Brno / Prague - march '12

My second trip in '12, a combined weekend trip to Brno, my first time over there, and Prague, visiting that city for the eleventh time in less than five years. Here's a little review!

Friday 9^th of March

An 8:00 flight from Eindhoven Airport caused us to get up way too early, since we had to take the local bus at 6:15 in order not to miss the flight. Although the flight had quite a lot of turbulence, getting three seats for two persons is always good and 1,5 hour later we landed at Brno Turany Airport, one of the cutest airports I've ever seen. But given the fact I was in one of the three planes that would land there this day, it made sense Brno doesn't really need a big airport. 

Brno Airport

After landing we bought our bus tickets to Brno's central station and about 20 mins later we arrived at the station where we put our luggage in a safe for a couple of hours and tried to change our e-tickets for the train for regular ones, not the easiest thing to do with Czech machines, but we managed!

Off to the small city center for a meal and to explore Brno for a while. Getting a meal was really dirt cheap, 2 decent meals, both with a soup and a soda just set us back 8€. After that we went out to the highlight of the city, Spilberk Castle, where climbing the mountain immediately reminded us not every country is as flat as Holland ;)

The center of Brno isn't really big, so after Spilberk we just strolled through the old center, checked out some shops and got ourselves some food and drinks (pivo!) for the 3 hour train trip to Prague. We arrived in Prague around 16:30 and decided not to take public transport to our hotel but just walk for 20 minutes, the sun was shining and I really doubt if the hassle of searching for the tram stop and buying tickets would get us there any quicker.

Brno from Spilberk Castle

The hotel room

Our hotel was pretty nice, nice size room with a big bathroom on a good location! Nothing to complain about! After some refreshing we went for a meal and some beers in the city before falling asleep quite early. The plans I had to meet with some friends living there were ruined by the early flight ;)

Saturday 10^th of March

Going to bed early means getting up early, so we did have a lot of time to explore Prague for the second day and started with a breakfast next to the river before taking the 'obligatory' walk across the not yet fully crowded Charles Bridge.

After that we walked over Old Town Square, avoided the big crowd waiting for that clock at 10 before the hour and try to checkout the Jewish Quarter, on a sabbath! So that turned out to be a short visit. The rest of the afternoon we spent as we could have done at home, shopping, lunching somewhere (Hermelin!) and bowling, pretty nice as I like to explore every day's life as much as the famous sites in a city. A little detail, overall I beat my girl by 3 points or something, hooray for me!

In order to be fit for the night to come we took a short nap before getting some food at the Vietnamese restaurant near our hotel and went to the Crossclub with a friend of mine. Still one of the weirdest places I’ve ever been! Strange lights, random machines upside down on the roof and so on. Anyway, had quite a lot of beers there and afterwards we went to one of the houseboats on the river for some more! At 4:00 we went home so we could see some more of the city before getting home on Sunday.

Cross Club

Cross Club

Charles Bridge

Bowling in Zizkov

Sunday 11^th March

Slightly hungover, we bought a breakfast at the big Tesco close to our hotel and headed to the Petrin-funicular to get a view of the city from the hill on the other side of the river. As we arrived on top of the hill we decided to pull the 'show any pass with pic on it and say you're a student'-trick to get some discount and climbed Prague's answer to the Eiffel tower, Petrin tower to get a view of the city. After that it was time for the last goulash and pivo and 2 hours before our flight would leave, we took the public transport back to Prague Ruzyne Airport for the flight to Schiphol.

Prague from Petrin Hill

Prague from Petrin Hill

Financial overview:

Flights: EIN – BRQ / PRG – AMS	€ 60,00
Public transport in Brno / Train Brno – Prague / Public transport in Prague	300 CZK / 12€
2 nights in a decent hotel in the city center	650 CZK / 26€
Bowling, entrance for Petrin tower, entrance for Cross Club	350 CZK / 14€
Going out for a quick lunch, for warm lunch 3 times and dinner twice	1000 CZK / 40€
Drinks in clubs and bars, food and drinks bought at supermarkets etc.	650 CZK / 26€