Adventures from my Eurotrip: A Whistle-Stop Tour of Prague

The police raids, children's activity camps and Pied Piper shows of Germany were behind us and now we were heading into what turned out to be my favourite city - Prague.

My preconceptions about Prague were hazy. I didn't have any expectation in my mind about what it would look like and the only thing I had to go on in terms of the culture was my mother's constant assurances that it was crawling with pick pockets. So, needless to say, I was a bit apprehensive when we got off at the train station in the middle of the night. Apprehension quickly turned into sheer terror.

We got off at the wrong station so, instead of getting out in the centre of the city, we ended up in a dark, semi-delapodated station in the middle of nowhere that apparently also doubled as a crack den. We didn't have any Czech coins to get on the metro and there were no taxis in sight. In fact, the only thing there was in sight was a petrol station. Bethan went in to ask for directions or a taxi number and reappeared a few minutes later with an enormous Czech man.
"This guy has a taxi!" She said.
'Oh great,' I thought. 'We are all going to die.'

By some miracle we made it safely to the hostel that night and when we woke up the next morning we were bright, fresh, and ready for more Euro-adventures.

We kicked off the day with a free walking tour, which is a MUST if you ever visit Prague. For such a small city, it has an immense history! For instance, we would never have known to seek out the church that had a decaying human hand strung up in the corner or have learned that the genius who designed the famous astronomical clock threw himself into its mechanisms to spite the king if we hadn't had a tour guide.

True, a day spent walking around the entire city is absolutely exhausting (my shoes were literally falling apart by the end of it), but we got to see all the main sights of Prague and booked ourselves a space on the trip to Kutna Hora the next morning (another must if you're ever in Prague).

As exhausted as we were after a full day of walking and learning, I insisted that we take the tour guide up on the offer of joining the pub crawl that evening. Hayleigh and Bethan protested that they were not, under any circumstances, drinking that night. We had to get up early the next morning to go to Kutna Hora and they were determined not to be hungover for it.

The truth of the matter is, no one can resist unlimited free absinthe shots and before we knew it, it was a louder, stranger, wilder version of that night in Berlin. Hayleigh disappeared into an underground ice bar for two hours with a stag party, Bethan forced some poor Irish men to take off their tops and bench press a keg, we made best friends with a group of Australians, learned none of their names, and proceeded to drink them well and truly under the table. Now there's patriotism for you.

It was at some point during this haze of a night when I met a guy who was very cute and very, very American. In fact, I seem to recall him saying that America was a beacon of hope for the rest of the world. Suddenly my thrashing of the Aussies at drinking games didn't seem so patriotic by comparison. That said, has anyone ever met an American who isn't patriotic?

After the best night out any of us had ever had (the Czechs know how to organise a pub crawl), we began the task of haggling with taxi drivers on the side of the road. Trying to find a taxi driver who won't rip you off in Prague is difficult to say the least.

The next morning we had to drag ourselves out of bed to go to Kutna Hora too see the Czech bone chapel. The story goes that in the 13th century, an abbot brought back some soil from the Holy Land and sprinkled it on the cemetery surrounding the Chapel of All Saints. Suddenly, everyone wanted to buried in that cemetery and eventually the older bodies were dug up to make space for the new ones. And what did they do with all those bones? They piled them up in the chapel or used them to make morbid decorations that adorn the chapel. Apparently the chapel contains the bones of 40,000 people!

Naturally, while we marvelled at the remains of the dead, Hayleigh got out her compact and started applying lipstick. I don't know who she was hoping to impress in a chapel full of dead people.

As well as the general tour of the city, the tour of the bone chapel and the tour of all the bars in Prague, we did a tour of the castle district. If you're ever in Prague and can't decide whether to opt for the castle tour or a tour of the city, I'd opt for a tour of the city. As much as I enjoyed the castle, tour, it didn't involve as many quirky stories as the general tour of the city.

At one point though, the tour guide asked if anyone could guess what special ingredient had been used to hold the Charles Bridge together.
"Love?" Bethan guessed with a completely straight face.
"...No." The tour guide responded, clearly not expecting such a bizarre answer. "Eggs."

Prague was by far my favourite stop on our Eurotrip. It's absolutely beautiful with crooked little alleyways and spectacular medieval buildings. It has an amazing history with all manner of bizarre stories. Plus, its' super cheap!

Next stop - Krakow.