Prague

Our flight to Prague was late at night on Friday. We got to the hotel, checked in and went to bed. The next morning, we had our breakfast and discovered that Prague was beautiful and the weather was perfect. We saw the castle and spent about a half a day there, stopping for the worst meal we had, basically a ketchup sandwich that was supposed to be a chicken panini.




While still in the castle area, we saw Golden Lane, where Franz Kafka once lived with his sister.



After we left the castle we walked a bit and stopped for some apple strudel that was PERFECT.


Several tour groups stopped in front of us providing a great view of multiple butts.



We then toured St. Nicholas and bought tickets for a concert of classical music and song.


We continued our walk and saw the Charles Bridge with its many street performers, including a guy playing an Australian horn that sounded totally cool. There were street vendors and accordion players and tons of tourists enjoying the fine weather.





Leaving the bridge, we went to our concert at St. Nicholas (and nearly froze to death in the church). We tried a restaurant recommended by one of our many guide books and had roast duck, beef goulash and onion rings. This meal was way better.

The next morning we ate our hotel breakfast which included delicious coffee and pastries. Then we were off to the Loreta Shrine, which was again near the castle. This place was really pretty, and had a bizarre history and several samples of idolatry of the Virgin Mary. It also had a treasury room with priceless religious artifacts and papal clothing and shoes on display.


We went to the National Museum next, and it was massive and had endless zoology, paleontology and an expansive collection of minerals. AKA BORING. We breezed through and made our way back out to city life, looking onto Wenceslas Square,


and moving on to the Municipal House. We took a look around the Art Nouveau settings and had a sidewalk cafe lunch - more goulash.




After lunch, we went to the somber Jewish Museum and saw the heartbreaking cemetery of 12,000 Jewish laid on top of each other in many cases, 12 deep in places. It was melancholy but oddly beautiful.



After the cemetery, we headed for the ever-popular Astronomical Clock in Old Town Square. We perched ourselves in the perfect spot at another sidewalk cafe where we had very expensive drinks and a great full hour of people-watching. "Death" (a skeleton with a bell) chimes every hour in a flamboyant display of disciples marching through windows and a rooster crowing to top it off.



We walked back over the Charles Bridge to Kampa Park, where we had a nice walk along the river and went to dinner at a restaurant on the river.



We hung around until dark, when we got great views of Prague at night. The bridge with the castle in the background was so pretty at night, it didn't even look real.



The next morning we had another hotel breakfast and went back down to the river for a boat tour. The tour was slightly disappointing, as there are not many sights along the river, but it gave our barking dogs a rest from all the walking.


After the boat trip we wandered around the Mala Strana area and then ate some lunch. Our waiter was grumpy. We then tried to find a palace garden but instead stumbled upon different gardens that made their way up to the Castle wall. Although there were many stairs, the view at the top was more than worth it. We took a million pictures and just sat staring at Prague. Again, perfect weather and a delightful view gave us a welcome and picturesque break.




In desperate need of coffee, we made our way to Wenceslas Square where we got coffees from Starbucks and sat people watching again.


Prague is a great place to watch people. We saw a small church with old ladies saying lots of hail mary's, walked through a garden, shopped at H&M and headed back to the hotel.

We ate KFC at the airport (because there was nothing else) and caught our late flight back to Dublin. Karen and I had a great time and we laughed A LOT.