Exploration
Spending eight days in Prague meant that we had a fair amount of time to explore the city. As it was, there were still more we could have done. I never quite was able to talk Sean into going paddle boating in the river, for instance. The holy grail for any traveler is finding places where you are the only tourist in the room, without feeling like you are invading the local people’s secret place. Of course, being that you are a tourist yourself, you never can quite achieve this all of the time. Not that you necessarily would want to – there is a reason why there are hundreds of people walking across the Charles Bridge or touring Prague’s two castles. (Which, by the way, are more fortifications rather than castles. I have yet to fulfill seeing the Disney-like image of a castle I have in my head in real life). But sitting in a restaurant surrounded by people who are from anywhere but the present location, eating food that someone deemed tourists would like and pay money for, is typically not our cup of tea.
So to help us find interesting places outside our guidebook, we relied heavily upon the website Spotted by Locals. A friend of our friends in Paris told us about it while we were there, but Prague was the first time we checked it out in a more in depth fashion. The whole premise of the website is to spread the spotter’s love of their cities with visitors by sharing their favorite places. You can read the entries online for various cities across Europe, or download a city guide to use offline.
Some of the places are ones that we already knew about or would have found anyway, such as the walkway by the river with views of the Castle, or Lennon’s wall, but the suggestions often gave us a different perspective when visiting.
Others overlapped with recommendations from our hotel, such as Bio Zaharda, a cool organic coffee shop, or Clear Head, one of the best vegetarian restaurants we have been to any where in the world.
Many of them were things we may not have known about otherwise: the French patisserie St. Tropez, tucked away in a shopping complex; the intimate coffee shop Al Cafetero, where we had delicious small meals and coffee from a vacuum pot; or the little Italian cucina Osteria da Clara, where we had our anniversary dinner. (Incidentally, I am convinced that Italian is better the closer you get to Italy; must eat my way through Italy someday).
Of course, nothing beats wandering across a funky or cool place all on your own. Maybe it is something undiscovered by tourists, maybe it is something you just happened to miss when reading about the city. Either way, you never know what you might find: a chill neighborhood bar; a vineyard with surprisingly good wine and excellent views of the city; or a peaceful park with meandering peacocks.
Amy and Sean are the new Rick Steves!!!!