A beautiful view from our hotel room really kicked off the good vibes for our visit to Prague.
There is so much to see in this well preserved city, only bombed once in WWII (they thought it was Dresden 150 miles to the north), this city's sites are mostly original. The town square shown in the two photos below were a mob scene of tourists, but a really fun place to be. Everywhere you turn, there is unique architecture to see. Tourist waiting ain't bad either.
Prague is a major party city besides being a tourist stop, we saw so many bachelor parties of rowdy guys (and gals) dressed in hilarious outfits. Apparently it's cheaper to fly in from the UK and spend the weekend in Prague than it is to spend a night on the town in London. We saw men dressed as ballerina's, prisoners and even a penis. It was fun to watch, but I wouldn't want to be them.
This is the most well known site in Prague main square, a 600 year old astronomical clock. Apparently it is one of the oldest still working clocks in the world. It's exceedingly beautiful, but the tower around it was under scaffolding, so it might be even better looking next year.
In case you are wondering what time it is, the top is the hour, and the bottom tells the minutes.
Local bar snacks, you have to like a place that has these all over the tables. A little something to nibble while waiting for your beer. Mind you, you don't have to wait long for your beer in Prague, they get it to you exceedingly fast. Apparently locals want their beer served quickly, we never waited more than a couple minutes for the server to return with your beer.
We took a morning 4 hour bike tour through Prague which is a really great way to see some great sites and also earn your right to have a big dinner. We biked up to the Prague Castle (seen in the picture at the top) and was able to walk our bikes through the grounds, and even left them safely unlocked while we saw the sites.
Our bike guide promised us a beer for all our hard work, and knowing it was mostly down hill to return to our starting point, we sat outside and enjoyed a cold one from Strahov Monastery. Just behind the Prague Castle, Strahov is one of Prague's best mini-breweries, which is also known as Klasterni Pivovar This monastic brewery is from the 17th-century and was restored & reopened as a craft brewery in 2000, with restaurant & courtyard.
Below is a picture of their beautiful copper bar, just out of view of this shot were large tanks of the beer, but I thought the bar was so charming, I only took that picture.
After a morning of bike riding we needed some lunch. Below is a picture of just a little sandwich at a local shop. Every sandwich we had was amazingly fresh, beautiful and delicious!
The interesting thing about trdelnik is that it's not really Czech at all! It's funny that all the guide books and blogs say it's a "must have". Our food guide explained it only caught on in popularity after a guy from Slovakia brought to town for one of the Christmas markets. I'm sure there's more to the story though.
Next thing on our agenda was the food tour, which was the highlight of our day, especially after our long bike ride that morning. We used a local place called Prague Food Tour. We highly recommend doing it this way, you will get to see small places and hear great stories from the guide, George.
We met up with our food tour in front of a local hotel. It was a small group of 9 people and our guide, George. The first stop was The Cafe Imperial restaurant to have a fancy "mini" dinner to start off our tour. I wasn't expecting to immediately sit down and start with a real meal, but George had a method. Better get a meal in these tourists before taking them drinking like the locals do!
Here's a recipe for the soup... it's not very clear, but I am going to try winging it some day soon. The most unusual thing about the soup was the poached egg served on top. I really, really liked that part. The mushroom soup itself was a yummy combination of both sweet and sour. Below it the actual recipe he gave us... it leaves a lot to be desired for measurements, but I think it could still happen. Some recipes are very forgiving.
Jihočeská kulajda soup:
* mushrooms
* couple of bigger potatoes
* caraway seeds
* black whole pepper
* 2 bay leafs
* 250 ml of cream
* 2 spoons of smooth flour
* vinagre
* 3-4 eggs
* fresh dill
In a pot we bring 1 liter of water to boil and we add salt. In another, smaller pot add bouillon cube to 250ml of water and bring to boil. Chop clean potatoes and mushrooms into little cubes. Into the big pot with boiling water add potatoes, mushrooms and caraway seeds, pepper and bay leafs. Boil until the potatoes are soft. Add cream mixed with flour and then add the broth made from the bouillon. Cook everything together. Then add the egg, vinagre, dill and sugar.
