*Warning: This is going to be a super LONG post .....
I just want to start off by saying that Todd and I both really loved Prague. I think it was definitely the highlight of our whole trip. The most I had heard of Prague was that it had an great night life which is one of the main reasons why we went. Turns out we didn't even experience it, but I'm perfectly ok with that. We had an incredible time and I never realized that there was so much history and culture. There is so much to see we could have easily turned our 2 full days of sightseeing into a week.
Our first day of vacation started bright and especially early (because we stayed up way too late). This was the day that we had our first outing with public transportation. Not only did we take the train (many times), but we started the morning with a bus ride. Because we didn't know anything of what we were doing in relation to the bus or train, we opted to play it safe and leave earlier than normal. We left our place to walk to the bus stop outside of the base gate at about 5:50am. All in all our first bus ride wasn't so bad. The bus was clearly the better decision out of what was available for us (paying to leave our car parked at the Hauptbahnhof, taxi-ing, or waking up even earlier to walk the 5km). I had been warned by the front desk person that taking the bus would be at our own risk, but now it seems a little silly that she said that. We ended up leaving so early that we had to wait around at the train station for about an hour before our train came. Lesson learned.
We also learned quite a bit about the train system too. Its definitely easier than I though it was going to be. On our first leg to Prague we were lucky enough to sit in seats that weren't reserved. We had no idea what a reserved seat looked like until we saw someone make another passenger get out of their seat after the having sat there for most of the journey. Its seems alittle silly to reserve a seat on train, but I guess to each their own.
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| ICE Train, which means its supposed to be a "fast" train. This wasn't our train, but our's looked exactly like it. |
Our first train took us to Frankfurt where we had to change trains. While we were waiting Todd wanted to take a stroll around town. As soon as we walked outside we realized it was way to cold so I just snapped a couple of pictures and then we headed back inside. We stopped at a Starbucks so I could get some hot chocolate. You would think that the menu would have been translated to German, well it wasn't. It was the normal American menu except the sizes (klein = small, gross = large). I just though it was a little weird to hear all these Germans ordering Starbucks with me completely understanding them (kind of).
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| Outside Frankfurt Hbf |
Our train from Frankfurt took us to Nurnberg where we hopped on a bus for the rest of the trip to Prague. The bus was only supposed to take us about 3 hr. 45 minutes, but we hit traffic right as we got into Prague so I actually have no idea what time we finally got in.
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| Random church we passed in Nurnberg while on the bus to Prague |
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| Apparently Czechs really love Lexus or else they just have a ton of advertisement. |
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| View coming into Prague while still on the bus |
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| I couldn't figure out what this guy was doing except having a hard time gettting up on the curb. |
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| Spring is officially in bloom! |
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| Insdie the Prague Train and Bus station |
We were on our way after collecting our luggage, exchanging money, and finally figuring out how to get onto a street with a sidewalk we were on our way. Finally. For the most part the whole time we were in Prague we walked. Once we made it there we realized that every country seems to have its own way of spelling Prague (English version). In Czech its spelled/pronounced Praha and in German its Prag. Who knew. We also soon noticed that Czech is A LOT more difficult to read and say. Which in turn made it a lot harder to navigate and figure out if we were walking in the correct direction. Its safe to say that we walked in the wrong direction at least a handful of times.
On our way to the hotel we passed by this building, the
National Museum. It is a natural history museum that has permanent collects devoted to archeology, natural history, mineralogy, anthropology, and numisismatics. Its located at Wenceslas Square, which at one was a horse market that later turned into the site of the Velvet Revolution. We had the museum on our to do list, but just completely ran out of time and energy.
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| National Museum |
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| Looking down Wenceslas Square fom the National Museum |
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| Outside of our hotel, EuroStar David |
Once we got to the hotel we relaxed for a bit and then headed out for some food. We were lucky enough that there were all kinds of small bar/restaurants within a couple of blocks from our hotel. We ended up eating at a place called
U Bubenicko (they had a food sign with written in English which was super helpful). The Czech Republic is the original producer of the Pilsner Urquell, so we of course had to drink like the locals and have one (or two). To compliment our beers, Todd ordered Goulash (Guláš), I had Garlic soup (Česnečka), and we shared Chicken Pate (Kuřecí paštika) and bread. This was my first time to have both goulash and chicken pate. I must say that they were delicious! Who would have thought I would have liked chicken liver ... certainly not me. A little random fact that I learned while there is that Czech typical eat pancakes as dessert. After dinner we headed back to our hotel and pretty much passed out from being so tired. Our final bill included 5 beers, goulash, garlic soup, 2 bread baskets, chicken pate, and a service fee/tip came out to be 357.00CZK ... translation = less than $24. How cool and cheap is that?!
