Let me start by saying that two days in Prague is nowhere near enough but is most certainly better than nothing!!!!
We arrived at the airport and got in a shuttle bus thingie to go to our hotel. Did I see a faint sneer on the face of the shuttle driver when I showed him our hotel address? Surely not! Anyway, we drive from Prague airport into the city and are just stunned straight away by how utterly beautiful it is! I can see what all the fuss is about! We drop the first lot of people off at their hotel in Praha 1 (nice, right in the centre of things!). We drop the next lot of people off at Praha 3 (also nice and central!) Then we start driving.....we drive for awhile....past Praha 8, Praha 10 (for those of you who don't know, Prague is a bit like Paris in the way its central "suburbs" are numbered. The smaller the number, the closer you are to the centre of the city. I think it goes up to about Praha 12 or so). Anyway, it was then that I realised that we weren't even in numbered city sections anymore but that they had actual names instead...hmmmm....finally, we pull up to this huge dirty aqua coloured building and I'm thinking, "maybe we're picking up people for his trip back to the airport from their government subsidised housing estate?" (I know, what a snob!!!!) but, it turns out, yep you guessed it, this was our hotel. OK, so it looks a bit feral on the outside but I'm sure it will be fine! After all, I booked a room with a bathroom and the photos looked ok on the internet. I went inside to check in and it was really dark inside. The only light on in the MASSIVE lobby was a fluro over the reception desk. "Hmmm, maybe its all environmentally friendly and on sensors!" I thought to myself. But no, movement made no impact on the gloom I'm afraid! I bravely headed for the reception desk and told them we were checking in. The receptionists were nice enough and gave us our key and told us to go up in the A Block elevator to the 6th floor. We did. When we reached the 6th floor, no lights were on up there either. It was gloomy with hideous carpet and doors which all looked like people had tried to kick them in. We got into the room finally and noticed that the bathroom was a) outside our room and another room, b) kind of feral and c) clearly not just for our use! We got inside our inner door and the room had two short sheeted single beds and was really quite awful! Made most hostels look like 5 star hotels!!!
Anyway, I'd had a mad headache all day and had been looking forward to getting to the hotel, having a quick relax and feeling a bit better so we could explore. However, being 5000kms away from the city centre and in a grotty room, I just couldn't handle it broke down in tears and said to Matt "This must be where Communists go to die". Probably not the most PC thing I've ever said but it broke the mood and we laughed and decided to just find somewhere closer and nicer to stay. I spent an hour or so looking up places in the hotel lobby on the internet while Matt had a bit of a wander. Apparently there was nothing much around except another big grotty hotel and lots of graffiti! Luckily, the room had only cost $35AUD a night and we could get a refund for the second night so I found a lovely place in Praha 1 for about $60AUD a night and we got a cab and hightailed it out of there!
The new place was HEAVEN! Clean, pretty and right in the middle of old town with heaps of restaurants, shops etc around it! We'd gone from a shite-hole to awesomeness in 2 measly hours!
Alls well that ends well and it didn't cost us too much in the end to make that mistake! Since then, I've been much more careful about checking the location and reviews of places we've booked!!!!
We arrived at the airport and got in a shuttle bus thingie to go to our hotel. Did I see a faint sneer on the face of the shuttle driver when I showed him our hotel address? Surely not! Anyway, we drive from Prague airport into the city and are just stunned straight away by how utterly beautiful it is! I can see what all the fuss is about! We drop the first lot of people off at their hotel in Praha 1 (nice, right in the centre of things!). We drop the next lot of people off at Praha 3 (also nice and central!) Then we start driving.....we drive for awhile....past Praha 8, Praha 10 (for those of you who don't know, Prague is a bit like Paris in the way its central "suburbs" are numbered. The smaller the number, the closer you are to the centre of the city. I think it goes up to about Praha 12 or so). Anyway, it was then that I realised that we weren't even in numbered city sections anymore but that they had actual names instead...hmmmm....finally, we pull up to this huge dirty aqua coloured building and I'm thinking, "maybe we're picking up people for his trip back to the airport from their government subsidised housing estate?" (I know, what a snob!!!!) but, it turns out, yep you guessed it, this was our hotel. OK, so it looks a bit feral on the outside but I'm sure it will be fine! After all, I booked a room with a bathroom and the photos looked ok on the internet. I went inside to check in and it was really dark inside. The only light on in the MASSIVE lobby was a fluro over the reception desk. "Hmmm, maybe its all environmentally friendly and on sensors!" I thought to myself. But no, movement made no impact on the gloom I'm afraid! I bravely headed for the reception desk and told them we were checking in. The receptionists were nice enough and gave us our key and told us to go up in the A Block elevator to the 6th floor. We did. When we reached the 6th floor, no lights were on up there either. It was gloomy with hideous carpet and doors which all looked like people had tried to kick them in. We got into the room finally and noticed that the bathroom was a) outside our room and another room, b) kind of feral and c) clearly not just for our use! We got inside our inner door and the room had two short sheeted single beds and was really quite awful! Made most hostels look like 5 star hotels!!!
Anyway, I'd had a mad headache all day and had been looking forward to getting to the hotel, having a quick relax and feeling a bit better so we could explore. However, being 5000kms away from the city centre and in a grotty room, I just couldn't handle it broke down in tears and said to Matt "This must be where Communists go to die". Probably not the most PC thing I've ever said but it broke the mood and we laughed and decided to just find somewhere closer and nicer to stay. I spent an hour or so looking up places in the hotel lobby on the internet while Matt had a bit of a wander. Apparently there was nothing much around except another big grotty hotel and lots of graffiti! Luckily, the room had only cost $35AUD a night and we could get a refund for the second night so I found a lovely place in Praha 1 for about $60AUD a night and we got a cab and hightailed it out of there!
The new place was HEAVEN! Clean, pretty and right in the middle of old town with heaps of restaurants, shops etc around it! We'd gone from a shite-hole to awesomeness in 2 measly hours!
Alls well that ends well and it didn't cost us too much in the end to make that mistake! Since then, I've been much more careful about checking the location and reviews of places we've booked!!!!
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