Day one: The Old town and the first acquaintance with Prague

I went to Prague with a rather dangerous confidence that in 3 days I would have time to see if not everything, then at least the most important things, and in the evening I would still have the strength to sit somewhere beautifully with a cup of coffee and talk about how well I did. Naive. By the end of the first day, I realized that Prague is the city where you can go out "literally for five minutes" and two hours later find yourself in an alley, standing in front of a beautiful house and completely not understanding how I got here. But that's why I loved her.

I made up a route in advance, broke it down by day, saved the necessary places on my phone, and even had a rough idea of where I would have lunch. The plan looked very convincing until I arrived in Prague. After that, it quickly turned into a set of recommendations that I used according to the principle of "let's see according to the mood." In the end, it turned out even better than I had hoped, because the most pleasant moments of the trip happened just when I was slightly deviating from my own schedule.

Prague Chimes

On the first day, I decided not to overload with difficult routes and just went to get acquainted with the historical center. I started with the Old Town Square, because I wanted to immediately get to the very Prague that we all saw in the photos.: ancient facades, narrow streets, towers, tiled roofs, and the feeling that the scenery for a historical film had been forgotten to be removed after filming.

Of course, I waited for the famous chimes on the square. And for some reason, I decided that something so impressive was about to happen that everyone around me would freeze with delight. In fact, a crowd of people with phones gathered around, including me, and after a few minutes we went on our way to our tourist business. But it's still worth looking at the Old Town Hall, especially if you go up and see the city from a height.

After leaving the square, I purposely didn't open the map right away, but went for a walk along the nearest streets. It turned out to be one of the best decisions of the entire trip. In Prague, it is very easy to accidentally turn off a busy tourist route and find yourself on a quiet street with beautiful houses, small cafes and a completely different atmosphere. 

Then I went to the Charles Bridge. By this point, I had already managed to get a little tired, but as soon as I saw the Vltava River and the ancient towers of the bridge, the fatigue disappeared somewhere. However, there were so many people there that a romantic walk across the bridge sometimes turned into a small survival exercise: someone was taking pictures, someone was stopping in the middle of the road, someone was walking towards you, and you were trying not to hurt anyone and at the same time not to lose your phone.

Charles Bridge

But in the late afternoon, Prague became especially beautiful. The light gradually changed, the stone buildings took on a warm hue, it became calmer over the Vltava River, and I finally stopped trying to catch everything. I just walked around, looked at houses, went into small shops and periodically stopped for coffee.

In the evening, I decided to have dinner somewhere near the center. There was also a small failure here: I chose the restaurant solely on the principle of "it looks pretty," and then I discovered that my body, after a day of walking, did not want a gastronomic discovery, but a huge portion of something hot. In the end, dinner turned out to be completely simple, but after it I felt like a person who really deserved a bed.