It’s time for another hotspot! A city I visited and fell in love with: Prague! I travel a lot, right? Yes, I am very spoiled. But I’m trying to do it more sustainable and less too. I’ve been to Prague for 5 days in total and it was 30 degrees Celsius every day. However, we did see a lot of places (besides the pool haha)! Prague is an absolute hotspot! Here are all the fun and sustainable hotspots in Prague.
Restaurants
I am starting with the food, because well, I love food. However, I have noticed that it is quite hard to eat vegan in restaurants because most menus don’t show the ingredients all the time. In some cases I am not sure I ate 100% vegan, I have to be honest. Communication can be hard when it comes to veganism. Sometimes people think it means vegetarian. I had risotto of which I don’t know if it had vegan wine in it and pasta of which I don’t know it had egg in it. I am trying but I also have to be honest here.
Marina Restaurante
This restaurants has the most beautiful location. It’s a boat on a river, amazing! We even ate here twice because everybody loved it so much. Delicious food but I think they don’t have vegan options on the menu. I had bruschetta and the risotto fungi, but I ordered both without cheese. They listed all the allergens on the menu and so I think I’m good here. There was no dessert which they could make vegan unfortunately. But they serve mostly reusables, almost no single-use items. No straws for example, nice! Nice people, a good price, a beautiful location and vegan food if you ask!
Rating: 9
Café Slavia
Another place where we went twice. We had breakfast twice at this cafe. But you can eat lunch and dinner here too. It is located quite central and the personnel was friendly. I had risotto for breakfast once hah! It wasn’t the best I’ve had, but it was good. The second time I had a sandwich with hummus and some fruit. Not amazing, but okay. They did serve straws (and I forgot to order my rice milk without one).
Rating: 7


Burrito Loco
This is a place where we had lunch. I think Prague has several locations of this company. I thought the food was amazing! They had a lot of vegan options on the menu and they labelled it as vegan too (which is always nice, that extra check). I didn’t even know what to eat since they had so many options. I eventually had a burrito bowl. But be warned: the sauces are spicy! I had the medium hot sauce and that was quite a lot for me. Friends of mine ordered spicy sauces and their mouths were on fire. Be warned haha. The only downside of this place is that it is a fast-food place and so they serve a lot of waste. However, if you bring your own lunch box you can have a zero waste lunch here.
Rating: 9



Groceries
I took most responsibility for the groceries for in our hostel during this trip. Personally, I like doing this because then I have say on the waste. I took some maison jars, cotton bags, my own cutlery, my reusable bottle and a tray to make your own ice cubes with me on this holiday. I like to be prepared. It’s the best way to reduce your waste.
We brought sandwiches every day in our own bag at a local bakery. Vegetables, fruit, juice and some sandwiches filling we mostly bought at a local market. It’s good to support the local economy! All the other things we needed we bought at the supermarkets. I tried to buy as much as I could in glass and aluminium but I’m obviously not flawless. I would also like organic food but due to the costs my traveling buddies don’t appreciate that most of the time.




Bezobalu
There is one store I would like to highlight in this post! A package free shop! Yes, they have one in Prague. We went to dinner at a restaurant almost every day but one day we decided to cook ourselves in the hostel. For that dinner I went to this store to do some groceries. I had to go there! The shop is a little bit hidden. You have to go through 3 doors first to get to the shop. You also have to ring a bell to open the first one. So beware, it is actually there, you just need to find it!
Once there I stepped into heaven. A small store, but they have so much. I bought things for dinner but also some snacks for the coming days. Some dates and vegan bars. Eventually I couldn’t really make the dinner because the kitchen in the hostel was the worst I’d ever seen (the pans had no handles and I only had one knife to do everything with to name some example) and I think I bought the wrong kind of pasta. Well, that was not due to to Bezobalu. This store is amazing and my favorite of all the fun and sustainable hotspots in Prague.
Rating: 10. Duh.










Sightseeing
Charles Bridge
The most beautiful bridge in Prague. Very cool! It was however very touristic an busy. Therefore there are a lot of people who try to sell you things there. But the view is amazing, I could sit here all day!