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| Yum |
Our first day of sightseeing was really a long day for us, I think we saw about 75% of everything we wanted to see. We had mapped out our plan of attack, making sure to hit all the major touristy stuff. After all, that's really why we were there.
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| A random church along the way |
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| Jerusalem Synagogue - built in 1906 |
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| These signs were all over the place |
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| Municipal House - the largest concert hall in Prague |
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| This mosaic is supposed to be a "Homage to Prague" |
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| The tower attached to Municipal House - all the tiny angels have bronzed wings |
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| The top of a bank |
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| Swarovski - I thought it was cool that the doors were lined with crystals |
While we were there Prague was having their Velikonocni trhy, Easter Market. The Old Town Square was covered in all kinds of Easter decorations, food booths, and souvenir booths. There was even a stage set up for performances. We saw one we a bunch of teenage girls, but I don't have the foggest clue what it was about. Some of the pictures below show the decorations. The food available went from brats to beers to Czech traditions such as a Trdelnik (a hot sugary pastry - DELICIOUS!). A lot of the items sold are actually hand-crafted. We ended up getting an easter egg ornament that is hand painted with a picture of Prague on it.
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| Old Town Square |
In my opinion, one of the prettiest things in Prague was the catholic church, Church of Our Lady Before Tyn. Turns out its not near as big as St. Vitus's Cathedral inside the Prague Castle, but I still really loved it. I think the main reason why is its located in the Old Town Square and I just thought there was so much there. Now that I just typed that reason out, I'm not sure that its really valid considering there is just as much or more to see at the Prague Castle. So basically, I'm not sure why, but I just really liked it. It was absolutely gorgeous on the inside and unfortuately for y'all they didn't allow pictures. Sorry. We ended up going there 2 different times. The first it had just closed for visitation for the next hour (or so, I can't remember exactly). So, we went back which just so happened to correlate with the church doing the Stations of the Cross. I can say that it was a first and more than likely a last, but Todd and I participated with the Stations of the Cross in Czech. Sadly I didn't understand a single a lick of what they were saying, but it was still a pretty cool experience!
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| Church Our Lady Before Tyn behind an art museum |
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| He was hand making dice! In this picture he was adding the dots to one of the sides of the dice |
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| Easter Market & Church of Our Lady Before Tyn |
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| I have no idea. |
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| Church of Our Lady Before Tyn ... again |
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| It was pretty chilly. |
One of the things that is most prevalent in the Old Town Square is the Astronomical Clock. To give y'all a good idea of how incredible this clock is here's a description I found ....
The clock was first installed in 1410, making it the third-oldest astronomical clock in the world and the only one still working (except while we were there). The clock mechanism itself is composed of three main components: the astronomical dial, representing the position of the Sun and Moon in the sky and displaying various astronomical details; "The Walk of the Apostles", a clockwork hourly show of the figures of the Apostles and other moving sculptures - notably a figure of Death (represented by a skeleton) striking the time; and a calendar dial with medallions representing the months.
Majorly unfortunately for us, as I said above, the Astronomical Clock was "Out of Order". It wasn't until I mentioned to Todd that I thought the sign that was up by the clock was such an eye sore that he pointed out to me that it said the clock was out of order. Whoops. If we ever go back to Prague this clock is a MUST see for me. I'm really interested to see "The Walk of the Apostles".
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| The Astronomical Clock - notice the eyesore sign |
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| Boo. |
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| They had the whole area blocked off for these 20(ish) cars that came through for someone important. We never figured out who it was though. (Picture: important car going through road block) |
Later we toured the Jewish Quarter. History shows that Jewish people living Prague had a rough (to put it mildly) time starting as early as the 13th century. They were ordered to vacate their homes, banned from living anywhere else, and all settle in one area. Prague contains some of the best preserved buildings of Jewish historical monuments in all of Europe. Prague still has six remaining synagogues, including the Old-New Synagogue and the Spanish Synagogue, the Jewish Town Hall, and the Old Jewish Cemetery. We chose not to go into the Old-New Synagogue, but we did go into the Spanish Synagogue. We were prohibited to talk pictures inside the Spanish Synagogue, but it was absolutely beautiful. It has been described as the most beautiful synagogue in Europe.
