So…Prague in December. The whole idea was to go somewhere that would be fabulous and snowy at Christmas. So, we (I) decided on Prague. A beautiful city, even more so when coated in snow, Prague sounded like a great destination to see Christmas markets and generally soak up the holiday spirit in a European location. It was recommended by many travel articles as one of the best places to visit in Europe for a white Christmas, although historically, it seems that the likelihood of getting snow for Christmas is closer to slim to none (thanks travel mags…). Nevertheless, we decided to risk it, since I didn’t really want to go to Finland/Sweden/Norway etc and deal with the extreme cold for an entire month. (Mostly because I prefer to keep my skin attached to my face. Cold, dry air is not a winner in my book.) Reality more or less delivered what we expected: definitely beautiful, great Christmas markets but alas, no snow (at least not at Christmas).

Our apartment for the month was a bit out of town, in Prague 9, an ex-industrial district that has been more or less overrun with drab apartment buildings as the population continued to spread. Basically, staying in town was going to part us with too much of our money, so we chose the outskirts of the city. Being so far out, we thought this might be a bit of a problem, but we found that over a month, the hire car didn’t even get a whole tank worth of use. As it happened, being out of town was not an issue, as public transport in Prague has been excellently organised to enable you to get just about anywhere, and affordably at that. Trams, buses, subways and trains to take people from A to B, so efficiently so, that everywhere we travelled only required maybe a 5 minute walk to get to the next portion of the public transport journey…And the public transport system was pretty much idiot-proof. (With the help of Google Maps.)

Here’s where we stayed: https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/6302735

It was pretty nice. In fact, very nice. And our hosts were the best ever. We even went out one night to hang out with our hosts, which was really nice and not at all weird. (They like beer too!) Totally recommend if anyone is thinking of heading to Prague.

What we got up to:

Honestly, this particular month we didn’t really get up to much. We thoroughly explored the city, both on foot and via public transport, and saw almost all the things that we deemed worth seeing. Prague takes the cake for ‘Most Beautiful City Visited’ for us, with the grand old buildings and beautiful architecture seemingly almost everywhere throughout the city. There hasn’t been anywhere that has come close to being quite so grandiose. I was most impressed…And pretty stoked with the hustle and bustle after being in Montenegro in the low season. Saw more people in one busy street than everyone combined in a whole month.

Unfortunately, Murray got a decent dose of the cold, so over half the visit was lost to sniffles, spluttering and presumably also to efforts at recuperation. I managed to dodge it somehow, so at least it was only one of us suffering through the Christmas/New Year period. Murray was banished to sleeping on the sofa, which probably helped with avoiding spread of the pox. So, as a result, not much happened other than keeping warm indoors, working, and watching the snow fall from the comfort of the couch. It wasn’t so bad, in fact, it was nice to have some quiet time.

Bohemian Paradise:

We did one major day out on the road, and drove north up to an area known as Bohemian Paradise. Probably not the best time of year to experience it; the drive out was relatively plain and the areas we saw were not nearly as beautiful as they could be if we had been there in summer or autumn. However, there were castles everywhere, peeping out from the forests. Epic, and quite different to those we had seen in other countries. Seeing castles never gets old, even if it just a case of spotting them from afar. The only one we ventured near was to Trosky castle only to find it was closed for the winter season, which was a little bit disappointing. However, I suspect that would have been the case almost anywhere we could have visited, given the cold, wet & frozen weather. We also stopped in at a couple of the national parks in the area, but unfortunately in winter the forests are mostly leafless, wet and mushy so we didn’t go for much of a hike. Either way, it was still a beautiful day out.

Christmas Markets:

The Christmas markets certainly delivered. I was expecting pretty lights, delicious smells and lots of Christmas cheer, and we certainly got it. There were markets set up utterly everywhere, and the delicious smell of gluhwein was a near constant fragrance at every square and corner. I really enjoyed seeing the markets, even if we didn’t buy anything other than tasty mystery consumable items. (This whole year has been an effort to not collect any crap, since there is nowhere to put it. Collecting memories, not stuff.) Kind of wished I could have bought some of the ornaments to take home, but I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t have survived another couple of months of traveling. (Or more accurately, abuse during flights from A to B.)

