Six Hours in Prague

by Alex in Europe, Topdeck

Prague is a city of culture. The Czech capital has been built up over the centuries into a winding maze, filled with a multitude of museums, galleries, architectural styles and the finest art and music Europe has ever had to offer. It's the kind of city you'd need a week to explore, and a month to even begin to fully appreciate.

We had half a day.

That was our first snag - our Topdeck tour was only in the Czech Republic for a single day, and so we only had around 6-8 hours of free time to explore the city.

Our second snag was that, like most cities filled with all that culture bollocks I mentioned a second ago, Prague is expensive, and we're poor. So rather than try and get the classical experience that my dad would obsess over, we decided to wander on foot and see what we could find.

And what we found was candy!



Picture this: A store, vaguely pirate themed, with all of the walls and most of the floor taken up by barrels. Big, sturdy wooden barrels, like... well, like you'd expect to find in a pirate-themed shop. And each of these barrels, all as tall as my chest, is filled with different kinds of candy - gummy, sour, hard, soft, chocolate, fruity.

Think Willy Wonka meets Jack Sparrow. Are you picturing it? Isn't it wonderful? Well, there's one in Prague. And, of course, it was the first thing we stumbled across.

Remember how I said we were really poor? That may have been for the best, otherwise we were likely to buy as much candy as we could carry, and spend the rest of our tour eating our own body weights in gummy goodness.

Don't get me wrong, we did buy about a kilo and a half of assorted sugary treats, but it only cost us around 12 dollars... which I think was still the most expensive purchase we made in Prague.

Just outside the candy store was a small street market, so of course it was time for more shopping.


Tash was instantly enamoured with a pair of gorgeous earrings, and my breath was stolen by a pair of beautiful fruit stands. No, really. After a few more Koruna changed hands, we strolled on - complete with a new pair of earrings and a small punnet of fresh berries.

We wandered aimlessly for another hour or so, from the newer modern quarters to the cobbled streets of the old city. As we walked, we passed statues and monuments, explored a 6-storey nerd shop (which was too expensive for us), and completely failed to notice the Sex Machines Museum, which is a thing that Prague apparently has.

But that's when we found it. A gingerbread house. No, I don't mean the kind an innocent old witch lives in before being brutally murdered by some uppity German preteens, I mean a shop devoted entirely to the making of gingerbread.

There was gingerbread for sale in all shapes, sizes and colours, and it was all made fresh in the store.

photo by: mcfcrandall

I know it was fresh, because there was a lovely older lady behind the counter making it. As we watched, she happily told us about the history of the shop, her methods of making gingerbread by hand, and how the city has changed since she was a girl. At least, I assume that's what she was saying. She didn't speak a word of English and we don't speak a word of Czech. We loaded up on gingerbread presents for our new Topdeck friends - and some for ourselves as well - and wandered on.

Eventually, our meandering path found us in the middle of a rather large square. The Old Town Square, in fact - which is where Prague's famous Astronomical Clock is found. Since the Astronomical Clock was one of the few things we specifically wanted to see in Prague, we took this as a sign that the gods were smiling on us, and did what everybody does when they feel fortune turn in their favour - we stopped for lunch.

Specifically, we stopped at one of the many food stalls lining the edge of the square.

I'm sure Tash had something to say about stopping and eating, or maybe landmarks or something - I honestly couldn't tell you. My eyes had glazed over at the sight of giant chunks of meat, and Prague's famous funnel cakes, slowly rotating over an open fire.

So we parked our butts on the curb, feasting on delicious meats (and less delicious burnt funnel cake), and watched a battle play out in the square.

Specifically, a battle of buskers - there were four living statues, three balloon animal makers, five unwashed hippies with guitars, and no less than 3 complete folk ensembles, all trying to overwhelm each other while vying for the attention of the crowd of tourists. All except the living statues, anyway.

They mostly just stood there.

If you'd like to read more of our Topdeck Tour - click here!
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