Prague

Since James and I are in Vilseck, Germany right now, we decided that we'd go to Prague seeing as how we are a lot closer to it here than we are in K-town (Kaiserslautern, not sure if that's spelled right). So we did just that and this past Saturday we went to Prague. Neither one of us really knew anything about it so we both did a little research (James did WAY more than I did) on it so we'd know what we wanted to see while there. And so our adventures continue...

We started on the road at about 8:30am-9am or so and because the road system in Germany is a bit screwy we got kinda lost but not really. We ended up back in the town that we started from and this was using GoogleMaps mind you, so instead of continuing to try and use those directions we busted out our Tiger On Tour map book and went from there. No more getting lost after that, at least not until we got into Czech Republic and closer to Prague. When we crossed the border of Germany and Czech Republic we were told that we had to buy an autobahn ticket so we could drive on the roads there. It was kinda funny 'cause the guy we talked to, I believe was Czech, and we asked him in German if he spoke English...follow that? Right so before we left to get the highway or autobahn ticket we heard the guy say to someone he was standing with something about us being American. Oh well, what are you gonna do!

Alrighty, we're on our way again and we were fine until we got closer to Prague. We'd read stuff about driving around the city and it was recommended that we not do that but instead take a park and ride thing, whether it be a bus, train, taxi, etc. So we did that and had a hard time trying to find the station we'd tried to map out. Tack on another 45mins of wandering around and we actually arrived in Prague right around 12:30pm. Somewhere along the way James read something in our "Best of Prague" book that most shops close at 1pm on Saturday's, not encouraging...

We found however that most shops were open, we looked around a few for trinkets and souvenirs and didn't really find anything that jumped out at us. We walked around some more and found a HUGE square with all kinds of ornate buildings and lots and lots of people. We also found some people with horse drawn carriages there and decided to take a ride on one, it was most exciting! I love carriages, they're so romantic! Anyways the carriage ride took us around a small part of the city and showed us the way to the palace or castle of Prague.

The way to the castle was quite long and up a very very long set of stairs that were crowded with street vendors and people going both up and down the stairs. James and I stopped at one of the vendors because they had some cool looking leather bracelets that caught our eyes. I ended up getting one that James picked out for me, it's pretty neat. The castle itself was quite spectacular. Think of the most medieval looking structure you can picture, put all kinds of ornate paintings on the front, gargoyles on every corner and more, add beautiful, aged architecture and now amplify that by 100% and that's what it looked like! Amazing! I don't think our pictures will do it justice, though it seems pictures never do!

After that we walked around some of the shops that were near by still looking for some souvenirs, again not really finding anything. Then trekked back down the stairs, I almost fell a couple of times 'cause the stairs were made of small cobble stones that were very smooth and I was only wearing flip flops, no traction what so ever! But it was definitely much nicer going down the stairs than making our way up them! :-P

We found our way to the Charles Bridge which is lined on both sides with great statues of, I believe, saints and people who were famous in Czech Republic. I say I believe that's who they were statues of simply because we couldn't really get close to any of them 'cause there were SO many people! This bridge was also lined with all kinds of street vendors, people painting portraits and musicians playing traditional Czech music. It also provides you with a great view of the Old Town Square as well as the castle. If it hadn't been for the throngs of people I think I would have enjoyed it much more. I have a people phobia sometimes when it comes to large crowds of stupid people...

Anyhow, that was basically our trip. We were both pretty pooped after all the driving and walking around in the heat and people, so we went back to the train station, rode it back to our car, got in our car and went back to our hotel. It was a really nice trip though. Oh and, Heather, Prague says to tell you hello back! ;-D I do miss you girl.

Okay so I just found out that some of my info is wrong. Like the building I thought was the castle was instead the cathedral that's inside the castle walls and the music that I thought was traditionaly Czech music was actually Jazz music...oh well. I only went for the pretty architecture and photo ops, well not really but James definitely knew more about it than I did. You can read more about our trip on his blog. I forgot about our grumpy man at the park and ride too!