Prauge 8/19/08-8/23/08

...cont. from Berlin Post
So Brittney and I hop on our train to Prague after getting into the wrong car, who knew the numbers would repeat themselves? We settle in with our four German seat mates and get ready for our crowded 6 hour ride. This was a particularly enlightening ride, culturally speaking, because we learned that some Germans have an extreme fear of shoes touching where you are going to sit.

Brittney, just recently recovered from major foot surgery (her foot was pretty much not attached to her ankle) and all the walking we had been doing made her ankle swell up a bit. so she elevated her foot by propping it up on my seat. The women sitting next to me freaked out about how unhygienic it was for her foot to be on the seat even after we explained why Brittney needed to do this. We transferred Brittney's foot to the other side of me and there was silence in our cabin until our four seat mates got off in Dresden.


We were relieved that we could have some space and stretch out for a bit and this is when we learned that the lady's real fear was not Brittney's "unhygienic" foot, but what her "unhygienic" shoe could potentially put on the seat. As I see it, in America where we would be grossed out by putting our bare foot on an unhygienic train seat, the lady thought we were contaminating the seat by our shoes. Our butts, that would be touching the seat are hopefully covered by clothes, so I think I'm sticking with the America way of thinking on this one.

So anyway, we enjoyed the rest of train ride by sleeping and taking in the scenery. Germany is pretty, looks a lot like, say Iowa, rolling hills, lots of fields, modest amount of trees. I'm guessing this is why so many people of German heritage transplanted to places like Iowa. When we crossed into the Czech Republic it was more mountainous and very pretty as our train followed a valley stream. We also had more visitors to our little compartment. Including some kissing children that Brittney and I both raised our eyebrows at, but maybe we are just getting old.

So the first picture is when we get off the train in Prague and feel completely overwhelmed by the rush of people and our lack of knowing where to go. But, NEVER FEAR, we figure it out and head on the metro to our hotel.

Brittney and I walk around our neighborhood a little bit, but neither of us can stay awake and we decide to take a nap. We wake up just in time to grab some salty food from the hotel restaurant and go back to bed. We chalk it up as a travel day and get ready for tomorrows new adventure.


We begin our adventure at Prague Castle (Prazsky Hrad in Czech) we entered through the second courtyard to stare at St. Vitus' cathedral. The first building on this site was built in the 9th century and replaced with Romanesque Archetecture in the 12th century (can you believe how old that is!) With St. Vitus' Gothic style arcitecture started in 14th century. The other buildings inside the wall of the castle were built in 16th and 17th century styles. It is really something great to see.
















































Here I am trying to get in through the back door because the line is crazy at the front. No Luck!

Lots of People and beautiful buildings everywhere. We also saw some extremely beautiful stemware in a store here that was made using 17th century techniques. Brittney and I made the hike back to Prague castle on our last full day here so I could buy some for my mom and myself. We didn't see anything like them in all of our Prague shopping.



The views from the back entrance of the castle were equally amazing! Prague is so beautiful you actually get desensitised to it. To know that some of the apartment buildings in Prague really rival some our our most beautiful buildings is humbling .

Here is an example of how pretty and ornate the buildings can really be.

We then sat down for what we truly hoped would be an excellent meal after having a sort of gross continental breakfast at the hotel and a super salty dinner the night before. ...and we did. We ate at a little place that had a pre-fix menu and tables made out of the bottoms of old sewing machines.

I had the beef goulash. Now that looks very different from the North Dakota version! It was really good and those white disks are bread dumplings.


Brittney played it safe in case mine was truly awful and got the chicken risotto which was more of a chicken and rice.







We then walked around to the front of the castle gates called the first courtyard. The sculptures that greet you there make me think that they were not always so nice to each other.





















This leads to Hradcany square which is a big open area full of extremely beautiful buildings, including the Schwarzenberg Palace that has black and white triangles all over it and looks kind of like Asian meets renaissance. Very cool. My guide book told me this motif is called sgraffito facade and it was built in 1719.

This area also includes Loreta which was a building covered in angels.

We started out the next day farther north in the city at the Jewish Cemetery. Another sad place, but very interesting. Jewish people were buried her until the 1800's and they buried people one on top of another, The stones look so mishmash because stones that were associated with people who were buried earlier were pulled up and kept in place with the newer burials. I guess it is a prayer or a sign of respect to put a pebble or a note on the headstones because many of the sites had numerous pebbles or bits of paper placed on them.

We then headed to the Old Town square, this is me informing Brittney what we are suppose to be learning while we are in this area. I figure everyone already can tell I'm a tourist so there is no reason to try to hide it.

Around the corner is the astronomical clock. It tells you everything from what phase of the moon we are in, to zodiac symbols, to the regular time. Now if I could just figure out how to read it...


