One day in an empty city

delishtreats (70)in GEMS • 4 years ago

Many of you might know my not so secret love for Prague. I spend as much time as possible in this beautiful city and I was happy that I could visit it again.

It was just a half a day trip as we went there to pick up our friend and then we drove together back to Carlsbad for the weekend.

We were not sure if we should go to Prague or not as we read that there were many new infections but on the other hand we heard that there were not that many people in the streets and you could easily walk around without being close to other, so we took the risk and had a great day in the old town.

That day we walked more than 10 km as the streets were almost deserted and it was a pleasure to roam around without being squeezed between other tourists. Yes, since I don't live there anymore I consider myself a tourist too!

I have never experienced Prague like this. After lunch in an almost empty restaurant we started our walk at the Old Town Square which is usually buzzing with life but we only saw some locals and a handful of tourists. It was an interesting experience as usually there are more people there even at night.

Jan Hus Memorial is a large monument at the Old Town Square. Jan Hus is one of the most important Czech personalities. He was burnt in 1415 as a heretic for his reformist ideas. This monument was designed by Ladislav Saloun at the beginning of the 20th century and was revealed to public in 1915.

The inscription on the monument says: 'Love each other and wish the truth to everyone'.

From the monument we walked in the direction of Orloj, also known as Prague Astronomical Clock. This is probably one of the most important features of Prague. It is the third oldest medieval astronomical clock in the world and the oldest one that is still working. It was installed in the southern wall of the Old Town City Hall in 1410.

I remember the square in front of Orloj being constantly full of people. You simply couldn't pass by. You would have to wait for all people to watch the mechanical show which happens every hour and then you could move with the crowd down to the Charles bridge. This was one of the reasons why I didn't visit the old town very often in the past. It was good to have the city for 'ourselves'.

Of course, we came across monuments during our walk but this was not the purpose of our trip. We wanted to explore small streets and enjoy the atmosphere of the old city.

While walking somewhere in the old town, we saw a shop with these retro motorcycles. They are cool, aren't they?

To be honest I am not sure if you could buy them or only lend them but I almost went inside and asked about that pink one which was so adorable! Then I reconsidered and quickly came back to the ground 🙂

We continued in the direction of the river and saw this interesting house. The outside gallery is located in the Divadelní street and it's called Gallery Facade. The exhibition is Look into the window.

Several years ago (2013), this house was damaged by a big gas explosion. The owner of the house and the curator of the gallery found a new purpose for this construction. This is the first exhibition here. It is portrayed by 14 artists - 7 women and 7 men. Going forward they want to change the exhibition twice a year. It is definitely worth a visit!

We finally reached the river and continued in the direction of Náplavka. My husband hasn't been there before and I was excited as well because I've heard that the area has been reconstructed and it's a great place to hang out with your friends now. When I lived in Prague it wasn't that special and I only went there when I wanted to go for a walk to the river.

Apparently, it was a good day for sailing as we saw so many various boats. You can also lend a small boat and enjoy the river. It's not a boat like this though. It's much smaller and I believe that it's a paddle boat. But it's still a nice experience. One day, I will try it too!

Here we are already at Náplavka and we keep enjoying the views of the castle. It's situated in a way that you can see it from so many places in the city. As you can see we were walking under a bridge here.

There were so many swans! I keep telling my friends how many swans we have in Switzerland but there were many more on the river Vltava! This one looked like it didn't care but soon enough it joined its partner close to us.

This is the closest I will ever get to a swan. This one had an intimidating look and I literally chickened out and ran away after I took this photo.

This is one of the restaurant/party boats on the river. There were not that many people as it was a Friday afternoon and people were still at work. There are many of these boats and I can imagine that it's a lot of fun to spend an evening around this place.

We were thirsty and had a drink at this trendy place. I had a cider and my husband had a cucumber lemonade. Both tasted good but his looked much better.

This place was built in 2019 and it's a unique architectural and technological solution. There are 6 reconstructed dungeons with a large round window that function as revolving pivot doors. Each dungeon has another pub/bar inside. The windows are not the same and the biggest one is 5.4 meters in diameter and weights more than 2 tons!

Well, I liked his lemonade...

We finally met our friend at the bar and after she finished her coffee we walked to the castle as we had a table booked for dinner in a nearby restaurant.

On the way to the castle, I admired the colors of the late summer/early autumn. It was late afternoon/early evening and the colors were warm and vibrant.

After a while we reached the Charles bridge and were surprised that we could easily walk from one side to another and even take pictures without annoyed people waiting for us to leave so that they can take their pictures too.

The sun was setting down and once again it all looked like in a fairy tale.

We walked slowly and it took us more than an hour to get to the restaurant. It was getting colder but we asked for a table outside as we wanted to enjoy the moment for a little bit longer. The waitress got us some blankets and we stuffed our bellies with delicious food before heading back to Carlsbad.

This was our dinner view...