After four blissful days in Amsterdam it was time to move on to a city I was very much looking forward to visiting, Prague. I had wanted to travel to Eastern Europe for well over a decade, specifically to the Czech Republic. The region always held a certain mystique for me and when we began planning our honeymoon I knew I wanted Prague on our list of destinations.
That desire coupled with the fact that the Prague Opera was performing Bizet’s Carmen, an opera I had long loved, dictated that we hop on a plane to spend a whirlwind of a 36 hours in Prague. I knew it was a lot of traveling to do for very little time in a destination, but I was determined to experience as much as Prague as I could. Ideally a snow covered Prague.
You know the old adage “Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it”? Well, Prague offered a shining example of just why I ought be a little more careful about what I wish for. Leading up to our trip I was very vocal about wanting to experience cold weather and snow. I packed long underwear, I carried a wool pea coat across the ocean with me, I was prepared! Or so I thought. It turns out that nothing could have prepared this LA girl for Eastern European temperatures and snow.
We arrived in Prague at dusk and dropped our bags off in our charming little attic apartment before venturing out to explore the city on foot. We wound our way through the streets and found ourselves in Old Town Square right in the middle of an outdoor holiday concert. Between the candy colored buildings, the Christmas decorations still adorning the streets, and the choral music it felt as if we were living in a dream.
Despite the 22 degree weather we walked for miles and miles, meandering through the medieval streets of the city for hours before stopping for dinner at a highly reviewed Mexican restaurant, Agave, and eating possibly the best Mexican food of our lives. (That is no exaggeration…the food was THAT fantastic.) Sufficiently stuffed and exhausted from a day of travel and walking we packed it in for the night, eager to get up early the following morning to the looming possibility of snow and a jam-packed day of sight seeing.
Early the next morning we headed towards Prague Castle. It had dropped an additional five degrees and the clouds looked heavy with snow. Halfway across the Charles Bridge I got my wish and the most delicate of snowflakes started to fall. It was stunningly beautiful to be suspended between the original and new sites of the city surrounded by a flurry of white.
As we reached the other side of the bridge and began our climb to the castle the novelty started to wear off a bit. What I had conveniently forgotten about snow is that when it first begins to fall it initially turns the ground into a sheet of solid ice. This is especially true on centuries old cobblestone. We essentially ice skated our way upwards towards the castle, falling multiple times along the way.
When we finally reached the top of the hill the snow had begun to fall in earnest and we were thankful to escape first into St. Vitus Cathedral, then into the structures on Golden Lane dating back to the 14th century. At that point the temperature, snow and incessant wind were getting to be a bit overwhelming. As we climbed the steep, narrow stairs of the buildings things took a turn for the worse.
I can’t pin point where it happened, but all of a sudden I couldn’t put any weight on my leg. I tried to walk it off but was in what I can only liken to “screaming pain”. It quickly became clear that I had suffered some sort of knee ligament injury and that getting back to the city was going to be incredibly challenging.
It took us hours to get down the slippery, steep cobbled streets of the castle, across the bridge and back to our apartment. I had discovered by then that I could kind of swing my right leg along and hobble along flat surfaces so we persevered and headed back out for the opera. I had traveled to Prague specifically to see Carmen and refused to be stopped by a blown out knee.
Carmen was the experience of a lifetime. The production value and talent of the opera singers was unlike anything I had ever seen. It is an opera close to my heart and one that I listened to countless times throughout my piano training. Having it brought to life in front of me to such perfection was a dream come true. Even though I was in intense pain it was a performance I will never forget.
I’m saddened that our time of Prague was so marred by undesirable circumstances. Regardless, I’m incredibly thankful to have visited such a beautiful, historical city and look forward to returning at some point in the future. In the summer.