We then climbed Petrin Hill, which Brittney will say was our second time climbing the hill, (We took a wrong turn on day two and walked the northern half of the hill) so I had to convince her that this side would be more interesting and totally worth our while. It wasn't much more interesting , but we got this picture for Brittney's mom (she loves pink and her daughter so this was a good combo). We also got some ice cream and Brittney got a chance to really try out her new ankle by running down a very steep hill (I took the stairs next to the hill, that Brittney apparently didn't see) She did very well regardless.

We spent the evening on the Charles Bridge, which every guide book tell you is a must. It was extremely pretty. We came, we saw, we conquered and we shopped!

Brittney diligently downloads our days photos in our hotel room. We also got to see so of the Beijing Olympics while in Prague because that was the only English speaking channel on the tube.

We spent our final full day south of the city center following a walking tour in our guide book. Which was a tour around the grounds of Vysehrad. A castle built in the 10th century. It is said that this settlement was the first to really hold in the area and really established what was to become Prague. It was abandoned in the 14th century when Prague Castle became the strong hold.






Very cool looking sculptures of the people of the day and the Cathedral of St. Paul and Peter were really the sites to see. As well as, the Vysehrad Cemetery where famous Czech people and their relatives are buried in very elaborate grave sites.




















We also found an area that was growing grapes. Brittney jumped the little wall to grab a couple (she found them to be a little sour). Then we turned the corner and saw a much easier place to grab one or two. I thought they were very good.

We left the castle and headed down to the Vltava River walkway to see, well the river, and the Cubist houses that line it. Neither one of us was impressed with this form of architecture and I don't think we thought that it even warranted a photo.

But I did find a little outcrop of rock. I took a picture of the hill to show Jonathan that I looked at some Czech geology on my vacation.













This was Brittney's reaction to it, "OK, you can take that photo, but no more wasting film on uninteresting things." And here is the face that went along with that comment.

We continued on and found the "Dancing Building" It is suppose to be reminisent of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astare. I think they did a pretty good job with it. It is so much more modern than any of the buildings around it, but somehow it fits.












Next we embarked on our real adventure. The guide book recommended this little restaurant about a block away from the Dancing Building. It was said that this place had great local fish and seafood a decent price. We hadn't had any sort of fish on our travels so we thought what the heck. The place didn't have an english menu so the waiter read it to us. Very nice of him. And we both decided on the daily pre-mix menu of grilled trout with potatoes, crumpets with berries and espresso for dessert.

And here is what we received! Brittney was such a trooper and did her best to eat it, while covering up the head with a piece of lettuce. She only got mad at me when I said the tail was really good and Brittney said that that is not appropriate take for the dinner table. We finished as much as we could and then the waiter brought out two giant desserts of thick pancakes and hot berries. Way too much, the waiter was disspointed in us that we did not finish it, but what do you do. We drank our espresso and Brittney got her second wind and then some. She was actually kind of hyper and silly for the rest of the day. See whole fish wasn't so bad even if he looked like he could take a bite out of you at any time.


We ended our day by going back to Prague Castle and checked out the Royal Gardens that we missed on our first day. I really loved the Arboritum they had at the back of the gardens.










This tree is actually self pruning! It creates these large knots over the location where the limb was to protect it self from infection. I thought it was cool anyway...











Here is hyper Brittney sliding down a "Yeah to the fall of Communism" Monument.

















And me finding some nature on the streets of Prague.














And I think this is a really true picture of Prague. 17th century arcetecture and a Budweiser sign welcomeing you to take part in every part of Prague.



We wandered around and saw some more random things and got back to the hotel kind of late to pack up our things, as we were going to have to leave for the airport at around 4:00 in the morning for our 6:30 flight.

We tried to stay up all night, but sleep got the best of us and our 3:00a.m. wake up call we ordered was very welcome.

We had a semi-scary moment with our taxi (that is the only transportation we could take at that time in the morning). Prague guides really warn against crooked taxi-drivers, but we did everything that they suggested. We had the hotel order it and had a set price, but when we were driving, it seemed like we were in the middle of nowhere and he could just drop us off and take off with all our stuff or just take us anywhere because there was nobody to be seen for miles. Thank goodness, however, he just brought us to the the airport and the price he gave us was 200 crowns less than the quoted price. So no worries.

We finally got on our plane to for a short jont to Frankfort and then had an ungodly layover for our flight to Atlanta. Let me tell you I was so ready to get back on America soil. We finally crossed the big blue without problems and Jonathan was there to pick us up. We ate at the US Cafe in Smyrna to commerate our long awaited return and shared out journey with Jonathan.

Glad to be back...