wendie

Quick Trip Report Prague March 2011

Thanks to all on the message boards here for your help on researching and planning our recent six day trip to Prague. I will not mention the main sights here as they have been covered so well in the trip reports posted here but I will mention some highlights of our trip that might be of interest to you.

Travel books: Rick Steves Prague and Eyewitness Travel Prague....very helful!

Airport transportation: Minibus Cedaz. Pickup every 30 minutes in front of terminal. Pay driver (does not take large bills). Takes you to V Celnici street near city central and Old Town Square. Only about $6 each for the half hour ride.

K&K Hotel Central: Excellant location close to Old Town Square, all transportation and Cedaz Airport Pickup. Wonderful hotel with full buffet breakfast included. Room was small but worked out perfectly and had everything we needed. Staff very helpful booking day tours and answering any questions we had. They even sold stamps and tickets for the metro system.

Metros, trams and buses: Easy access to anywhere you need to go at a very affordable price. Purchase timed tickets at cigar shops or newstands. Obtain a Municipal Transport map at a book store and purchase a good, easy to read map of the city as you will need it. Caution: As we were getting off a tram my husband let a lady go in front of him and I looked back only to see the door close before my husband could get off....stick together! He got off at the next stop and toke the first tram back.

Food: Really enjoyed the food especially the goulash, duck, weinersnitzel, dumplings, potatoe pancakes, red and white cabbage and ofcourse apple strudel and crepes. Hot chocolate everywhere is to die for! Large breakfast at our hotel so enjoyed sausage (Klobasa) with bread and mustard from the street vendors in Old Town Square for lunch. Trdelnik vendors...warm twisted pastry with cinnamon. Found pork to be rather dry, however. Terrific beer everywhere ofcourse, cheaper than soft drinks!
Restaurants: Enjoyed Rick Steves suggestion of Restaurace u Provaznice and Restaurace Mlejnice, both very good. Cafe Marnice (left and down the stairs as you cross the Charles Bridge north side). Restaurant Svejk (near Old Town square closer to river end) good apple strudel! Municiple House cafe for excellant desserts and coffee and beer...enjoy that beautiful Art Nouveau building. We were not as please with the restaurant downstairs in that building, however. Also enjoyed the Restaurant at the end of the block of our K&K Central Hotel...good beer goulash in bread bowl.

Tours and Day trip: Kutna Hora, Sedlec Ossuary and Kostnice (Bone Church) 6 hour tour. Enjoyed the tour but suggest you try someone other than Martin Tour as they stopped at a small restaurant for an hour (not listed in tour iteneray) as people ordered drinks and food. Would have prefered to spend that time exploring the town or shops. Also booked Martin Tour for city historical tour. It was raining and older mini van was leaking from condensation INSIDE the bus and windows fogged. Again, suggest you book a differant tour company.

Highlights: In our search for the strudel shop on Jesseniova Street (strussel man best strudel in Prague per Food Network) we found the Olsanske Hrbitovy, the most amazing cemetary I have seen with wonderful headstones and statues....not to be missed! As for the apple strudel, it is sold out of an orange window (no. 29 Jesseniova St., four blocks from cemetary) in a residential district. It was warm and wonderful...about $2.50 for a foot long strudel neatly wrapped in paper, but really not any better than the strudel we had in town. To get to cemetary take tram 5, 9 or 26 to the Olsanke stop. You will see it on any map as it is huge and we only saw a very small part of it.
Enjoyed strolling across the beautiful Charles Bridge with the terrific views of the city. Loved the small Mucha Museum and wandering thru the food markets buying goodies to take home and the Havelska Market with its many stalls of fresh vegetables and toys and souvenirs. Nice little antique shop, Retro Bazar Antik, one block from our hotel and I believe it is called Praline Candy Shop also close to our hotel where I hand picked little boxes of chocolates to take home to my kids. The gold boxes were tied with bright orange ribbon. Ofcourse we enjoyed all the main attractions listed here on the boards and in our travel books. Amazing statues, gargoyals and beautiful buildings EVERYWHERE! This city is a photographers paradise!

november_moon

Thanks for the trip report. We are going to Prague this summer.

socaltraveler

As are we. Thank you.

wendie

I can only imagine how beautiful it is with the trees green and the flowers in bloom! Have a wonderful time!

unclegus

looks like you had a good time.I have been to Kutna Hora twice but done the journey by train which gave us lots of time in the town.
I have used Martin tours in the past onec and found the whole trip very rushed with no spare time whatsoever.
Glad you enjoyed the food,I just ove the Goulash too.and the street food is also pretty good.
I am back in Prague in May (7 weeks to go) and just can't wait.

Christina

I used Martin Tours to Cesky Krumlov and it wasn't rushed at all. I thought the tour guide was excellent and there was plenty of time. My only quibble was their van was not very comfortable nor large, and that's a longer ride so the seats were kind of hard. But if you are going to Kutna Hora for a full day tour, I suspect any tour company is going to stop for lunch somewhere for about an hour, don't think you can avoid that. YOu can ask, though, as maybe some would have that hour in the city itself to do what you want. I took Prague Sightseeing Tours to Kutna Hora and they were excellent(no bone church visit, but I had no interest in that). I think we were in Kutna Hora for lunchtime and could do what we wanted, but don't really remember that much. I agree that Kutna Nora isn't that far away so the lunch hour should be in the city rather than outside it, if that's what happend (and I don't see how that could be because it doesn't take that long to get there, unless it was a half day tour or something, but they don't usually have a meal hour).

bejatrbs

My 10-day Independent Prague trip with Gate1Travel was an oustanding bargain with airflights from Swissair, a room at the Atlantic hotel (modest, comfortable, quiet, superb location), and 3 tours covering the city and surroundings. This package was all booked over the web at an unbeatable price on G1T's excellent site. This was my fourth and best stay in Prague, my third trip with G1T, and recommend giving them a try - you won't be sorry. I rode the trams all day for $6 which gave me a superb overview of the city and suburbs in safety, comfort, and convenience.

fetchwood

Thanks for the input. We are traveling for 10 days to Praha in October. We will get an apartment. Has anyone rented a car? I have some heritage in Brno and would like to drive there. But we could take a train. I can't wait!