Prague (Fall 2023)
Greetings, intrepid travelers! Today, I’m going to share the details of the second half of our Fall Half-Term trip. We started in Budapest, and then took an overnight train to Prague. In a wild turn of events, we had a truly massive delay during our journey, but ended up arriving in Prague essentially on time at 8:30 am. It was lovely.
We had been to Prague before, so we sort of had a loose agenda of what we wanted to do. Previously, we stayed at the Hotel Leon D’Oro and really liked it. The location is great (right off the main square), and the rooms are very spacious, and include a small fridge, sink, and stove. Some rooms also have balcony access; it’s a really nice set up. I’d say the two biggest cons are that the floors are like a hard marble surface, so if you have very small//unsteady humans, a fall to the floor will be more painful, and the rooms are a bit dated. But for us, the pros totally outweight the cons. You know what is important to you when you travel.
As I mentioned, we arrived around 8:30 am to the train station. We knew we wouldn’t be able to check in yet, but we wanted to drop our bags, so we headed to the hotel. It was a pretty easy 10 or 15 minute walk from the train station, and we were able to check in and store our bags. We had already been to Prague once before, so we didn’t bother with the castle on this trip, but it is really cool. They have loads to do, and you can easily spend half a day there. If you’re only making one go to Prague, definitely include Prague Castle in your plans. (We visited during our double stroller days, and I remember the access being pretty good, so don’t worry if yours are still young.)
Close up of Astronomical Tower
One thing we really wanted to do on this trip is the Astronomical Tower because it had been under massive construction and scaffolding during our last visit. Normally, we pre-book tickets like this, but we were here in early November so we just tried our luck going in to the tower for same day guided tour tickets. It panned out for us, and we got tickets for a few hours later. In the mean time, we decided to get coffee (because that night train was a cool idea, but terrible for actual adult sleeping) and walk around a bit. We walked down to the river, and down by the banks a bit. We ended up at the Charles Bridge and decided to walk across; it’s a really cool bridge. It gets more crowded as the day goes on, so I’d suggest crossing in the morning or evening if crowds aren’t your thing. There are statues on the sides of the bridge, and often there are artists and performers on the bridge as well. Additionally, at either end are towers that you can climb and see views of the city. You have to pay a small amount to climb the towers, but if you’re the tower climbing type I think they’re both worth it. The Old Town Bridge Tower has more information in it; there’s a short video about the history of the bridge that T1 and T2 loved. I’m pretty sure we watched it 3 times in a row.
After we crossed the bridge over and back, doing the towers on the both ends, it was time for our Astronomical Clock Tower tour. We did the family ticket, but I recall that when we bought the tickets they gave us a little push back on the ages of our kids. They were 8 at the time, and nothing we did was beyond them, but there are a fair amount of uneven surfaces and rooms with dim lighting, especially in the underground areas. Our tour guide was great (I always feel like guided tour guides are a bit of a crap shoot), and the tour was about an hour. Our kids were the only kids on our tour, but she did a good job drawing them into the tour.
Charles Bridge (in the morning)
While we were in Prague we also did a river cruise with Prague Boats because our small humans like a river cruise, and it was a bit chilly and gray outside. As far as river cruises go, this one was just fine. For as cool as Prague is, I felt like we didn’t see a ton of cool or unique things from the river. It started raining pretty hard afterwards, so we headed to the Museum of Bricks. It’s the largest private Lego collection, and our small humans are super into Lego, so we thought it would be a good way to fill up the afternoon. The collection was really cool, and they have an adjacent shop, but both entry fees and items in the shop were kind of expensive. For us, it was worth it because the weather was poor this afternoon, but I wouldn’t necessarily label it a must visit. If you (or your kids) love Lego, you’ll definitely enjoy it. There are some really cool models in the collection, and there’s a small play area as well, but if we’re choosing Prague Castle or Museum of Bricks, it’s definitely the Castle for me.
TL;DR: Prague is an old city with loads of history, and lots of activities for families. The biggest downside to Prague is that they lean into stag and hen dos a bit, so the nighttime vibe is a bit…rowdier than most other cities, but it’s never been a problem (too noisy to sleep or anything) while we’ve visited.