To celebrate our anniversary my husband and I took a quick weekend city break to Prague, without our five year old son. Normally we are big believers in traveling as a family but we thought that eleven years have earned us a weekend to ourselves.
This turned out to be pretty good thinking. I would not describe Prague as child friendly. A lot of the "things to do" are just walking around the different neighborhoods and looking at the different architecture. While HE would enjoy the spider and scorpion museum I know I wouldn't and while I might enjoy the Kafka museum I'm pretty sure HE wouldn't. A highlight of our quick trip was climbing the tower of St. Vitus. At 417 steps it was another thing that would have been impossible with a five year old in tow.
We stayed in a great hotel, Hotel Josef, in Josefov, the Jewish quarter. It's a pretty modern hotel. Think glass, Lucite, and orange. We chose one of the large rooms with a balcony, a beautiful view and (most important) a giant bathtub! Normally hotel rooms are just for sleeping but since this was our anniversary we chose something with comfort in mind. As it rained on us the whole time I was grateful for that bathtub at the end of the day. The staff was great. The breakfast buffet was good, with lots of fresh fruits, cured meats and cheese, streaky bacon and eggs etc. One of the best I've had in a hotel, to be honest. Breakfast in your room was also an option. We paid E189 plus an extra E50 to have a super late checkout. So not cheap but not too extravagant.
Okay, so hotel room, blah blah blah, right? I lured you in with a promise of a secret, I'm sure by now you're already scanning the list of threads on the left, ready to move on. So, before we left I did research Prague, on this forum, on others, in guide books and websites and nobody mentioned the BEST thing about Prague!
One word; seven letters and only one vowel: Trdlnik
It's a sweet bread, rolled into a thin strip and wrapped around a long stainless steel 3 inch thick cylinder. It's covered in a sugar syrup and thing rotated over the heat source. It's revolutions are hypnotic! After it's nice and brown and the sugar syrup is a bit crispy, it's rolled in any number of toppings; sugar, cinnamon, nuts, etc and then slipped off. It's either served like this or the inside is covered with nutella or jam. We took ours with sugar and then again with cinnamon sugar. As we were only there for a weekend this all we had time for, but I would LOVE to try it full of nutella, and the jam one, and maybe one more with nuts . . .
Trdlnik in Prague is up there with crepes in Paris, for me. In fact, it might even be better. I can make crepes at home, but I don't think I could genuinely recreate a trdlnik!
So there you go. Go to Prague. See the clock. See the bridge. See the castle. It's all lovely. But now you know Prague's best kept warm, sugary secret. Spread the trdlnik word!
Psst . . . I have a Prague secret for you!
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I bet your kid(s) would have LOVED it
Thanks for posting BKP, Prague is on my to-go list, and has moved up a notch or two after hearing about trdlnik!
Look forward to meeting you on 7th October, and maybe hearing a bit more about Prague!
We are going to be in Prague in June; I am going to share your pastry secret with my traveling companions. Thanks for sharing.
Trdelnik is the right spelling...also easier to pronounce.
turtle neck? I never had those in Prague- but I did enjoy lots and lots of beer!
Dukey -- you're probably right! Maybe I'll have to rig up something over my stove and share it with him.
Trdelnik is much easier although my spell check struggles with either spelling!
julia -- Well, if trdelnik moves Prague up the list, I hope beef shins and pork necks don't knock it back down. See you next week!
In my rush to spread the trdelnik word I forgot to mention two restaurants.
Lokal -- was recommended to us by the hotel. The menu was in Czech but once the waitress saw us struggling with our menu translator she brought us out English menus. We assumed there must have been something lost in translation, who really eats beef shin and pork neck?!? But, after checking out lots of different menus we realized the Czech do! We asked the waitress to choose for us. She chose chicken schnitzel for my husband and fried cheese for me. My husband tried to order dumplings with it but she told him the boiled potatoes would be better. She then brought out a plate of potato and bread dumplings so that we could taste them. Although I don't know why they don't "go" with schnitzel, I'm glad we didn't order a plate of them. Splitting them between the two of us felt like enough to fill us up. So heavy and dense! I loved my fried cheese, but really, who wouldn't? I did NOT love the Czech version of Coke though. Bleh. It tasted like dandelion and ginger beer. We can't remember the exact price, only that it was inexpensive.
La Casa Argentina -- also rec'd by the hotel. The decor was a bit cheesey. Fake plants and a terrarium with an iguana. The service was nice but slow. The ceasar salad tasted like sardines and mayo. The chicken was a bit too fatty and grisly. But the steak! Woo Hoo! The steak was amazing. My husband had the fillet and I had a giant meat skewer. They were both cooked perfectly, absolutely tender and tasted amazing. He got the pepper sauce and I had blue cheese, but the flavor of the steak was enough. He had an okay cheesecake for dessert and I had a boiled pear with cinnamon mousse -- which sounds gross, but was actually really nice. We spent about 2000 Czech Koruna, or about 70 GBP.
One more thing: Love Padlocks. After coming home and looking it up I realize these aren't exclusive to Prague, but I still think it's a nice thing to do if you're there. Just past the Lennon Wall there is a bridge over the river. On the railings of the bridge hundreds of people have attached padlocks. Usually they have written initials and a date on them. After attaching the lock the couples throw the key in the river, symbolizing their commitment to each other. Of course, we had to do this too! We took the tiny padlock off our luggage and on our way to the airport we had our driver wait while we added our padlock to the others, threw our key in the river and shared a kiss. A pretty romantic way to celebrate an anniversary, if you ask me!
Love Trdlo's, i used to have a couple of them for LUNCH a few years back, i was literally addicted to them. Now every time i pass a Trdlo stand the queue is just too long to bother but what really turns me off is that you can see they don't make them with the same love they used to.
Mmmm I loved them too! My travel buddies tend to have more savoury taste buds whereas I am a sweet tooth and couldn't get enough of them. We were in Prague in December (for St Nicholas Day actually) and the old town square had lots of these stands around. Nom nom nom nom nom!
I like them too,great with a coffee early in the day to get you going,There used to be a stall selling them at the Tesco on Narodni but when I was there a few weeks ago the stall was not there.I had to settle for deep fried cheese at another stall on Wenseslas square.
Here is my "secret stop". Right across the street from the German Embassy on Vlasska St in Mala Strana is a small street with a little cafe called Fleurs. It was the best strudel we had in Prague - served with vanilla sauce - yum!