Prague, Praha, Prag
Okay…no keyboard hell today, yay! yyyyy, zzzzz and all in the right place…will wonders ever cease.
So, as I was saying…Prague…
The week in Prague with Katie passed pretty quickly, jammed packed as it was with sight seeing and so forth…especially window shopping which I never knew my sister had such a predilection for.
We walked all over town taking in the sights…Prague Castle, Old Town Square, Charles Bridge, The Powder Tower and so forth. We even made it to the zoo, and took a little side trip to Kutna Hora, to see the creepy bone church.
After recovering from jet lag with a rather well deserved nap, we hit the town. The first day we didn’t accomplish much, just a little self guided walking tour and dinner before passing out again.
On Tuesday we hit Prague Castle, a much further walk from our hotel then I originally thought, oops. We walked through the old town, across Charles Bridge and up the hill to the castle.
We ended up wandering the complex for awhile looking for the actual entrance, but saw a bunch of nice buildings along the way…don’t ask me what, but they were nice.
As mentioned, a pretty, unnammed building
We just got a standard ticket because it was later then we expected, but that got us into St. Vitus Cathedral and crypt, the Old Palace and Golden Lane, a tiny street of fairy tale houses (which is really just shopping, however cute it is.)
A house on Golden Lane -it took me 10 tries to get this shot with no tourists wandering in
In the Cathedral we climbed the 286 stairs to the lookout tower…a weird boy-heated, sweaty climb on a seemingly endless spiral staircase that made me silly dizzy…even more so coming down. It was completely worth it though, Prague laid out before us all red roofed and spired, the Vlatava River curling like a languid snake through it all. Gorgeous stuff…
Wednesday we tried to locate Prague Market (like a flea market) to no avail. It’s somewhere in the northern part of the city and I could tell you what tram to take, but damned if WE found it. Our backup plan was the zoo…so we were off.
The Prague Zoo is a bit surprising. It’s HUGE, ginormous even. And since much of it was ravaged by flood in 2002 there are many glorious new animal habitats. Its the best zoo I can remember seeing. We saw elephats, hippos, gorillas, lemur, turtles, tigers, birds of every sort, lizards, snakes, orangatan, and a bunch more…and we only covered about half of it.
Elephant! So cute it’s currently my laptop wallpaper…for today anyway.
Sleepy Tiger
Funny thing…they let people bring their dogs to the zoo…and even have little communal doggy water dishes here and there. So I saw doberman, and boxers and mutts and…well you get the point.
Thursday we were off to Kutna Hora…and good thing we go up early. We got our train after a bit of confusion…nothing at the train station is in English and not many people who work there speak much of it…so it was a challenge. (Czech is hard to grasp!) We rode the train happily watching the countryside slide by: green fields, tiny houses, fields of sunflowers, everything dappled in summer sunshine.
One problem…in Kolin we should have changed trains. We realized 2 minutes after the train started moving again, consulting out list of stops, so it wasn’t so bad…but you’d think someone would have mentioned it, the lady who sold us the ticket, the information desk where we got train time or the ticket collector perhaps but no one did.
We got off at the next stop and bought a ticket back, realizing we would have eventually ended up in Slovakia if we hadn’t noticed our mistake. Our backtracking took a bit of time, but riding trains is fine by me. In the end our 1.5hour journey took about 3.5hours. Oops!
In Kutna Hora we found the Ossuary, or bone depoistory…don’t worry, I had to look it up. It’s full of bones from people who died during the plague…and since. Thing is, there’s all sorts of creepy statues and candelabra made of bones…and a chandellier that uses at least one of each bone of the human body. Crazy stuff! I kept thinking that someone had had too much time on their hands…
Skulls (kind of didn’t need a title did it?)
Coat of Arms
The base of the candelabras
The creepiest chadellier in history
The church only took about 20 minutes to see…so we had an afternoon cup of cheap (because we’re outside Prague) coffee before heading back to the train. We weren’t sure of the schedule and weren’t taking chances. It was already late afternoon.
Friday we did a beer tasting. It was utterly ludacrious…but not, probably, in the way you’re thinking. It was just me and Katie there that day, and each bottle is a liter…and we tasted 7 different beers, as well as a crazy Czech moonshine thats 50proof…and another shot when we were ‘done’…so, basically, we were drunk as skunks. The place was pretty cool, the Marquis de Sade, and it turns out the beer tasting was with the owner, though he never fessed up to it (we noticed his name on the license in the window).
Saturday…I’ll admit it: I was hungover. Katie fared better and walked around town solo purchasing some last minute window shopped desires. We had dinner in the hotel restaurant and called it an early night.
Katie had to get up at 3:30am, to get a taxi at 4 to be at the airport by 4:30 to catch a 6:30ish flight. I got to stay in bed and wish a sleepy goodbye…or at least I think I did…I may have dreamed it.
I got up at 9am, and did one more walk through Prague. I exchanged some books at an excellent little english bookstore called Anagram and hit the road.
Off to Brno for me…which seems like maybe it needs another vowel.
For now…I’m sick of typing, so I’ll fill you in on this little city later…
Cheers all…
Tags: Czech Rep.
LizG
what is it about europeans and zoos and dogs? I was at the zoo on sunday (in holland) and was a bit freaked out to see people with dogs…whats going on? I mean, if you have a dog, why do you need to go to the zoo?
Anyway, Max was terrified by the penguins….he loved the apes and was almost as into the zebras as me…I wonder what was going through his mind when he looked at the penguins?
Philip
p.s squeak…
Of course you still need to go to the zoo if you have a dog (errr, at least I do – my dog, while fun, isn’t half as cool as the big cats – sorry, Lola)!
Maybe Max was confused by all of the midgets in tuxedos?
BTW – Liz – I am here in astoundingly hot Davis, safe and sound and only 2 hours delayed in this direction. Managed to make it though a complete day of toxicology with only a few moments of covert napping.
Hey katie,
I am gonna be in boston in Sept, fancy a beer?
Philip
Philip,
I always fancy a beer. Come September, however, I’ll be immersed in othopedic surgery, dentistry and pathology (the horors of which I have no desire to think about – makes the ossuary and the cryp in Brno seem like rated G movies).
Unless you have a plan to come to CA, or are around NY when I am there (from 14 Aug – 4 Sept)…
-Katie
BTW – did you know any of my work buddies?
Oops…forgot to tell you he did…but now I can’t find the email saying who. Dan maybe?
I’m sure you’ll figure it out.
Glad you got home safe by the way… 🙂
Katie,
alas…I shall be in Boston on the 5th and have a pretty busy schedule before then..but you know I am like that bad penny…always turning up when I am least expected…
And yes I did know the guys from LITREX…in name anyway…small world eh?
Anyway, pathology sounds like a bloody nightmare so I will have to hope we can hook up for a beer another time
Philip
p.s liz: Squeak!