Heading to Prague (Praha)

The train options for Prague were 5:40 am and 1:40pm, so we slept in a little in our sterile, "Holiday Inn"-esque Nurnberg hotel. Hotel breakfast wasn't free, and it wasn't cheap either ($10ea), so we headed over to the old town section to check out a breakfast place called the Literaturehaus per Rick Steve's recommendation. It was a nice little place...we tried reading the German menu, and it must have been obvious that we were struggling with it because a waiter came by and brought and explained everything in English. Good thing because one of the choices we couldn't figure out was salmon and caviar and we would have never translated the scrambled eggs selection, which is what we both ended up getting. Pretty good meal --with coffee we probably spent 8-9euro each, but better food and atmosphere (open air) than the hotel. Afterwards we went back to the hotel, grabbed our bags and checked out. In the lobby we spent an hour choosing and booking our Prague hotel, then headed to the train station.

Travel to Prague took 5+ hrs, so we didn't arrive in the city until about 7. The walk to Stare Mesto (old town) took about 20minutes, and was slightly confusing due to crappy maps that we had. We went directly to our hotel, which was a block off the main square and only 55 euro a night when booked online. The entrance was strange due to shared premises with a huge disco downstairs, so it took a second to figure out where the hotel actually was. The room was actually pretty large, clean and one of the nicest to date. I'm not sure how we got that price, because if you just walked in, the price was over 130euro a night. ??? Who knows. We got a great deal for that quality and location. We ditched the bags and headed over to the main square, which afforded fantastic views of a cathedral and the clock tower. We decided to suck it up and spend the $$ for a meal directly on the square. We both chose typical Czech meals --Kevin had beef and potato dumplings and I had some form of sausage. Kev enjoyed his more than I did, and neither of us were fond of the price: ended up being close to 800 crowns (about $40 US, included 85crown .3mL beers). Location location. Then we walked the stunning and popular Charles Bridge that leads to the lesser quarter and Prague Castle. The bridge is lined with religious statues, mostly saints, and afforded spectacular views of Prague Castle and the mansion estates on the hills, as well as a good view back towards the old town. After being touristy and taking lots of photos, we walked back towards the old town and searched for a good pub to drop into. Being ~30yr old American guys, I think Kevin and I were prime targets for just about every person trying to sell, promote, and solicit. We were offered everything from drugs to concert tickets to trips to caberets. Made the town seem pretty seedy. Always felt safe though, because there were plenty of people out and about--just annoyed. Not immediately finding anything worth going into (or anything at all that was open for that matter), we called it quits and hung up the shoes for the night.