Prague | Singapore Travel Photo Blog @ travelerfolio.com

The Journey to Prague

The Munich station was nice and clean. We returned to Austria for connecting trains to Prague. Our first stop in Austria was Salzburg, followed by another train to Linz. Austria is also famous for its yummy apple strudels. I bought one at the train station and it cheap and tasted good too. From Linz, we took a train to the Austria-Czech border, then another train to enter Czech.

The train to enter the Czech’s border was funny; it had only one carriage and we were the only few passengers in the carriage. It looked more like a bus running on the railroad! We often hear stories from travel agencies about the tense atmosphere at Czech’s border, with strict-looking custom policemen carrying big rifles while checking everyone’s passport on the coach. We prayed hard that it was not like what was told.

It really wasn’t what was heard about the scary Czech custom. There were only two custom policemen carrying small pistols entered our train. They checked our nationalities from a little booklet and gave us an entry-permit stamp. Our Singapore passports were checked quickly, but Jacky’s Malaysian passport took the police officer a while as he babbled with his colleague and went through the booklet again.

Fortunately, we didn’t face any problem with the Czech custom. So far, we had only got two custom stamps from Austria and Czech; we didn’t get stamps when we entered France and Switzerland.

The trains and train station in Prague were very old. They appeared much older than the rest of the trains and stations we went over the past two weeks; seemed that not much restoration was done to the station for the past decades. In fact, Czech Republic is formed on 1 January 1993, after Czechoslovakia, which was then a communist country, peacefully split into Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Having heard stories about pickpockets in Prague, we were extra careful with our belongings. Guess what?! We had our first suspect appeared the moment we alighted the train at Prague station! A young man awkwardly bumped onto my friend as soon as my friend came out of the train. The platform was so wide with no crowd, why would the man walk to our direction and bumped onto him? The young man apologised in English with an awkward accent. ENGLISH! We had not heard any stranger and even customer service staff whose first word was English throughout our two-week stay in Europe. We often had to start the conversation with, “Excuse me, do you speak English?” The biggest surprise was, the young man went up the train that we just came down, and we all knew that the train terminated at the station! Very suspicious man.

The train station in Prague was gloomily lit and quiet. There wasn’t anyone queuing for ticket at the counter. Another suspenseful incident happened again: Jacky went to the ticket counter to check on the train ticket to the old town square where our hostel was located. Then, a uniformed man walked toward Jacky and beckoned him to go somewhere else. We were puzzled. Jacky was simply making enquiry about train tickets at the counter, why the counter officer didn’t help him and let someone outside the queue to do the job? Of course, out of safety reason, Jacky ignored that suspicious uniformed man. And that man could not do anything more but to walk away.

Another scary incident happened again, at the train station. Our friend wanted to withdrawn money at the ATM. Two suspicious men that looked like crooks were loitering behind us. There wasn’t anybody nearby except these two men. We kept staring at them, while guarding behind our friend who was withdrawing money. Fortunately, no robbery.

This was the only place where people came to us and spoke English to us, promoting their hostels and other things that had never happened before when we were in France, Switzerland, Austria and Germany.

Eat like a King in Prague!

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Eat like a King in Prague

After much strange incidents at Prague station, we finally reached the Old Town Square safely. Well, the next problem was, we were confused with the street numbers and couldn’t find Youth Hostel TYN. The night was falling and yet we were still looking for the hostel and tried not to wander into quiet lanes.

It didn’t take us too long to locate our hostel at last. Youth Hostel TYN is strategically located at the Old Town Square. Our room had two beds and a communal toilet and bathroom on a level. We had a pleasant stay there.

Time to satisfy our appetite after a tiring. We walked to a Czech restaurant nearby to have dinner. The service of this restaurant was bad, but the food was quite good and most importantly – CHEAP! Rice is a common dish and we ordered rice again. It was like eating in an average restaurant in Singapore! We ate like a King the first time in Europe! Imagine how we felt after using so much Euros which was twice as much as Singapore dollar.

No matter how prudent we were, we got cheated. This time, it was the waiter that overcharged us. When we asked for bill, the waiter just wrote down all the prices on a piece of paper and charged an extra 22% of tax! Actually, we had read about waiters who cheated on tourists in Prague by writing the bill on pieces on paper to confuse the tourists, yet we happily footed the bill as it was really cheap!!! So you can imagine how cheap the food was, even being over-charged! We realised this scam when we asked the hostel keeper about tax stuff in the restaurants and he told us there was no such thing as an extra tax.

Prague Old Town Square!

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Prague Old Town Square

We began our first sightseeing trip in the medieval Old Town Square where many historic buildings of Romanesque, Baroque and Gothic styles were erected around the Square.

The Gothic style Old Town Hall Tower is one of the most striking buildings in Prague built in 1338.

We waited at the Astronomical Clock on the side of the Old Town Hall Tower for the procession of the twelve Apostles. Every hour when the minute hand strikes twelve, a small trap door opens and figures of the Apostles and other moving sculptures would march out.

