Our trip to Prague is a difficult one for me to write about, because if I am being completely truthful, I do not remember all of it.

That is not because Prague was forgettable. Quite the opposite. It was a place I had wanted to see for years—one of those cities that had always lived somewhere on my travel bucket list. But we visited during one of the darkest periods of my life, when I was well into my addiction to alcohol.

At that point, alcohol had a way of working itself into everything. Where we went. What we did. Where we ate. How long we stayed somewhere. What happened next. Travel, which had always been about curiosity and discovering somewhere new, had slowly become filtered through something else entirely.

Am I ashamed of that?

The answer is yes and no.

Yes, because I know I missed things. I missed moments, details, and probably entire pieces of Prague that I would remember differently had I been fully present for them.

But I also cannot completely regret that version of my life, because I would not be the person I am today without having lived through it.

As I write this now, I am gratefully sober. There is something incredibly meaningful about even being able to sit here, look back at photographs from that trip, piece together the memories I do have, and write about them. I suppose that, in itself, is another blessing.

I do not want this story to become the story of my addiction. I could probably write an entire book about that—the years I was sober before this, the decision that maybe I could handle having a drink again, and the realization that followed that I absolutely could not. Like so many people who struggle with addiction, I convinced myself that this time would somehow be different.

It wasn’t.

But what I know now is that I could not be happier with the person I have become.

And somewhere inside that larger story is Prague.

From what I remember—and from the photographs that help fill in some of the spaces—it really was a beautiful city. Prague has an old-world quality that makes it feel almost untouched in places. Cobblestone streets wind between historic buildings, church spires rise above red rooftops, and elaborate architecture seems to appear around nearly every corner.

We spent most of our time exploring Old Town, wandering through the historic center and taking in the streets, squares, and buildings that give Prague so much of its character. Even through the haze of where I was personally at the time, I remember thinking that the city had an incredible amount of charm.

We stayed in an Airbnb in the city, and unfortunately—or perhaps very predictably given where I was in life at the time—there happened to be a casino right next door.

Let’s just say we may or may not have made a few visits.

A casino is probably not high on most people’s list of culturally enriching things to do while visiting Prague. Looking back, I can laugh a little at the absurdity of traveling all the way to one of Europe’s most historic cities and somehow finding ourselves repeatedly wandering into the casino next to our Airbnb. But it also says a lot about where I was then. I was physically in Prague, but I wasn’t always fully experiencing Prague.

Food was another part of the trip that didn’t exactly win me over, although I will save most of that story for our Food Journey section.

I will simply say this: I was not a fan.

Considering my Slovak heritage, you might think there would be some ancestral instinct buried deep inside me that would suddenly awaken over a plate of Central European food.

There was not.

Apparently, heritage does not automatically come with compatible taste buds.

There is also a particularly ridiculous Prague story involving a Starbucks and a bathroom, but that deserves its own place in the Funny Moments section. Some travel stories are reflective. Others involve desperately searching for a restroom. Prague managed to give me both.

We visited in May, and I remember being surprised by how chilly it was. Thankfully, Prague’s outdoor cafés seemed prepared for people like us. Many had heaters and blankets available, which meant we could still sit outside, wrapped up under a blanket, watching the city move around us.

One place that does stand out clearly in my memory is Waldstein Garden. Hidden away from the busier streets, it felt like stepping into a completely different side of Prague. We wandered through the beautifully landscaped grounds and came across a white peacock, which seemed almost too perfectly placed for the setting.

Then there was the Dripstone Wall—a strange, dark, artificial wall of twisting shapes and formations that looks completely different from the elegant gardens surrounding it. It was one of those wonderfully unexpected travel finds, the kind of thing you might never associate with Prague until you suddenly find yourself standing in front of it.

There are pieces of this trip I wish I remembered better.

That is probably the hardest part of looking back.

Travel gives us a limited amount of time in a place, and normally I want to absorb as much of it as possible—the streets, the people, the photographs, the strange little moments that become stories years later. Knowing that I wasn’t completely present for some of Prague is something I have had to make peace with.

But perhaps that is also why this particular journey means something different to me now.

The photographs survived even when some of the memories didn’t.

They remind me that I was there. That there were beautiful moments mixed into the difficult ones. That life does not divide itself neatly into good chapters and bad chapters. Sometimes you can be standing in a beautiful European city while privately going through something incredibly dark.

And years later, you can look back from a completely different place.

Prague will probably never be one of those trips I remember perfectly.

But maybe it doesn’t need to be.

For me, it has become a reminder of how much can change between the person who stands in front of the camera and the person who eventually looks back at the photograph.

I may not remember every street we walked or every place we stopped, but I know exactly how different my life is today.

And that might be the most important thing I brought home from Prague.