Whisked away to Prague

Marlon's birthday weekend was one of the high points in my short "career" as a wife. Continuing our private tradition of birthday whisking, I decided to whisk him away to one of the most beautiful cities in Europe: Prague. 

The best part was that Marlon had absolutely no idea where we were going until we were actually inside the plane! No, I didn't blindfold him—I just checked us in online, did the bag drop myself, held on to the boarding passes and documents so he couldn't see the gate number, and shepherded him past the sign on the gate. KLM cooperated by not doing any kind of boarding announcement (surprising). I also think men can be really dense when they want to! So, to see his face light up when the purser announced our destination was a huge payoff for me. Worth every penny and every minute of secrecy!

I kept the surprise under wraps since December, when I found a great deal for a flight+hotel package on KLM. Without it, this lowly freelancer wouldn't have been able to afford three nights at the 4-star Art Deco Imperial Hotel in Prague's Stare Mesto, or Old Town. The room we got was small, but after a year of budget travel in Europe, it was such a luxury. 

It's also been a while since we enjoyed a good hotel buffet, so breakfast in the stunning Cafe Imperial (frequented by the likes of Kafka) was a real treat. 

The hotel was also superbly located, just a short walk from everything you could want to see in the Old Town, and not too far from the New Town either. Just on the same street, we found a great Czech restaurant called Kolkovna Celnice, where we celebrated the birthday boy with a very late (and very Czech) lunch of local beer and spicy sausages.

It was a gorgeous day, sunny but with a slight chill in the breeze—perfect for walking and exploring the Old Town. We passed gorgeous buildings like the Gothic-era Powder Tower...



... and the House of the Black Madonna (where there is in fact a Black Madonna, well protected, on the right), a Cubist building from 1911.

It was only a few minutes before we reached Prague's Old Town Square. Click on through to see one of the most beautiful town squares in Europe.



I'd been to Prague once before, with the Glee Club in 2001. More than 10 years later and the buildings on the Old Town Square are still as stunning as I remember them.

This is no little town square. It's expansive and grandiose in scale. 

It has not just one, but two massive cathedrals: the Church of Our Lady Before Tyn, and the St. Nicholas Church.

I couldn't remember where the famous Astrological clock was supposed to be. Then I saw this sea of people massed in front of the Old Town Hall. Of course!

It was just about to strike five o' clock and everyone wanted to see the famous clock in action.



The four figures on the clock—Vanity, the miser, Death and the Turk—are set in motion at the turn of the hour. The last time I was in Prague, the clock was being repaired. And this time, we missed it by just seconds! This means I really have to come back to Prague and see it.

There's also a trumpet player who plays a short fanfare every hour on the hour, from the top of the Old Town Hall. This is a fairly new "tradition" and is also done from one of the towers on Charles Bridge—and Charles Bridge deserves its own post.