The Cafe Imperial restaurant is a very beautiful classic restaurant. A very stylish and interesting dining room, with tall walls and high ceilings completely covered with Art Nouveau ceramic tiles and mosaics dating back to the Imperial Hotel's construction in 1914. The restaurant is owned by a local celebrity chef whose known to be a bit of a bad boy like Gordon Ramsey.
It was a pretty spectacular place to have a meal.
As part of the food tour, we were to have a small dinner (with soup!) and then go onto to 3 other stops. Wow. I was going to need to pace myself. I had the duck with red cabbage and potato dumpling, topped with crispy fried onions along with a crisp Gruner Veltliner wine.
After the Cafe Imperial, we walked onto a famous local beer hall, called Lokál Dlouhááá. Yep, the name really does have that many a's at the end.
Lots of locals here, and apparently a regular dinner menu in addition to the bar snack menu George ordered off of. I took four pictures of our bar snacks below, he kept trying to order more if we were hungry.
The beer was great, and we enjoyed a crazy variety of food considering we'd just eaten dinner.
Steak tartar pre-mixed together, so delicious on fried bread (!) that has been rubbed with a garlic clove. If I hadn't just eaten the duck at the restaurant before, I could have made a meal of this.
Above-Delicious Prague Ham with horseradish whip cream. I could have eaten that whip cream on everything!
Below- Pickled Cheese with peppers. I wasn't a fan of this, which is super surprising since I love both cheese and pickles. It was just too rich, too strong and well, too pickley.
Fried cheese, good the world over.
Next stop was a fun little bar, called Bonvivants, kind of a funny speakeasy type with tons of charm. The sign on the door said "No Communists, No Idiots please".
First drink was Czech Absinth(e) served correctly with a sugar cube and a dribble of ice water from the fun contraption on the left. Some bachelor party types drink absinth(e) in Czech republic straight and served on fire (for no benefit of the drink or the drinker). This was very tasty and refreshing tasting faintly of licorice and herbs. It's said to induce a euphoria feeling, and frankly I felt GOOD after drinking it! Haha, it may have been the company, the food, the wine, the beer...
He also served us a couple other cocktails using Czech apricot brandy and served almost like a Ramos Gin Fizz, all frothy and delicious.
One disclaimer, though we did drink multiple drinks they were "half size". Funny, huh? Czech's are big beer drinkers and they down more beer per capita than Germany. True fact that.
Third tiny cocktail (ahem...) was made with their aromatic national liquor. I loved this Becherovka, we even bought a bottle to bring home.
Made in the Czech Republic since
1807, its clear, 76 proof, and flavored with anise and cinnamon, along with
more than thirty other herbs and spices. The recipe is known to only two
people, who make the blend of herbs every week. Like the KFC of Czech Republic.
Becherovka is meant to be served chilled and neat as a
digestif. Or another popular way if mixing it with tonic water,
a combination called a beton (from BEcherovka and TONic), which is also a pun
for the Czech word for concrete. I served one to my Mom on 4th of July, she seemed to like it a lot.
I found a lot of fun recipes online, but I think I need to make this one. Existential Hero — Becherovka, Blanco tequila, Orange
liqueur, Light rum, Amaretto, Lime juice.
I will let you know just how existential it gets.
Absolutely feeling no pain after drinking a bunch of super yummy little cocktails, we set off to the other side of the river to visit our last place. Here you can see the Charles bridge lit up in the distance. Not the best picture, but you get the point, right? I might have been more level photographer earlier in the evening, y'know?
Cafe Savoy was a great place for an almost midnight snack. Were we hungry again?
Not really, but we had some little sweets and a couple of canape sandwiches shown below.
George mentioned that we were having a traditional Czech "tea" to be enjoyed in the afternoon, but frankly we all needed a little coffee to perk us up before we branched out on our own through the little cobblestone streets back to our hotel.
I've since read online that this is a great place for breakfast, lunch or tea, so if you go to Prague, you really should check it out.
A couple shots of the ceiling that was covered up from WWII to protect and then stayed covered through the communist regime. So incredibly beautiful.
It was sad to say goodbye, but having such a fun food tour was a great last night in such a beautiful and fun city.
Morning brought another classic European breakfast, I was loving the cheese, meats, cucumbers and bread for breakfast every day. I'm not sure if the Prosecco is traditional, but for a vacation breakfast, why not? We had to get to the train station to continue to our next stop, Vienna!
