Second and Final Day in Prague

Just like how I did in London, Amsterdam and Berlin, I turned up for the New Europe Free Walking Tour of Prague.  I really enjoy these tours and try to do them in each city they're offered.  (Ok, there may have also been a pining hope of having another Mike the Hottie guide.)  Well, I didn't get my eye candy (dammit!) but we got an enthusiastic Irish fellow instead.  After a short wander around the Old Town Square, we were brought to one of Prague's most famous landmarks, the Astronomical Clock.

The legend goes that the city of Prague liked the clock so much that in order to stop the clockmaker from making a replica elsewhere, they had the guy blinded!  Mmmm thoughtful. (But not true).  The gold calendar on the clock lists a male/female name for every day of year.  Czech people usually pick a name from this list and in addition to celebrating one own's birthday, the Czech also celebrate their Name Day.  The tradition is to buy everyone else a drink!

The Church of Our Lady before Tyn.  The skinny tower on the left is a woman and the wider one is a man! 

One of those baddies from Stars Wars?  Nope just a statue commemorating the premiere of Mozart's Don Giovanni in Prague.  

Evil Babushka = This way to the Museum of Communism!  The Powder Gate where gunpowder used to be stored and hence the black discolouration. 

We stopped for lunch at a bagel place but I'm not one to ever crave bagels.  Just kinda...shiny and chewy.  I ate one anyway.

Into the Jewish Quarter where we were shown Franz Kafka's statue where the guide recommended we take a photo on each other's shoulders.  No I didn't do that.  

The Pinkas synagogue which has inscribed the names of all Czech Jews who died in WWII.  Dvorak's statue at Jan Palach Square.  

A view of Prague Castle from the Old Town side.  

The guide told us the story about the lucky statue on the Charles Bridge and explained that rubbing the dog will give you bad luck!  Some cheeky locals had noticed how shiny the lucky bronze saint was so one night, went up with a bottle of polish and buffed up the dog to make tourists pat the dog!

I went back and promptly patted the lucky saint.... even though the plaque shows him being thrown off a bridge.  Good luck works in mysterious ways.  

On the bridge, there was this cute, quirky little band performing... something in Czech.

I thought it was so kewl, I videoed them.

If you watch it for only one thing, watch it for the guy hitting spoons against a metal grill.  

With the walking tour over and done, I had a little bit of time to kill before heading to the airport.  I chose to burn that time with ......

....my final hotdog for Prague, complete with a hair silhouette.

I had pre-booked yesterday's taxi driver to shuttle me back to the airport.  A reliable man he was, waiting for me at the hotel about 15 minutes early.  I got back to the hotel and saw a sign on the front door.  'The reception desk is closed, please go to Hotel Venezia around the corner for assistance.'  I was pretty fricken annoyed.  A 3-star hotel should be manned 24 hours.  Damn fricking Hotel Halkova!!

Overall, I was a bit underwhelmed with Prague even though I had always really wanted to come here.  It was a must on my to-do list but now after being here, it all just seemed a bit ho-hum and I don't quite understand what the fuss is all about.  Too many people raved on about it being 'beautiful, gorgeous, awesome, I loved it, you're gonna love it' etc but to me, it just looked like every other second city in central Europe!

In fact, I preferred other cities over Prague.  The Prague Castle view reminded me of Salzburg Castle - except IMHO Salzburg was nicer.  Prague's Old Town was pretty much like every other Old Town I'd seen - Krakow, Bruges and Talinn's was nicer IMHO.  Prague's bridges over the Vltava river... well Budapest's Danube was nicer.  I'm not bagging Prague, I just wasn't impressed and see no reason for me to re-visit.  Then I thought, maybe it's me?  Maybe I'm jaded with travelling?  No way, that can't be it!  There are still parts of Spain, Italy, Germany and France I would like to see!

I could think of two reasons which explain my 'meh' feeling about Prague.  If it's the first time you've traveled to Europe and your typical itinerary covers London, Paris, Rome, Barcelona, Amsterdam and Prague then yes, Prague is quite different in comparison to all those cities.  But if you've actually been to other parts of Europe, then really Prague looks nothing out of the ordinary.  Nothing felt really 'Prague-y' to me.

The other explanation is that I didn't go Prague on a stag/hens/drinking party whereby the aim is to be as boisterous, obnoxious and drunk as possible.  Easily done with the cheap drinks in Prague.  When you are that trashed, then of course you're going to love wherever you are.

However, don't let what I've said put you off going to Prague.  For any seasoned traveller, just don't hype it up for yourself!