"**Prague**" a Prague Travel Page by sunshinejo

In July 2006 I planned a short trip to Prague with a travel buddy of mine, Vicky. Our main reason for wanting to go was that we both felt like we might be the only 2 people in the universe who hadn't been, everyone else always seemed to be raving about how great Prague is. We'd heard about how cultural and beautiful Prague is, but if I'm going to be completely honest, stories of how cheap the beer is served as a greater incentive!!!!

Our easyjet flight landed us in Prague at about 9pm on a Saturday evening and, after an extraordinarily long wait for our bags, we made our way outside to the bus stop. The hostel we'd booked into had sent us directions, saying that we could get a bus followed by a tram that would deposit us within a couple of blocks of the hostel. Seemed simple enough. Not so. It turned out that the hostel had put the wrong tram number on the email, so we unwittingly boarded a tram that didn't actually go anywhere near our hostel, or even that part of town. We found ourselves very lost with no idea of where we were and very little idea of where we wanted to be. The following half hour was spent wandering around unsuccessfully trying to find street names that appeared on our map, and using a combination of broken czech and english (along with hand gestures and confused facial expressions) to ask the bar staff of the one pub we found to point out where we were on the map. In the end we (who consider ourselves to be hardened travellers and able to find our way out of any situation) gave up and flagged a taxi - oh the shame! It was the second most expensive purchase of the holiday, but at least the guy seemed to follow a fairly direct route instead of taking us all around the houses, and it got us to the hostel. There was no way on earth we were going to find it on our own - we were miles out!

The rest of our stay seemed to follow a fairly similar path - although from then on we usually had a vague idea of our general whereabouts in the city, we were rarely 100% certain of exactly where we were or even where we were headed. To be honest, I think our map may have been part of the problem, as it seemed to be rather selective over which streets it decided to show - not really very helpful. However, we enjoyed ourselves, and if anything I think it may even have enhanced our stay, as we regularly stumbled across beautiful little streets, pretty squares or cheap, out-of-the-way pubs while we were occupied looking for something else. Vicky and I are neither particularly fond of crowds of tourists and, although we're happy to absorb a small amount of cultural/historical info, there's a limit to how many churches/museums we are willing to traipse around. For this reason, most of our activities in Prague involved being outdoors, wandering around the city, and trying to find the little things about Prague that your average tourist misses while they're queueing to get into the castle.

All-in-all, we had a great time there. Unlike other cities I've been to neither of us was instantly struck with an ever-lasting love of Prague, however during our stay it snuck it's way into our hearts and I'll always think back on it with warm memories and a smile.