Czech This Out

After Amsterdam, it was onto Eastern Europe to Prague. Everyone from all walks of life seem to love Prague...so I definitely wanted to check it out on this trip. It was a 14-hour train trip, so we opted for a night train from Amsterdam to Prague. We envisioned a lovely night trip, complete with a restaurant car and a comfy bed...boy, were we wrong.

We slept in a "room" on the train with 4 other people. So that would be six adults in about a 5 x 7 room.The beds are called berths, and they are about half the size of a twin bed. I described it to my sister as sleeping in your own coffin. Delightful. And then, they didn't even have a restaurant or anything close to it. For a 14 hour trip, shouldn't there be some sort of law? Must Have Delicious Food for Ridiculously Long Rides. They had a stationary cart with one choice of sandwich. We were less than thrilled. I can't imagine that first class was all that better, it's not like they had food that we didn't have access to. AND there was not a sitting option. So we got on the train at 7PM, and it was like, get horizontal for the next 14 hours and don't move. Craziness.

Do you see the frightened look in my eye?? :)

So we got to Prague at 9:30 the following morning and went on the search to find our hotel. Every country we go to we have to get acclamated to its transportation system. After staying in two hostels, we were ready to stay somewhere nice. So we booked a 4-star hotel in Prague, and it was wonderful, the nicest place we've stayed in yet. What's sad is that we paid the same amount for the bong-residue Flying Pig hostel as we did to stay in this beautiful hotel. Just shows you how over-priced Amsterdam can be.


We pretty much relaxed the first day in Prague...we weren't well-rested after that night train. I got to Skype with my sister so that was really great. Then we had dinner at this restaurant near the hotel. Czech food is really good! And so is the beer.





At Stare' Mesto (Old Town Square) in Prague

 The next day we ventured out for some sight seeing. We headed into the 1000-year old Stare' Mesto (Old Town) of Prague. The buildings and cathedrals that surround the square are beautiful and very well-preserved.

There's also the famous astronomical clock that rings in the hour with the skeleton of death emptying the hour glass as the apostles march around a little tower. If that sounds weird, don't worry, it is; but crowds gather every hour to watch it and we did too.

Skeleton of Death, Astronomical Clock

Astronomical Clock

Fleur with the entire Astro Clock

We took a little video of what the clock does when the hour changes if you're interested!

The Vltava River runs through the city, and the Charles Bridge that runs over it is the city's greatest landmark.

Charles Bridge over Vltava River

We crossed over the bridge and headed toward Prague Castle, one of the world's biggest castles. This area is called Mala Strana. We had to walk up many stairs to get to the castle, but it provided beautiful views along the way. We were a little frightened by all the stairs at first, as we had already walked quite a bit to get there....
 
 

Are you kidding me??

Just jokin, we're good.



Getting use of our tripod that we bought in Bruges---best purchase ever!



 
 
The leaves are starting to change, and it's gorgeous. The castle grounds is of couse on hilltop and guarded. We learned that the current Czech president resides there.

Prague Castle

 


We also saw the exquisite St. Vitus's Cathedral, which we think was built around the year 800, but wasn't complete finished until 1929. It is quite a sight to see. We walked all around the thing, it was the size of a small town. We would have loved to have seen the inside, but they were closed for the day.

St. Vitus's Cathedral (one side of it)

Another side...

Yet another...

Then we played around in the royal gardens...

Can you find the Williams??

How about now?

Here's a few hints :)

After more idiocy, we headed back to the area of our hotel and thought we would eat at Legenda (the restaurant we had eaten at the night before) again since it was so good and had such good prices. But unfortunately, they were completely full with no hopes of anyone leaving. We weren't sure what to do for dinner, as there aren't a ton of restaurants in the area. Another thing we liked about Legenda was that they had a non-smoking section.



Josepheus, Patron Saint of the Hunt



Prague at dusk

Our hotel has a nice restaurant, and although it was more expensive, we figured it would be good food. It was delicious! I had this seared pork in sauce with sauerkraut and dumplings, and I started with this traditional Czech potato soup. Both were very good. Joey's dish was the best though: it was sirloin in this creamy pumpkin sauce with fresh cream and cranberry sauce---it was an early Thanksgiving! It was so yummy. Then I had apple struedel and Joey had this HUGE bowl of ice cream with warm raspberries. We were really glad we came back to hotel for dinner.

Portrait of a Czech Family

Prague was really lovely, I am definitely glad we came! But so soon, it's time to say goodbye. We are on the train to our next destination: Austria.