From perspective of first time traveler to Europe, senior an solo. So day arrive at 11pm, train from Salzburg was an hour late due to construction on tracks. I walked the 20 minute route to hotel but am not very good at following google map directions so it took like 30. I bit unnerving walking down streets that were pretty desolate but I got to Hotel Ventana before midnight. Lovely hotel, girl loves high ceilings, fluffy robe, crystal chandelier, and view of Tyn. Included breakfast was decent, lots of pastries, some meats, cheese, fruit and yogurt.
Day 1: Intended to follow RS audio tour, started out fine, but detoured to Mucha museum. It was ok, I am a fan, so I did enjoy and if you like art nouveau I would recommend. Next stop was the Obceni Dum, uh oh, another Mucha exhibit, must go in. First the place is fabulous to look at, the decor in the two restaurants was amazing, especially the chandeliers! Ride up the elevator with an elevator person operating the elevator and I sat down in the seat provided, beautiful antique art nouveau elevator! Mucha exhibit was ok, was not that expensive.
Then I continued with the RS tour but got side tracked by the OMG amazing architecture. I basically spent the whole day just wandering and looking up.
Day 2: went on a tour to Bohemian Switzerland National Park with Bohemia Adventures. Hiked to Pravnika Gate, Bastei bridge and Kaminski gorge for a short boat ride. Caution, 100 meter ascent on hike is not 300 feet. One of the other hikers told me that un Europe an easy hike is comparable to a difficult hike in the US. This hike was rated moderately difficult and it tested me. Guide moved a bit fast for me. Hikes were ok, maybe coming from Montana and having hiked in some pretty spectacular places over the years I am spoiled.
Day 3: Did castle hill, this was great, if you go to Prague, you must do this. Then hung out in the castle district, for the rest of the day.
Day 4: Jewish quarter. So at first I did not want to pay to go into the Spanish Synagogue, but when I found out 8 had to pay to go into the cemetery I bought the combo ticket. Glad I did. The memorial to the holocaust victims was very moving. Seeing the names of all those people who were lost brought tears to my eyes. The cemetery was fascinating ( I love old cemeteries). I also thought the Spanish Synagogue was beautiful, all was well worth the ticket cost.
Day5: Half day that I used to go to the National gallery at the Trade Fair Palace ( I would not call this a palace). Primarily went to see Klimt’s “the virgin”.. I ended up really enjoying this museum. Had some Picasso and found some new artists that I was not familiar with. I liked how the artwork wad organized, seeing paintings of similar subject matter in different genre was very interesting.
Anyway, loved Prague. Also want to comment on how easy their transit system was to use, I took a tram to museum and back and was able to easily purchase ticket with credit card on the tram when I got on.