Christmas Day:

We went to the zoo! With not much else to do, we elected to see what is touted as the 4th best zoo in the world (and second best in Europe). It was definitely the best zoo we have been to. Had a great day, and spent all day wandering through the giant grounds with what seemed to be largely non-Czech visitors with the same ideas we had. There were more cat species (Kitties!!! Kitties everywhere!) there than I have seen anywhere else, it was quite fascinating, although also a bit depressing since cats so large couldn’t possibly be happy enclosed like that. There was a tiger that was roaring (miaowing?) unhappily. Sounded just like Ninja on the way to the vet, except with the volume turned up so loud you could hear it from ages away. Great facility, and the enclosures for the animals were far and away the best I’d ever seen. The whole experience was very impressive, and we had a lot of fun playing around with the monkeys (mostly through the glass, but they were certainly curious). We were there almost from open until close, & I could have stayed longer, but logistically, there is only so much walking you can do before it is not so fun anymore…

Sedlec Ossuary:

Czech is famous for its bone churches, and Sedlec is probably the most famous and most easily accessible from Prague. After reading about it on Atlas Obscura, there was no way that we were going to miss out on seeing such an oddity. Basically, the bones of many (up to 70,000) were harvested from their mass graves and made into various works of art, adorning what seemed like every available surface of the small church. It was both creepy and spectacular. The chandelier was magnificent. I can’t believe someone had the task of extracting and cleaning all those remains to make them what they are today…

New Year’s Eve:

Seriously, we did not get up to anything for New Year’s Eve. Murray was at the peak of being sick with the cold, and we had been forewarned about going out into the city on the eve of due to firework related hazards. Basically, the town gets drunk and then ends up lighting everyone on fire through unsafe firework handling practises when drunk – which I guess makes sense… Because fireworks are totally legal. You could buy them from the supermarket, in all sorts of sizes from small tom thumbs through to giant cakes (with hilarious names, none of which I documented, unfortunately). We meant to buy some, but somehow never got around to it, not to mention feeling a little awkward about setting explosive stuff on fire in an unfamiliar space… However, there were more than enough locals on top of the pyrotechnics in our area. Midnight was well preceded by copious amounts of fireworks, pretty much starting as soon as it was dark enough, and continuing until well after the 12am mark. It was most curious seeing fireworks going off from pretty much every conceivable direction. Certainly not the epic-ness we are used to in Brisbane & Sydney, but still, pretty cool knowing that the fireworks were probably set off by your neighbours.

Supermarkets in Czech Republic:

Whenever a country has a hypermarket, that’s generally the place I choose to shop. Given the many mysteries of what each country stocks in terms of produce and range, the hypermarket I’ve found is the best place to be in order to produce a semblance of a normal shop. You might even get to leave with a couple of brands you recognise from home (but probably not). Czech offered two options: Albert and Globus as their hypermarket/supermarket chains, with Globus only available as a hypermarket. So that made Globus the choice for us, and it turned out to be one of the more normal shopping experiences we have had in our year away from home. You have no idea how nice it is to go buy food and find the food you want is actually sold at the shop you are at. Things you might take for granted, like salad greens, cream, bread (yes, bread) and prepackaged meats have been a constant source of consternation. After having been in Montenegro for the previous month, I was like a kid in a candy store. Real food!!

Prepackaged salad bags, recognisable meats, multiple choices for brands and types of cheese etc, it was all rather exciting after having been deprived for a while. I even managed to buy coconut oil for the first time in months, and almond meal as well. I was very impressed, although a bit mystified, as there were multiple large sizes of hazelnut flour to purchase, but only tiny packets of almond meal. What do they use all the hazelnut flour for? At any rate, there were lots of things I hadn’t seen in quite a while…Plus some things I had never seen. Like string cheese and smoked meats packaged as a braid. Plus ridiculous quantities of sausages…Globus had more sausages than you could poke a stick at. It was great. Having not met our German-sausage needs when in Munich, Prague managed to be an excellent source of various mystery meats in sausage casing. All of it was delicious. Some of it I wasn’t really sure how to eat, but…since we didn’t get sick, and it tasted fine, I guess it was a success? I think I may have tried to cook a liverwurst as if it were a sausage…(to be fair, it looked like all the other sausages)…

Beer in Czech:

Totally a winner. Prague is a huge city, and with it comes a lot of the perks you would expect. Like a real beer scene. What a treat. Especially after being in Montenegro. Fab places like BeerGeek made for a great spot to enjoy some decent beer, a meal and have a good chat with the locals. Great range & great prices, too. In general, definitely loved the low cost of living in Czech. It was fantastic being able to enjoy such a great quality of life without having to pay as much as we did in some of the other European countries we have stayed in.

Visiting Czech:

Since our visit was so uneventful, one post is more than enough to cover most of what we got up to. However, it was still a fantastic month nonetheless. Would love to see more of the Czech Republic if we ever get the chance, although I get the impression we would have to move around to see it properly. Beautiful Prague, it was a pleasure to have visited.

Next up:

Last stop in Europe: Iceland for a week before off to Portland, Oregon, USA!