Recently I spent a week in Prague, Czech republic. In this blog I will share a brief account of my travels.
Travel Plan
Total 9 days (April 28 to May 6) with 5 days leave from work
- Day 1: Delhi to Istanbul: One hour in Istanbul, Reaching Prague at 6 pm, Hostel in Prague
2. Day 2: Lobkovicz palace, Prague Castle, Czech National Museum, old bridge
3. Day 3: Museum of Communism, Franz Kafka Museum, Hussite Church
4. Day 4: Jewish Museum in Jewish Quarter, Sex machines museum, Vegan festival, church on a hill
5. Day 5 to 7: Shambhala Meditation retreat in Trebusin Chateau
6. Day 8: Back to Delhi via Istanbul: Istanbul airport museum and Islamic science gallery
Travel Costs (in INR)
- Shengen Visa from VFS Chennai: 13K (including special service) + Turkey E Visa 4k
2. Flight tickets: 64K (indigo/Turkish airlines) New Delhi to Prague
3. Hostel in Prague cost: 9K for 4 days
4. Meditation retreat: 27K (about 300 euro)
5. Prague sightseeing pass: 11K (about 114 euro for 4 days)
6. Extra museums not covered by Prague sightseeing pass (communism, kafka etc): 5K
6. Cannabis sweets, drinks and biscuits: 2K
7. Public Transport within Prague and Istanbul: 5K (120 Czech crona per day * 4 days + Istanbul airport metro to and fro)
8. Food: about 1.5K per day * 4 days = 6K
9. Istanbul airport museum (1.2k) + lunch (1.1k)
10. TOTAL: 1.48 lakhs + souvenirs etc
Below is a short account of some of the places I visited in Prague.
Prague Castle (Prague Hrad)
Its a beautiful castle on a hill overlooking the city. Its accessible by metro and a short walk up the hill. One can have a nice view of the city from here.
It contains a number of buildings such as the old palace, St Vitus cathedral, St George’s basilica and others.
Lobkovicz Palace
It is one of the old palaces of Prague. Has lots of rooms and historical artifacts. The audio guide tells of the royal family who inhabited this palace for centuries, but who almost lost it twice, onmce to the nazis and then to the communist government, but eventually regained it in the 1990s after the fall of communism.
Vtlava river and Charles Bridge
The Vtlava river is the main river of Prague, and has a number of bridges on it including the old bridge or Charles bridge which is very beautiful. Charles bridge has a number of statues on the sides, and lots of artists have stalls on the bridge to draw live images of you.
St Vitus Cathedral
It is a huge and magnificient cathedral. I found it awe inspiring, both from the outside as well as inside. The glass stained windows with their artwork on Christian themes were impressive too.
Prague old town
The old town is really beautiful. Each building has character. Its so clean and well maintained, especially if you compare to historical parts of cities in India.
Jewish museum in Prague
The Jewish museum is a short walk from the old town. It contains not one building, but a number of synagogues which are absolutely beautiful. It used to be part of the Jewish ghetto in medieval times. One of the synagogues had names of the Jewish people from Czech republic who died in the holocaust on its walls, which was very moving. The Spanish synagogue had mind blowing architecture. The old new synagogue was a living synagogue. The Jewish cemetery has almost 10 layers of burials in it!
Czech food
I tried a bit of Czech food but not a lot. Its simple food. But has lots of meat in it. I dont have much meat apart from chicken: but did try some chicken and mashed potato in a Czech restaurant, which was nice.
Cannabis shops
Surprisingly I found a lot of Cannabis shops littered around the city center. They were selling all kinds of cannabis products such as cannabis tea, soap, beer, drinks, skincare products, biscuits, sweets and of course hemp to smoke. Some of most of them were not real cannabis but only used extracts with THC and CBD.
Hostel where I stayed
I stayed in the A Plus hostel. It had a good location next to the museums, was clean, affordable, the staff were friendly and Wifi was ok.
Narodny museum
It is the national museum of the Czech republic. Not only the building is amazingly beautiful, it has a number of state of the art exhibits inside. The meteorite gallery was particularly impressive. There was a large section on the history of the Czech people from ancient times to modern times.
Kafka museum
It is a museum dedicated to the life of Franz Kafka, a famous existentialist author who lived in Prague. Learnt about his life, how he grew up in the German Jewish community, his finding of work boring, inability to find the perfect love, his novels such as the trial, the fortress etc that expose the absurdities of this world.
Museum of communism
It has exhibits related to the communist era of Czechoslovakia. I found it a bit too biased and anti communist, probably because communism was imposed on Czechoslovakia by the USSR rather than it being a home grown movement. So it covered a lot about the suppression of freedom and how people were oppressed, but none of the achievements of communism such as good education and and health statistics and a good social security system.
Vysehrad castle
This is located on a hill. This castle is even older than the Prague castle. Its a short walk from the city center. It has a number of buildings including a cemetery where many prominent Czech personalities are buried, a historical church of St Peter and St Paul, a park with statues of people such as the founders of Prague and so on.
Kofola cola
This cola was marketed by the former communist government of Czechoslovakia as a communist alternative to coca cola. Somehow it’s managed to survive all these decades and available to buy in Prague. However, I preferred the taste of good old Coca Cola to this!
Conclusion
In this article, I have discussed some of the highlights of my week long holiday in Prague. Its a very beautiful city and not too big in size either. I would absolutely recommend everyone to visit it if they can.
