To celebrate our 2nd wedding anniversary, we ventured out to our first country whose native language is not English or German – the Czech Republic! However bravery is not needed when visiting Prague (or Praha) – everyone we encountered spoke English (and often German too).
Prague was a fantastic city to visit. It is one of our favorite cities we have been to in Europe (including all the cities we visited in our month-long Europe tour after college). Happily or sadly, depending on your point of view, it looks like many others think the same thing. It was filled with fellow tourists! Some are worse than others (it isn’t fun being caught behind a throng of elderly people following a tour guide), but it also made us feel safer and more comfortable knowing most people on the streets were just like us – visitors.
We arrived by a non-stop bus which was fabulous – think coach bus, not public transportation bus. Surprisingly it is the quickest and cheapest way to Prague from Munich. If you take a train, you will have at least one connection, which makes it the slower option.
Our first stop was to check out the Old Town square, which was right by our hotel. Here we saw the Church of Our Lady of Tyn and the Staromestska Radnice – which houses an ancient astronomical clock (the Prague Orloj). It was first installed in 1410, which makes it the oldest still-working astronomical clock in the WORLD!
We ventured down to the Powder Tower, where I found I am too short to cut it in a Medieval army (there goes my lifelong dream).
The next day we joined every other tourist in Prague and ventured up to the Prague Castle. Here is a story of how NOT to be a tourist. The Prague Castle requires a ticket to enter the buildings, and there are two types: short and long visit (you get access to more buildings with the long visit). As we waited in the incredibly long line for the one cashier, we read the giant sign that explained the tickets and settled on the short visit. Let me just mention this is translated into 8 different languages. The lady in front of us spent a lot of time staring at the ticket explanations, and reading her guidebook. We assumed she must really be debating the long or short visit, and looking up all the buildings in her book. When this woman makes it to the sole cashier, we hear her ask for an explanation of the two tickets!!! I mean, the line is out the door, she HAD to have read that sign 10 times, she read her guidebook the whole time, and she has to take up extra time at the ONE cashier to ask this? My tip when traveling – please just be aware and courteous to all the other fellow travelers and locals. This greatly reduces your chance of encountering rudeness.
Ok I am done with my rant. Back to the castle - it was pretty amazing. The building with the impressive spires is St. Vitus Cathedral – gorgeous! We also visited St. George’s Basilica, the residence areas, and the Golden Lane (the last I could have skipped).
The castle is built on a hill, so it offers some of the best views of the city. We bothered three different people to take our photo, until we found a couple from Boston that took the winner. Another tip for travelers – if you are on the picky side of how the background looks in a photo of you and your companions, look for someone with a fancy SLR-style camera. They typically take better photos than people with point and shoot cameras. And if you have an SLR, they already know how to work them.
Next marks one of the largest turning points of my life. May 26th, 2012 will be marked as the first day I tasted trdelnik – a traditional sweet bread that is popular in the former Czechoslovakia area. This is the best thing I have ever eaten. It is basically dough that is wrapped around an iron pole and baked over a fire. It is then rolled in a cinnamon/nut mixture, and at this place they would fill it with Nutella if you asked. Oh I asked. My mouth is watering just thinking about this.
Moving on (for my sake), we headed out on a mission to find the ‘cool wall’ that Noah spotted from the top of Prague Castle. After wandering the curvy streets for a while, we found it. It is in the Wallenstein Palace Gardens, and up close it was even ‘cooler’ looking than I expected it to be. If you look, you can spot a face in the wall.
We ended the night back at the Old Town square for dinner outside. This was becoming our favorite place to eat. Great people watching, plenty of café’s with seating outside, and wonderful weather. We also tried the ”real”/original Budweiser. Anheuser-Busch copied this beer, and later in a Budweiser trademark dispute, the original Budweiser gave up the North American rights to the name.
Sunday we planned to visit the Jewish Quarter and check out the Synagogues, but sadly they were all closed for Shavout. We were really looking forward to the Jewish Cemetery, which looks really cool from photos. Instead we settled on seeing the outside of the buildings and shopping for Christmas ornaments in the Mother Mary and Santa filled stores (yes, IN the Jewish Quarter – the only place we saw them).
With the day now free, we simply strolled around the city and bought 2 more trdelniks. The steps at the end of Nerduova street was a great place to sit and eat and people watch.
We also chose to take a dinner cruise down the Vltava River on our last night. Noah found a flyer for the Jazz Boat, and it was soon decided this was the cruise to take. We had a nice table by the window, listened/watched the live jazz band, and ate a three course meal. It was a great way to end our anniversary weekend.
Noah woke up early Monday before we left to take some amazing sunrise photos. He was debating whether or not to do it when we realized that we have sunrise pictures from our honeymoon in Hawaii, and sunrise pictures from our first wedding anniversary in Lake Tahoe. If he stopped now, it would end a potentially awesome tradition (awesome because I am not the one waking up early – though to my credit I did in Tahoe). So I will leave you with a few of his best shots.
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