The poor horses had been standing in the Square for a long time, and air was filled with pungent urine smell.

I was particularly interested in this cool-looking statue and tried to take a picture of it without the bird on its head, but the bird just rested there for a very long time. In fact, most of the statues in Prague are very old and almost black; they are very beautiful and artistic, but with lot of pigeon shits too. It is also fascinating to see the dark coloured statues after the rain. The face of the statue looks just like it has wept.

The Old Town Square that glows in the evening.

Prague Castle!

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Prague Castle

We walked our way to the Prague Castle. View of the Prague Castle from far.

The walk was an enjoyable one – we passed by a stunning historic building with golden roof top and a memorial park.

Try the pastries in Prague. They are cheap and good! We had some in a small cafe before we reached Prague Castle.

Quite tiring walking up the flight of stairs to Prague Castle, the largest inhabited fortress in the world. But the climb to a higher spot offers the most spectacular view across the Bohemian town with its distinctive red roof buildings.

Something unusual – mysterious human-like sculptures seemingly sitting on steps and facing the centre stage.

View of Prague Old Town.

As we entered Prague Castle, we first visited the gorgeous Saint Vitus Cathedral. To many, it is the Prague Castle. It is also the burial place of the once mighty Czech kings.

The intricate stained glass inside the Cathedral.

The net vaults.

The Royal Crypt – the tombs.

We visited the Golden Lane. I always think the small colourful houses lined at the lane look like those in Disney fairytale cartoons. These houses were built small due to lack of space at that time. They were made of stone, mud, and wood. The lane was named after the goldsmiths who lived there in the 17th century. Now, the lane is lined with souvenir shops. The lane is very short.

The stunning panorama view at the Castle.

Say Cheez!

See Photos of Charles Bridge

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Charles Bridge, Prague

Charles Bridge crosses the Vltava river in Prague. The bridge is decorated by an alley of 30 statues and statuaries, mostly in Baroque style, erected around 300 years ago.

The Old Town bridge tower is also considered as one of the most astonishing civil Gothic-style buildings in the world.

I love this old statue! Saw it on Lonely Planet cover page before.

View of the Prague Castle.

There are many painters on the bridge. I saw some so-called Chinese painters translated non-Chinese names to Chinese names, and added flowery designs on the Chinese characters; but some of the Chinese characters were wrongly written! Anyway, Chinese illiterates won’t know about it…

The other side of the Charles Bridge.

It was dinner time. We decided to walk back to our hostel since it was getting late.

Nearly got CHEATED again!

We went into another local restaurant and had a good dinner there. Again, another trying-to-cheat-us incident happened in the restaurant. When it was time to foot the bill, the waitress showed us a written piece of bill again. Once bitten, twice shy. This time, we requested for the electronic printout receipt. Guess what? The printout receipt was hidden underneath the hand-written receipt and the bill was much lower without any tax! The waitress explained that their prices were already very low…blar blar blar, trying to cover up herself! Luckily, we were not cheated this time.

A lady approached us for help. She looked worried and spoke the kind of English we all knew was not her native language. Weird right? Why would some European speak English to us directly and ask a tourist for help, instead of the other way round? We ignored her.

We walked around the old town in the night. The lanes were poorly lit and we started to feel unsafe walking in lonely places. We quickly walked back to the Old Town Square nearby our hostel. At least there were more people there.

Read The Jewish Quarter!

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The Jewish Quarter in Prague

The Jewish Quarter’s history dates back to the 13th century, when the Jewish community in Prague were ordered to vacate their homes and settle in one area. Th buildings in the Quarter form the best preserved Jewish historical monuments in the whole Europe.

A little history about the Jewish Museum: it was closed to the public after the Nazi occupation in 1939. In 1942, the Nazis established the Central Jewish Museum to house all the liquidated Jewish communities and synagogues. At that time, the Nazis planned to create a museum of an extinct race, as they called it.

We wanted to visit the Pinkas Synagogue, where victims of the Holocaust are commemorated in a permanent exhibition of children’s drawings from Terezín. But due the terrible flood in Prague in the previous year, the exhibition was closed for restoration.

The Old Jewish Cemetery was established in the 15th century and is one of the most important historic sites in Prague’s Jewish Town. Today it contains some 12,000 tombstones, although the number of people buried there is much greater. The cemetery was enlarged a number of times but still it did not suffice and earth was brought in to add further layers. It is assumed that the cemetery contains several burial layers placed on top of each other.

Lunch at a local restaurant. My fish was nice but with too many tiny bones. Jacky’s piece of meat was gruesomely stabbed with a knife.

We bought four sets of Russian dolls. Two sets consists of 10 dolls with nice craftsmanship and they cost around S$50 to S$60. The smallest doll was only about 1cm tall, so cute! We kept two sets for ourselves and the other two as gifts to relatives and friends.

The best and cheapest dinner I had was actually not far – the cafe is at the hostel itself! It serves a big portion of vegetarian food in Indian style of cooking. Nice!