1st trip to Prague coming up

sam_rhino

Hi,

I'm taking my friend to Prague for a long w/e. It's a belated 30th birthday. I'm paying for the flight (easyjet got cheap deal) and accommodation (she wanted to try backpacking style, so we're staying in a hostel).
Has anyone been there? Where's good to go? What's good to eat? What's something special to do/go as a final birthday treat (she's had a seriously hard time, losing both her parents and deserves to be treated princess style)?
I still owe £9k, so I can't afford to spend a fortune on treating her, but want to do something nice while we're away.
Any ideas?????

Bob63

I can't offer advice on a cheap place to stay as I always spend a fortune at a star hotel near the office. However, for eating and drinking I would go to almost any restaurant in Prague. They are all fantastic. The food is good, the beer is good and that is all you need to know

Just promise me that you won't go with the British "stag night" attitude which is becoming all too prevalent in Prague. Treat the locals with respect, tip well and be polite. Enjoy the bargains and don't treat people like sh*t just because they earn a lot less than you. Prague is a wonderful city full of wonderful people (half of whom are the most beautiful on the planet!!!) so enjoy it.

Mike

LB1985

I went with some friends for 3 nights last May and it was great. We still had money left on our last day, so decided to do a boat trip (little boat, 12 seats), which was really nice. We got on near the Charles Bridge (in the Old Town, behind the statue of Charles IV). Can't remember the exact cost, but it was worth it (we're only poor students!) - were given drinks, ice cream and given a brilliant tour by a great Danish sailor named Ivan who told us all sorts. It was also interesting seeing the city from another perspective. This is the company's website.

Edit: Checked cost, it was about £6.50

A couple of photos from said boat trip:

Alfie_E

Following the links with asterisks might spoil the element of surprise.

There are interesting demonstrators provided by a Czech Internet company called virtual-zoom. Two of them are short virtual tours of Prague – Prague Walk* and Prague New Town*. (You may need to force your web browser’s page encoding setting to Central Europe (ISO) to get the Czech names to display correctly.) Prague Walk is actually a route I'd highly recommend. It goes

• Staroměstské náměstí (Old-town Square),
• Karlův most (Charles Bridge),
• Malá strana (Little Quarter),
• Pražský hrad (Prague Castle).

Something not in it, but is great if you can manage it, is

• Petřín (Petrin Tower).

The Petrin Tower is the little pointy thing on the hill in the Hradčanské náměstí (Castle Square) view from the Prague Walk tour. You get a great panoramic view* of Prague from its top. If your friend likes shopping, there's the Carrefour shopping centre in Anděl (Angel). It’s right by the Anděl metro station

You should try to eat Czech food. The traditional Czech dish is vepřo-knedlo-zelo (pork, dumplings and sauerkraut). For slightly posher nosh, you could go with duck, goose or rabbit in a sauce and again with dumplings.

Here’s a good interactive map of Prague. Click on the largest square next to “Velikost mapy” (size of map) to make it bigger. Zooming right in will give you aerial photographs. Public transport is frequent, reliable and cheap. Here is the Prague public transport website. And, there’s a nice guide for Prague at octopustravel.com’s Travel Guides.

Alfie_E

LB1985 wrote:

...boat trip...

If the trip is anytime soon, this might not be possible. The rivers of Central Europe have a tendency to be a little bit full, as the winter snow melts.

catch22

http://www.pragueexperience.com/index.asp

If you want to take pictures of the bridge etc it really is worth getting up early(before sunlight) I took some lovely pictures once daylight appeared, too many tourists otherwise.

Buy the tram/metro/bus card. 1,3 or 7day available. One day is 24hours and costs £2, can buy at the metro stations or tobak shops. Bus 119 from the airport to the last stop and then metro to centre costs 50p, there is a kiosk in the airport that now sells the tickets (ticket lasts 75mins) so you only need one each.

Outside of the centre, tend to find resturants tourists don't visit and are therefore extremly cheap. Getting lost has benifits.
Don't be afraid of places that look so, so Czech, actually there are some in the centre that are both cheap and cute.

I agree alot with what cheesy.mike has to say..

Hope you both enjoy yourselves....

stu_iow

We Stayed at the Golden Sickle Hostel, rooms were clean and nice each had its own kitchen area and breakfast (well rolls and butter) was included, it was about 15 mins from Old Town and closer to the shopping area. Cost about £10 a night so nothing special.

In terms of food, most places are nice but Charles Square area is more expensive for food and drink. Keep away from the English and Irish pubs (unless you want that thing) as they are a bit tacky and full of stag nighters, also food and drink is a lot more expensive.

Finally, drink the local beer its really nice and was about 60p a pint. Bottles and well known beers were about the same price as they are here.

If you dont want to spend a penny, then just walk around there is so much to see without the expense of going in to places of interest.

Enjoy.

zenmaster

Charles bridge is due to be under repair from around May onwards. I think the plan is to close one half for repair at a time so that there is still access. This means it will be twice as crowded to cross. Still worth a visit though.

SarahCampbell

Beautiful place but couldn't believe how much graffitti there is EVERYWHERE! Food delicious, beer cheap as chips. Locals weren;t the friendliest but would def go back.

sam_rhino

cheesy.mike wrote:

I can't offer advice on a cheap place to stay as I always spend a fortune at a star hotel near the office. However, for eating and drinking I would go to almost any restaurant in Prague. They are all fantastic. The food is good, the beer is good and that is all you need to know

Just promise me that you won't go with the British "stag night" attitude which is becoming all too prevalent in Prague. Treat the locals with respect, tip well and be polite. Enjoy the bargains and don't treat people like sh*t just because they earn a lot less than you. Prague is a wonderful city full of wonderful people (half of whom are the most beautiful on the planet!!!) so enjoy it.

Mike

An easy promise to make! It's only in the last few years that I've been on package tour holidays. When I was younger my gran had a place in Spain, and I've got Spanish relatives, so I had no idea people behaved like they do abroad. Makes me pretty ashamed to be English sometimes!

sam_rhino

Thanks loads everyone. I've been through the links, the photos are excellent.
I can't wait. I'm getting sooo excited :-)
We go on Thurs 20th for 5 days, so we're going to take it slowly, potter around and just enjoy being away for a bit.
It looks like the Easter Markets will still be on, so I can indulge lots :-)

Big grins :-)