Prague

I'm going to start this with a disclaimer... any pictures I show are going to be from google. I'm working for the week (so I'm not at home) and I forgot my camera on the table when I left Tuesday morning. So. No great Kirsten photography, only great photos for me to steal (and I mainly do it just to give you a visual). But I am trying to pick out google images which are very similar to the pictures I took.

This weekend we went to Prague. I can honestly say Prague wasn't really on my "to-do" list. In fact... I'm not sure I had any inclination to go visit Prague. But. Jimmy went to Prague a few months ago and loved it. He hasn't stopped talking about his trip. He also tells me at least once a week, "You HAVE to go to Prague." His pictures were beautiful, and I will admit I became a bit curious. So I did some research and decided Prague could be a good long weekend destination. With my new resurgence of "We have to go do stuff!" attitude, I decided Memorial Day weekend would be a prime time to take advantage of an extra day off and go visit.

I had estimated it would take us about 6 to 6.5 hours to drive to Prague. Knowing this, I decided we would leave early Saturday morning instead of leaving Friday night. We got up bright and early on Saturday day and were on the road by 5. We cruised along with no problems, and I figured we'd arrive in Prague around 11. I was wrong. Instead we got to our hotel around 1. What should have been about 6 hours turned into 8. There were areas along the way where we got bogged down with construction (typical)... but about an hour outside of Prague traffic came to a complete standstill. We never figured out why exactly... but we sat for awhile... in the heat, in Josh's car with no air conditioning. It goes without saying that we were both a little cranky.

When we arrived I was a bit pleased with myself and my online research and booking. Jimmy had recommended a hotel to us, and originally I planned on booking a room at that hotel (because I take recommendations seriously). But when the time came to make a reservation it was too close to our trip and the prices were way more than I wanted to pay. I spent some time online and came across a botel. Yes, you read that right. A botel. It is a boat which is permanently docked on the river and has been converted into a hotel. I was a bit nervous the hotel may turn out to be terrible... but it turned out well. It was located in a perfect spot to walk everywhere, and since the boat was on the river it actually helped to keep our room cooler during the day (as we had some wonderful warm, sunny days).

We spent our first afternoon in Prague walking around and trying to get oriented. We made our way to Old Town and the main town square in Old Town. If you've ever seen a picture of Prague, this is probably one of the areas featured. There is a large square which has two large, beautiful churches on two sides of it. On one end of the square is the old town hall with the Astronomical Clock. The clock is beautiful (interesting design) and it goes off each hour. When it goes off there are figures which move as the hour is chimed. After the hour is chimed, there is a bugler (a real, live, human bugler) who is at the top of the town hall who plays a particular tune out each of the four sides of the tower (so the same song four times to announce the hour). It was neat to see, but there were throngs of people around the clock each hour, making it hard to see and annoying to try to pass through.

In the middle of Old Town square there was some sort of cultural celebration which had different singers and dancers performing representing different countries. We bought a beer and watched for awhile. We have been spoiled with beer in Germany... the beer in Prague wasn't so great. Still better than most American cheap beers, but not great. We moved on and wandered towards St. Charles Bridge. This is a beautiful bridge which has towers on each side of it as well as many statues lining the length of the bridge. It was full of vendors selling artwork and trinkets.

After crossing the bridge we made our way uphill to Prague castle and the cathedral. The cathedral and the castle are right next to each other, and although they call it a "castle" it doesn't really look like much of a castle. However, I loved the cathedral. The dark color and gothic style reminded me of the cathedral in Koln, which is one of my favorite cathedrals. We wandered around the outside of the castle/palace grounds and around the cathedral. The castle/cathedral are on top of a hill, and they provide amazing views of the city. Prague has a lot of buildings with green copper domes, and many spires/towers. It is a photogenic city. We took a lot of pictures of Prague from this vantage point - some of which I will have to share when I get back home and back to my camera.

We made our way back to Old Town square and decided to watch more of the festivities. We had a "traditional" Czech meal of fried potatoes, ham, and sauerkraut. I am not at all a sauerkraut person. I have never liked it. However, in this instance it was pretty tasty. We went back to our hotel (botel, ha ha) and had some wine on the upper deck before calling it an early night. We were tired after getting up so early!

The next morning we walked to New Town. New Town, as you can imagine, is newer than Old Town. New Town has more museums and a lot more shopping than Old Town. We didn't have any particular plans for what we wanted to do... we were more just trying to see what there was and take it all in. We walked around more of the city, kind of at a loss for what to do. The sun was shining, and it was getting hot. We decided to take a river cruise. There are tons of river cruise boats running along Prague, and we thought it could be a neat way to sight see... and possibly a bit of a relief from the heat being out on the water. As it turns out... the cruise was pretty stupid. We opted to take a two hour river cruise. Although we had some great views and picture opportunities, we didn't see anything more than what we already had. We also discovered the only reason the cruise lasted for two hours was because the boat had to go through a set of locks twice... which lead to about 40 total minutes of idle time.

Our last evening we had dinner at our hotel, which was beyond delicious. It was also fun to sit on the highest deck of the boat and watch the water traffic pass by. We waited until it started to get dark and then ventured out to wander around Old Town/St. Charles Bridge. I had heard (and seen pictures online) of how beautiful Prague is at night when it is lit up. It is true. Prague is beyond beautiful at night. These google images are WAY better than any picture I got... and really pictures can't do it justice.

In the morning we decided to visit the zoo before leaving. I've said before, and I'll say it again: Josh and I have a thing for zoos. I can't explain it. It must be our inner child. We enjoyed ourselves at the zoo and then decided since it was close to noon we had better start the long drive home. It was a long drive home... another 8 hour drive home. We got stopped in traffic on the way home, only this time it was in Germany. Maybe traffic jams on a major road is just par for the course on Memorial Day weekend, no matter where you are.

I'm glad we went to Prague. Prague is beautiful, and it is a unique beauty. I like the style of architecture I saw in a lot of the major buildings. I now understand why so many people enjoy this place, and although it wasn't on my radar before, I'm glad I went.