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| Todd outside the Old-New Synagogue |
The Old Jewish Cemetery was established in the early 15th century. The oldest tombstone which marks the grave of a poet and scholar is dated back to 1439. Burials took place in the cemetery until 1787. Today, it contains around 12,000 tombstones although there are many many more buried here.
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| Old Jewish Cemetery |
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| This statue was outside of the Spanish Synagogue, but I can't remember for the life of me who it is ... |
Back to the Easter Market!
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| I have no idea what this guy is playing, but it sounded lovely. |
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| I have no idea, except it isn't real. |
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| Booze to go?! I think Prague has more booze on street corners than Cheyenne did!! |
We stopped for a photo op of the Prague Castle (see Prahe Part 2) on the way to the Torture Museum.
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| Prague Castle |
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| I want to bring back the peace sign, so I keep telling Todd to do it. |
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| Random souvenir shop. Who wants a chandelier? |
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| The Jerking - a long time ago this was considered "Light" torturing |
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| Ouch. |
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| Its blurry, but a real Chastity Belt |
Our last stop of the day was to take some pictures of the Prague Castle (see Praha Part 2) and cross over the Charles Bridge. The Charles Bridge crosses theVitava River. It is often considered to be one of the most astounishing civil gothic-style buildings in the world. Its decorated by an alley of 30 statues oringinally erected around 1700, but have all been replaced. The statues are various saints and patron saints from the time. One of the most notable statues is the one of St. John of Nepomuk. If you want to read his story click
here or click
here for his legend. According to legend you can touch his statue for good luck. I clearly didn't do good enough research because we touched the wrong thing.
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| Powder Tower |
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| Touching the wrong thing for good luck. |
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| St. John of Nepomuk |
Our very last stop for Day 1 (can you believe it, we are finally finished!) was the Lennon Wall. Since the 1980s, its been filled with John Lennon-inspired graffiti. It was used as a grievance wall for young czechs and is still completely covered today.
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| Enjoying some candy we got at the Easter Market |
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| Lennon Wall |
So I lied, our last stop (which happened to be about 200 meters from the hotel) was the Dancing Building. Its the only building like this in Prague (obviously). It was originally named Fred and Ginger after Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers because it resembles a pair of dancers. It has also been nicknamed the "Drunk House" which in my opinion seems a little more fitting.
The close to our night ended with the Krizikova Fountain and Light Show. Todd found out about this online with only rave reviews. It was AWFUL!!!!! Well it took us about 15 minutes to get there by cab which should have been our first sign of bad news. Our second sign should have been the fact that there was a carnival there that NO ONE was at. Sign #3, they jibbed us on ticket prices - since we didn't have Czech Koruna, we paid in Euros which they charged us extra for. When we walked into the stadium it was dirty & pretty much empty (sign #4). Just as we decided to that we were leaving (early) the show finished. To make matters worse, we didn't really know how we would get back since there were no taxis coming by. We ended up taking a bus (illegal since we didn't pay) and getting off at the metro stop. We were going to take the metro back, but they only took small Czech bills which we didn't have or were able to get from an ATM. So, we ended up walking back, the pretty much the full distance (5 kms). I'm super lucky to have a husband that has a good sense of direction, because if it would have been up to me we would have walked in the completely wrong direction. We finally made it back to our hotel area about 10:30pm or so to find one bars around the corner still serving food. We ate, drank, and enjoyed our food only later to be joined by a bunch of older English men (except one that's Welsh and they made sure to remind him of it constantly) in Prague for a Stag party and a Rugby game. They were quite a hoot and definitely made the end of our night a lot more entertaining!
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| Crap fountain show |
Again, sorry its so long. I promise the rest of this trip won't be anywhere close the length of this blog. If you don't want to read it I certainly wouldn't blame you. If it were me I'd probably just look at all the pictures!!
