Sorry... I just had to. I even almost bought a t-shirt that said that on it. But on a slightly different note - this post is arriving way sooner than you expected it to, isn't it? It even has pictures!
Coming into Prague we had very high expectations. Most people we know that had been to Prague before us said it was beautiful and one of their most favourite destinations in Europe. That sets a pretty high bar! We arrived around 2pm on Monday, checked into our hostel, discovered a kitchen in our room (did a little happy dance) and wandered out to explore. Prague did not disappoint. It has a certain charm to it, that is rather difficult to explain in words other than "Prague is beautiful!" It didn't take us long to discover the enormous number of souvenir shops and started perusing for something to take home. What we ended up with wasn't even from a souvenir shop - and I think that is even better! We also happened across the Old Town Square, and I'd say that was the moment we both fell in love with this place. As we continued our wanderings we stumbled upon a theatre playing "Swan Lake" Ballet in half an hour. Tickets turned out to be very reasonable, so we bought some and went in! Definitely worth it, and spontaneous decisions are often the most fun!
Day two included two walking tours of the city. But first we witnessed the most overrated tourist attraction in Prague - the astronomical clock display. Every hour on the hour the statues "come to life". But keep in mind, that this clock and its display was developed in the 1400's... so at the time it was impressive. The four statues that came to life represented the four medieval fears - vanity, greed, death and infidelity. And by come to life I mean that the skeleton starts ringing his bell (signalling that death is coming) and the other three start shaking their heads. Oh! Above them, wooden doors open and the 12 apostles (wooden) make their appearance and each bless the town. A recent instalment is the live piper at the top of the tower doing the grand finale each hour. See what I mean by overrated? The rest of the walking tour included the Jewish Ghetto, a few significant synagogues and cathedrals, the municipal house, the powder tower, the estates theatre, and a few others. Very informative and fascinating!
The second tour was of the Prague Castle and surrounding area. I had expected to see a big medieval castle, all made of stone. Surprisingly, this is not the case. In fact, the oldest looking buildings are the St. Vitus Cathedral, and a few towers. The rest of the castle buildings appear to be (relatively) modern buildings. One of our stops on the way up was at the Strahov Monastery. A cool fact about this place is that the emperor had decided monasteries were really a waste of human resources since all the monks did was lie around all day. So he stipulated that unless a monastery could prove that they were providing a valuable public service, they would be closed. The Strahov monks had a private library on their land, so they opened it up to the public and added a statue of the emperor in front... thus convincing the emperor to let them stay open. Across the road is the Strahov brewery. Wait... Brewery?!?! At the time only religious centres were allowed to brew beer... which seemed odd to me. Also on this tour we saw a beautiful panoramic view of Prague, St. Vitus Cathedral, Mattius Gate, the Black Tower, Charles Bridge and a few others. The black tower is not actually black, but earned its name during the fires in Prague, in which the smoke blackened the stone. On our way back to the hostel we lingered on the Charles Bridge for a while and listened to some live Jazz musicians. Perfect way to end the day!
Since we had basically visited all the major sites in Prague the day before, Day Three became a very relaxing day. We spent the morning on Charles Bridge again, listening to a Dixieland band. We also wandered through a market on our way, and picked up the last of our souvenirs. After lunch we walked past the Dancing Building up to Vysehrad Gardens. Along the way we saw... SWANS! Many, many, many swans! Even one that had already laid its eggs and was finishing up its nest. We managed to take a few wrong turns on our way up to the gardens, but once we found our way the view made it all worth it. There was even some lovely GREEN grass... perfect for napping! We finished off the day with a typical Czech meal... I had a sirloin steak with a cream sauce and bread dumplings. We would have been content to eat in our kitchen again, but thought we'd get scolded by Branden if we didn't sample each country's cuisine at least once. Very delicious!
Tomorrow morning we board a plane to London - the last stop on our journey! Unfortunately, you likely won't get a post about that until I arrive safely home.
