May 29 – May 31, 2022
An interesting (but I won’t say unlikely, because no one was surprised) pairing emerged for the second week of travels: Jordan and Sam! One a fresh college grad, the other a fresh high school grad, just some independent girlies looking to have a good time. We decided the best way to accomplish this and look appropriately cool in the family line-up was to pick the road less travelled: Central Europe. Prague, Vienna, and Budapest are all relatively close and linked by many connecting trains going through all three every day.
We were particularly fixated on the idea that we would eschew intense planning, so that once our Airbnbs and train tickets were secured, we could just ~go with the vibes~ and “get lost!” Our life is a movie. Consider for a moment what that looks like in real-world application, though.
Jordan: always on Google Maps, confidently asserting that she has become a local within 45 minutes of getting to a new city, marching around slow walkers and giving people the stink eye for looking too touristy and lumping her in with them. However, she gave herself a 2-mistake pass for every outing. After all, no one’s perfect. The number of times we realized 5 seconds too late we were on the wrong side of the street to board a bus… yikes.
Sam: *breathes loudly* deemed unforgivable by Jordan and will put the elder sister in a bad mood for the next ten minutes. “Breathing loudly, as you know, or speaking, will mark us as Americans and decrease our cool factor by at least 50%,” Jordan says seriously.
Despite many goofs and many apologies from Jordan to Sam, we actually had an amazing time, and did benefit from the wander strategy, stumbling upon a ton of good finds and eats.
Our flight to Prague was delightfully uncomplicated, and we made a friend! Beytullah, a pilot-in-training from Turkey and studying in Prague, chatted with us in the Dublin airport and was serendipitously in the row in front of us on the plane. Sam figured out how to screenshot text and photos in the Notes app and Airdrop these pictures to him without wifi, and we were off to the races. This 2-hour Airdrop banter session scored us an invitation to Beytullah’s backyard bbq later that week, but unfortunately, we planned to be in Vienna by then. I think Sam almost cried when we realized.
Our first morning in Prague was just beyond delightful. We were situated in an Airbnb right on the Vltava river, which cuts through the middle of Prague and separates it into Old and New Prague. You can see our Airbnb situated on the west bank of the river and up the hill is Prazsky hrad, the historic palace compound maintained and expanded on by several centuries of Czech rulers.
Being right by the Mánesův bridge meant we got to cross the most vibrant and social connecting bridge every time we wanted to go into Old Town. We were also conveniently near the Malostranska tram stop, which is one of the main stations on our side of the river, and we use this to get to the National Theater the next day.
You can see in the earlier map that we had wanted to go to Klementinium, a Byzantine-era library with a huge collection of Medieval books and old Christian texts, but it was gated to the public. Our wandering over there ended up taking us as far as Prašná brána, an old city gate, and a nearby astronomy tower, and really gave us a full sense of Prague’s architectural style. Many old Gothic buildings destroyed during Roman Empire conquests or World Wars have been preserved or rebuilt.
We then traipsed back over the river and started the slow climb up to Prazsky hrad. This castle is hard to describe, and is much more than just one structure. Prazsky hrad is actually the collective name for an aggregation of palaces, churches, offices, fortifications, courtyards, and gardens, covering approximately 110 acres. The castle was formerly the seat of the kings of Bohemia and is currently the official residence of the president of the Czech Republic. It includes St. Vitus Cathedral, the site of the coronation of several Holy Roman Emperors. Right by this cathedral, Jordan got yelled at for wandering directly in front of an oncoming troop of armed Czech military police, but was thankfully not detained, just humiliated. We believe their marching was mostly pompous ceremonial stuff.
Inside St. Vilnus Cathedral
Outside St. Vilnus Cathedral lol
Views and vibes were off the charts: selfies, peeping through old arrow holes for archers to defend the city, skylines, gelato 😛
It’s hard to summarize all the walking and wandering; we had some great lunch on a street somewhere after this hill tired us out. To this day, we’re pretty sure the restaurant did not have a name, just a lot of Coca Cola umbrellas and marketing materials, but the chicken and dumplings (bread), Greek salad, and of course, Aperol spritzes were unparalleled.
Our second afternoon, while lying in our romantic Airbnb suite (we’re pretty sure it was supposed to be like a honeymoon situation), we were thumbing through a guidebook the host left us, and saw that the National Theater (Národní divadlo) was a must see. Eager to have a cultural experience, we got tickets for a play. Not a lot of thought went into this, clearly, as the two other offerings of the theater are ballet and opera, the more universally understood art mediums.
Sure enough, upon arrival to the theater, we were seated in an opera box with a Czech mother and son duo who could not have been more confused as to why these American girls would go to a Czech language play without speaking a word of Czech. Joke’s on them – no, we didn’t understand a single thing going on – but we massively enjoyed ourselves. The lights! the colors! the beautiful theater space! No comprehension needed, just aesthetics. We entertained ourselves speculating on what the play might be about, and compared theories at intermission. No microphones were needed by the actors; the acoustics were impeccable!
Refreshed and emboldened by our adventures here, we continued onto Vienna the next day. And a final ego boost: as we boarded the tram to the main train station, a Spanish tourist asked Jordan which tram would take her family to Prazsky hrad. Without even having to look, Jordan smiled and said “22.” Just local things 🙂
MOR'NA MILE AWEE 