ticket, my phone decided to turn itself off and I actually could have cried right then and there.
Luckily, it decided to fix itself and turn back on just as I was getting to the front of the line and I was made to stand aside until I could show my ticket - unsure what I would have done if it hadn't come back to life. Got back to a colder London where it was finally forecast to snow that day.
Prague was stunningly beautiful and I'm sure I'll be back some day.
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Dianne
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Looks awesome
Quite the entertaining blogger.... Love reading your adventures.... ??