March 2019, evening spent at Charles Bridge...
After finishing our lunch (rather late lunch) we thought of visiting one of the most famous Bridges in Prague i.e. Charles Bridge. We took a local tram to get to the bridge. This bridge is known to be a romantic walk for couples. I must say I found it really soothing to walk on this bridge. There were few old statues on either sides of it; most of them had turned black in colour over the years and one could see that some of them had few cracks on outside.
As expected, few entertainers were sitting on each side of the bridge; a guy pretending to be a standing statue and completely coated with glitter from head to toe, another one was a caricature artist sitting on a chair along with a small canvas and trying to draw a person sitting next to him through his sketch on a piece of white board. And obviously, there was a random statue where everyone was coming and rubbing their hands on to get some luck.
These kinds of statues are quite common across European countries; every such statue has a legend which has been told through generations and people just blindly follow them by rubbing hands on its random parts without giving a second thought. Assuming that all of their prayers and wishes will come true by doing so. That’s the typical superstitious nature of human beings. The funny part about all this is on all such parts of the Statue where people keep rubbing; look extremely clean and golden compared to the rest of the statues that usually turned black in its entirety. There were few African fellows selling some weird wooden showpieces too.
One end of the bridge had an entrance gate along with an entrance Tower of a height similar to a 4 storey house building. Entrance tower had a look of a Watchtower and served as a tourist attraction. Once you climb the spherical stairs up to the top of the tower, you get to see 360-degree view of the whole city. Unfortunately when we reached there, entry to the stairs leading up to terrace top was already closed.
By the way, this is something to remember about Europe. All the attractions open early in the morning between 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. and close around 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. due to lack of sunlight and also according to European lifestyle. As a tourist you need to basically wake up early in the morning and make sure that you're making the most out of your day by visiting as many places as you can before the sun goes down in the evening. Once it reaches 6 p.m. or 6:30 p.m. in evening, you can only do one thing that is having a good dinner with your loved one's or group of friends.
The bridge was still open to walk around even during night time till 10 p.m. We walked to the other side of it to see the shopping street. We walked through the mini shops and found a cafe right along the edge of Vltava river. Sun had already gone down and the weather was getting colder. I was literally shivering inside my jacket. We spend the rest of the evening there and then thought of having some of the popular street food.
We started walking through a tiny alley with small street-food stalls set up on either sides of the Lane. It was pitch dark and crowded by local as well as tourists waiting in queues in front of each stall. We could see all varieties of street food including 'Trdelnik' (the original pastry of Prague), French stalls selling crepes, local stores selling various pasta including spaghetti, penne, etc. Trdelnik was basically a round shaped-bread with an opening on both sides and empty part inside for any fillings. The original recipe had no fillings inside; while it had powdered sugar or cinnamon sprinkled on outer side of the bread. The bread had layered pattern on them, which used to come from the preparation while making the bread.
I saw one of the ladies making them from scratch by using the dough. She first started making long stripes of the dough using a small machine similar to pasta making machine. After that, she used to pick up those long stripes and circle them on a broad steel rod to get the layered shaped bread. Once the steel rod was covered with all the layered dough, she used to install the rods on top of fire constantly revolving and baking the bread in few minutes. I was interested in testing the original recipe while my GF wanted to have the ice cream filled Trdelnik. So we ordered both of them. She had Trdelnik with chocolate ice cream filling while I had the original one with cinnamon sprinkled on top of the bread. I liked it so much that I had another one at the same stall.
There were some local theatres as well organising opera shows, theatricals and music concerts. Some unique museums were lined up behind the food stalls. I saw one horror house that you typically see in an amusement park. Prague is high on tourism and hence when you walk around the streets of the city you get a sense that most of the things are there to lure tourists. Given Euro currency is strong compared to most of the other currencies globally, everything becomes super expensive for budget travellers like us. Fortunately we were carrying extra money to accommodate some last minute plans (like shopping); that buffer money we ended up paying mostly on food. Honestly speaking, everything is super expensive in Prague including sightseeing tickets for major attractions, street food, drinking water, buying a local SIM card, etc.
We had planned for watching one of the theatrical shows but it was already late in the night so we thought of coming back next day. After trying some of the local foods, almost full in our bellies; we thought of going back to our hostel and we went back.
Let me know if you liked this short story about our evening spent at Charles bridge in Prague. Do share you own experiences in case you been there already. Happy travelling!
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