Blog about travel experiences and living internationally in Abu Dhabi. Blogs on Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Ireland, England, Peru, Jordan, Egypt, Ghana, Scotland,Tanzania, Zanzibar, Belgium and Oman.
It is quite typical in the expat community to assume you will be heading home around Christmas time every year. For me it always poses a challenge as Michigan is not the most pleasant place to visit at that time of year. The way I see it I would rather buy a ticket to my home state when its actually nice out. So with that logic in hand we decided to check of the Czech Republics flavor of Christmas and visit the city of Prague for a long weekend.
The weather we experienced in Prague was quite nice, most days it was light jacket weather for the temp and mostly sunny. I'm sure you can guess if you have read a previous blog that the only reason I knew of the city was from a movie: Mission Impossible (I'll get to the scene later).
Tri Ruzi
When we first arrived we did the usual and searched for an Uber to take us to our hotel. We booked three night at the Hotel Paris which was a lovely place situated right in the heart of the city. Prague is a very walk-able city for the parts most tourists actually want to see. There's an area on one side of the Vltava river where we were staying which contains the majority of the tourist locations and on the other side you have a very steep hill going up to the Prague Castle and the Golden Lane.
Old Square - Our Lady Church
After checking in to the Paris, we started walking down the street to check out the scenery for the day. We came through some tight streets until it opened up into the beautiful old town square, which was live with Christmas cheer, music, food & drink. From the square you can see many of the wonderful sights such as a "Disney Castle" looking church called Our lady before Tyn. Across from the church you can walk through the square to see the Prague Astronomical Clock, this ornate looking clock embedded on the side of old town hall. We hung out in the square for a while before continuing on towards the river. On the way to the river a small brew pub caught my eye by the name of Pivovar U Tří Růží (The Three Roses Bar) which had great Belgian style beer along with amazing Christmas food. The menu had these sausages that were delectable, along with some amazing salads and other bar type meals.
Charles Bridge
On the Charles Bridge
After a long beer run at the Tri Ruzi we made our way back on the trail towards the the Vltava river and the iconic Charles Bridge that links the old town to the new town areas. The bridge is beautiful (and also featured on the 1996 movie Mission Impossible) which many medieval sculptures evenly spread throughout the walk. We did not make it very far past the bridge into new town as we were rather tired from the Tri Ruzi and the distance we had covered walking. So we cross back over to old town and took an Uber back to the hotel.
Grosseto Restaurant (left)
After resting up a bit we took an Uber back to the our Christmas Eve restaurant on the Charles Bridge called Grosseto Marina which had some fantastic food and wine. We did not last very long after dinner before we decided to retire for the night at the Hotel.
Jewish Cemetery
After a good night sleep we were recharged and ready for a full day in Prague. We ate breakfast in the hotel and started walking towards our first site of choice, an old Jewish cemetery which was home to roughly twelve thousand tombstones. The region is also famous for the story of "The Golem of Prague", which is an old Jewish tale about an clay figure come to life to defend the Jewish people against antisemitic attacks.
Prague Castle
Following the Cemetery tour we made our way across the Charles Bridge to tour the new town area. Our first stop was up to the Strahov Monastery, which is still a working Monastery and also had a variety of original monk beer recipes on tap in their beer hall restaurant. It is a very long steep walk up to the Monastery from the Charles Bridge so we took refuge in the beer hall for quite some time before making our way to Prague Castle and the Golden Lane.
The Golden Lane
Prague Castle is absolutely beautiful to look at from far away and close up as it sits looking over the entire city. We also toured St. Vitus Cathedral which sits directly behind Prague Castle. The Golden Lane, which sits behind the Castle and the Cathedral is an old Medieval street with very close streets representing the infrastructure of hundreds of years ago and was also the home of Franz Kafka a famous writer.
St. Vitus Cathedral
After The Golden Lane we walked back down the long set of Castle stairs to visit my movie scene part of the journey. Mission Impossible was filmed on the Charles Bridge, but one of the main scenes in the beginning was filmed around and in Lichtenstein Palace. This was a particularly cool moment for me; every movie scene I see in person is such a great experience. But Mission Impossible was one of my all time favorite childhood movies growing up and it meant a bit more when I was actually able to have a look in person. If you remember the movie, one of the scenes when they get out of the building it when Tom Cruise takes a route outside under the elevator to track his target down. If you don't remember, as always here is a little clip to jog your memory. It is a great scene and of course the film crew chose a great city and location for the film.
Lichtenstein Palace
Old Square
After I was finished having my movie moment we took a break at the hotel again before night time. We visited the old square a couple of times in the evenings which always delivered us to a very festive scene. Prague is very rich in the arts with daily shows of dance and symphony performances. We even passed by an outdoor symphony in the square along with some singers one night. We walked around enjoying the cinnamon flavored almonds and mulled wine.
Cestr (And my glass)
That night we enjoyed our Christmas dinner at steak restaurant called Cestr that specialized in its carefully sources meat locations. The highlight of my night was ordering my dessert wine that came in a tri-flute glass that was connected at the bottom. I thought it was so cool that I bought three of them (two for my good friends back in the UAE) to take back home with me.
Prague was a wonderful place to visit for all the reasons we wanted to go. I think enjoying the seasons in the city was something I could do again and that amount of time given all the options we had was perfect. The only thing we said we should have done was to pay to see a symphony or some type of show.
After I was finished having my movie moment we took a break at the hotel again before night time. We visited the old square a couple of times in the evenings which always delivered us to a very festive scene. Prague is very rich in the arts with daily shows of dance and symphony performances. We even passed by an outdoor symphony in the square along with some singers one night. We walked around enjoying the cinnamon flavored almonds and mulled wine. 
That night we enjoyed our Christmas dinner at steak restaurant called Cestr that specialized in its carefully sources meat locations. The highlight of my night was ordering my dessert wine that came in a tri-flute glass that was connected at the bottom. I thought it was so cool that I bought three of them (two for my good friends back in the UAE) to take back home with me. 
