19 – 22 MAY 2015:
The initial plan was to take my Mum to Prague in the summer for some mother-daughter bonding time once the rest of my travelling was done. However, since I decided to come home for a few weeks while my cousins were visiting England I decided to bring the Prague trip forward and go straight away! Perhaps a bit of a mistake because we were very unfortunate to get lots of dreary weather!
We grabbed some cheap Easyjet flights and decided to stay at an old apartment building in the Old Town.
Old Town Square Apartments, Stupartska 9, Prague 1 – Old Town
www.Old-Town-Square-Apartments.com
The apartment was perfect for our use. It had a kitchen area, two bedrooms, big bathroom – everything we needed and it was very centrally located. As soon as you stepped outside of the building you were part of the Old Town.
Old Town is a medieval settlement of Prague, Czech Republic. It was separated from the outside by a semi-circular moat and wall, connected to the Vltava river at both of its end.
I wish I could say that we did a lot of things in Prague but I was a bit emotional at the time for various personal reasons so I wasn’t the best of company. As the weather was also absolute pants, we didn’t attempt to do a lot besides walking round to take in the views and potter around all of the little shops. One evening we walked around and ended up at the bridge tower situated at the end of the Charles Bridge on the side of Malá Strana. The views around this area were breathtaking at night, and a very romantic place to be if you were with a special someone!
I bought some black garnet rings from a nearby jewellery store. The Czech garnet is a popular urban accessory, and is even considered as the best tourist purchase if you are jewellery-shopping in Prague. However, annoyingly after a few weeks my rings have tarnished! What cheap piles of rubbish.
Near our apartment was a sweet shop with a wonderful variety of different pick and mix style sweets and chocolate. They used barrels to present the sweets, which gave the shop a unique atmosphere, however the novelty experience (while worth it!) made the shop quite expensive.
We had a couple of lunches out whilst there. One was a nice Italian restaurant which was outdoors. Frankly I didn’t enjoy it as much as I would have liked because I was just too cold and spent the whole time wishing I had sat inside. The other restaurant we tried was a local Czech eatery which was much better value.
At one point, my Mum and I were on one of the beautiful bridges linking the New Town to the Old Town. There were two females in their twenties wearing quite skimpy dresses with an older man holding a camera. My Mum said to me ‘look at what their wearing, such thin clothes for this weather’. Next thing we know, they have taken their clothes off and are stark naked with the older man photographing them doing different poses, some of which were yoga style positions and others were a bit more theatrical. At one point they completely bent over which gave me a… let’s say interesting view as I was right behind them….My Mum was horrified, all of the people in the street were either disgusted, turned on or like me – unsure of where to look!
One place that I did want to visit was the Invisible Exhibition – http://neviditelna.cz/en
‘The Invisible Exhibition in Prague is a unique interactive journey to an invisible world, where in total darkness you find your way out only by touch, sounds and scent.’
I believe the concept is supposed to represent what it’s like to be blind or partially sighted. Apparently it is very eye opening (excuse the pun!)
Unfortunately we ran out of time and didn’t make it there! I have heard some very good reviews about the place so I would definitely like to try this one day.
I didn’t really make the most of my visit to Prague so I would like to do it again perhaps without the emotional instability and bad weather next time!
SAM FIELDEN - TRAVELS 