Prazsky Hrad
This is such an amazing church! We only saw a small part of it because we were there when it almost closed unfortunately. From what I’ve seen this place is amazing, inside and out. I keep these descriptions quite short because if you search for a must-see list of Prague anywhere this church is probably at the top and there is a lot of information to be found. I’d say it is much more than a church. There is a lot to see. Nearby on the courtyard there is also a change of watch to be seen around a certain time. Quite impressive!





Petřín-watchtower
With 30 degrees Celsius it was quite a climb to make it to this watchtower. It is on top of a mountain and that mountain is very steep! But it is fun to do this and the view is definitely worth it. Gorgeous!



Traveling
Yes, this was a holiday without a plane! I was so happy about that since flying is not sustainable at all. We went to Prague by car which was about 8 hours. Not that long if you ask me and you actually see the landscape change (which I love). Flying would have been just as long since you have to be at the airport 2 hours before etc. Traveling to Prague by car is beautiful! In Prague itself public transportation is good. We used the metros and trams and it was very cheap (compared to the Dutch standards). I would suggest you buy a ticket for a certain amount of days (like 3,5 or 7). This way you’re always good to go!
The Accommodation
Chili Hostel
This was my first time in a hostel. We chose a hostel because it’s cheap. The service is therefore not that good. When we wanted to check in they made us wait on hour because the staff wanted to have a break. That was not a great start of our holiday. Some of the beds (mine) had massive steel bars in the middle with sort of broke your back while sleeping. The kitchen was the worst I’ve had ever seen. When I tried to cook for our group once I opened the fridge and there was a hump of meat just lying there, dripping and all. I gagged. The worst thing is that I saw someone eat that meat later on. The bathrooms were quite filthy most of the time. We also got a threat from the cleaning personal because we didn’t shove our suitcases under the beds. And we also had some trouble with the payment.
It was a sh*t place to be honest. But for 6 euros a night, what can we say? It sure is sustainable because they fit a lot of people in a small place. We had a room for 8 persons, 6 of us and two other people who slept during the day and were always up during the night (?). Anyhow, it was an experience I will not forgot haha. I do like the idea of a hostel because it can fit in a circular economy and so maybe we’ll try it again next time (and Air-BnB is sh*t too due to capitalism, more about that later). Just a more expensive one.
Rating: 5
These were all the fun and sustainable hotspots in Prague that I know off! Prague is amazing! Do you know any more fun and sustainable hotspots in Prague?
Yours sincerely,
Romee
Wat jammer van jullie hostel!
Toen wij in Praag zaten, hadden wij wel een superfijn hostel (met aan de overkant een winkel waar je losse wc-rollen kon kopen).
Alleen weet ik niet meer hoe het hostel heet, want iemand anders had het gereserveerd…
Ik wil eigenlijk juist niet in AirBnb locaties slapen, dan ga ik wel voor hostels en hotels. Reden is dat de woningen die voor AirBnb gebruikt worden, niet voor bewoners gebruikt kunnen worden. In Nederland is er al krapte op de woningmarkt voor normale, goedkope huurwoningen (als je afgestudeerd bent kun je amper een normale woning vinden) en dan zouden de beschikbare woningen ook nog gebruikt moeten worden voor toeristen? Als ik dat in Nederland niet wil, ga ik in het buitenland ook niet in een AirBnb verblijven. En ik doe altijd uitgebreid onderzoek naar hostels enzo online (en ik bel ze), tot nu toe geen vieze hostels meegemaakt 🙂
Reisgenoten van mij zeiden ook al dat de meeste hostels wel tof zijn, dus wellicht proberen we het nog wel eens! Ik snap je standpunt wat betreft AirBnb’s, geeft zeker stof tot denken. Ik weet het nog niet helemaal, aan de ene kant vind ik de problemen op de woningmarkt ook een kwestie die de overheid moet aanpakken, maar ik ben (zoals je vast wel weet) ook nogal van het zelf problemen oplossen! Hmmm, volgende keer maar weer eens de voor- en tegenargumenten tegen elkaar afstrepen..