Prague Springs Eternal Despite Tourist Crush - Pt 2
By Tom Kagy | 28 May, 2025

The medieval spell of enchantment of Prague was the first delight of our 12-day Central Europe road trip.

The next morning we walked across the small cobblestone square to the Pod Vezi restaurant for its breakfast buffet.  Our travel ritual includes securing a balanced morning meal via the hotel buffets which typically offer a variety of veggies, fruits, juices, proteins and pastries, along with ample quantities of good coffee.  But few hotel buffets are served in a setting as charming as Pod Vezi's.  The ceiling was deeply vaulted in an intricate lily shape like you might see in some Alice in Wonderland dream sequence.

The Charles Bridge is one of the world's most heavily walked bridges.

The buffet was also memorable for the vivid flavor and crispness of the freshly cut green, red and yellow bell peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes, as well as a variety of fruits and a somewhat temperamental contraption for squeezing orange juice.  The espresso, cappuccino and Americano were brewed to order by the staff, one cup at a time.  And an ample assortment of pastries were displayed to accompany the coffee.

After breakfast we strolled the 50 yards to the Lower Town Bridge Tower to which our hotel had provided complimentary tickets.  The stolid square stone tower is about the height of a seven-story building, with lookout platforms accessible at two levels.  The lower level offers a good perspective on the Charles Bridge and the Lower Town.  The upper level offers a vertiginous view of the Old Town across the river as well as of Prague Castle.  From there the tourists walking across the Bridge look like ants.

The Old Town Square near the wonderfully eccentric 600-year-old Clock Tower is the lively heart of Prague.

From the Tower we crossed the Charles Bridge again to spend the better part of the day in  the Old Town.  Our first crossing in daylight was so picturesque that we couldn't resist stopping repeatedly to record incontrovertible proof that we had indeed walked the Charles Bridge with a significant part of the human race.

On the other side of the river, as we meandered along cobblestone alleys toward the Old Square we passed all the varieties of eateries you might find in any US city, including a large ramen shop whose proprietor appeared to be Indian.  Of the shops lining our walk the ones toward which the wife's eyes tended to drift were jewelers selling garnet, for which Czechia is renowned, and moldavite, greenish translucent stones said to be found only along the Vitava (Moldau in German, thus the name of the stone) River.  Moldavite was formed from a large meteorite strike about 15 million years ago.

While admiring the Clock Tower and the Church along with hundreds of others, we were again caught in a light rain of the kind we had passed several times on the drive from Munich.  A block from the Square we found shelter in Point, a modern bar restaurant serving pizza and harissa chicken, among other options.  After lunch we did some shopping and got the paperwork to request a refund on the 20% VAT (value-added tax, an EU-wide sales tax) once we were back at the Munich Airport for our return flight.

To see a bit more of the city we made a loop by making our way to the Manesuv Bridge, about a third of a mile north of the Charles Bridge.  That gave us a chance to enjoy a stroll through the riverside park on the west bank, as well as the Franz Kafka museum.

Our walk left us too tired to venture up the climb to Prague Castle, but that evening we explored the Lower Town area just below the Castle on our way to another Czech dinner at a Pub called Roesel Bistro.  We ordered some soup, pork knuckles, beef tartare, fried cheese and salad, not knowing that each dish was loaded with enough food to serve as a snack for a table of beer guzzlers.  We did our best, but even with the help of excellent lager, left half the food on the plates.

Our Prague stay ended the next morning with another delightful Pod Vezi breakfast buffet.  We maneuvered out of the intricate cobblestone maze of the Lower Town district, across to the Old Town, then eventually onto E50 for a scenic cruise to Brno, our lunch stop, on our way to Bratislava.