Day One
It was cool driving through Germany and the Czech Republic on the way to Prague. It was funny, there would be all these signs/ads in German or Czech and then randomly one in English. Germany had lots of pine forests, France had lots of fields, and when we reached Prague I found that it had lots of cool buildings. The bus station wasn't in the best shape, though. Because it had been hard to sleep on the bus, when we arrived at the station, a little before 6am, I was exhausted and couldn't wait to get to Nora's friend's house, where we were staying. But that wouldn't happen for over an hour. For one thing, the bus had gotten in a little early. Worse than that, though, I had told Nora's friend the wrong time to meet us at the bus station. I had assumed there was a time difference between Paris and Prague, and I didn't find out otherwise until right before the trip. Consequently, I'd had Nora tell her friend the bus would get in at 7:15, when it was actually supposed to arrive at 6:15. We had no way to contact her, so we just had to wait.We sat inside the bus station, but it was still cold. Around 7 the bus station food shops began to open. I kept watching the people who came in, wondering if each woman was Lucie, Nora's friend. At 7:30 the real Lucie came, and we took the Prague metro to her apartment (which was on the other side of the city from the bus station). Once there we ate breakfast; I was so tired I ate with my eyes closed, practically sleep-eating. Afterward I took a much-needed nap. A few hours later Nora woke me up so we could go into the city center. I was still pretty tired, but the sleep had definitely helped.
Lucie had the day off from work, so she took us around, which was good because I at least wasn't up to navigating a new city by myself (Nora was much more awake that day than I was). Now that the sun was up it was really hot out. First we went to the castle area, which was a complex of buildings (like a palace and a huge cathedral) and not an actual castle.
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| the palace gates |
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| another awesome building in the castle complex |
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| Prague had some pretty sweet architecture. |
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| The complex was on a hill, so we had a good view of the city. |
Later on we walked across Charles Bridge, which has lots of statues of saints on it.
I don't really remember a lot about that day except walking a lot and being tired, hot, hungry, and thirsty. Besides Czech Lucie spoke Swedish and English, and since her Swedish was the better of the two, she mostly talked to Nora in that language. Because I know absolutely no Swedish, I couldn't really follow the conversation, so I didn't always know what we were seeing or where we were headed.
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| That didn't matter too much, though, because things were cool to look at even if I didn't know what they were. |
Eventually we went to a pizzeria for lunch. I was so looking forward to drinking a glass of water--but when the water came, it was fizzy water, which was pretty disappointing. Apparently that's the norm there, and regular water is pretty expensive. I swished it around to take some of the fizz out, and that helped, but it still wasn't the same.
After lunch we rode around on trams some and got gelato at one point (I had peach, which was awesome) and later got citronada, which was like lemonade. At 5-something we headed back to Lucie's apartment. We got back to her neighborhood after the long metro ride and went to the grocery store. Although Lucie only got a few things, we were there for a while because the checkout line was so long. When we finally made it out we went to the post office to buy stamps for the postcards Nora and I had bought in Paris. Again, we had to wait a really long time, although there we at least got to sit down. At last we got the stamps and went back to the apartment, around 6:30, and Nora and I both lay down and went right to sleep.
Day Two
Lucie had to work that day, so we were on our own. After planning what we were going to do we headed out, going first to the old town square to see the astronomical clock strike the hour. We'd read about it in a guidebook, and lots of people were there to see it, but it wasn't really that exciting; all that happened was some figures on it moved, and two windows opened and the apostles rotated around inside.
After that we found Paris Street, the most expensive street in the Czech Republic. I could definitely see why; there were Prada, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and Hermes stores. Crazy. When it ended we were in the Jewish Quarter, and we admired the famous synagogues from the outside; it cost money to go in. You even had to pay to get into the cemetery.
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| We saw this sculpture that morning... |
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| ...made out of keys! |
On our way to our next destination I saw a Tesco. I'd seen signs for them before, as well as people with Tesco bags, but it was really exciting to actually see a store. Before I'd thought that they were only in the UK. We went inside, and it was huge, way bigger than any I'd seen in London. It was cool to be in one again, and it brought back good memories.
We figured out the tram system and rode one to Petrin Hill, although we got off a stop late. We took the funicular up (our one-day metro passes covered it) and found the mini Eiffel Tower replica at the top. At the restaurant in the base we sat down and got a snack and rested, and then we walked around outside looking for a place where we could see the view of the city through the trees. We couldn't find one anywhere, thought, and we concluded that the only way to see the view was to pay and go up the tower.It was only 50 crowns ($2.50) each, so we paid and climbed up the stairs. The view really was spectacular; definitely worth it. Although it had been raining a little, and part of the sky was gray, there was also blue sky with beautiful clouds. I was happy just being up there above Prague with the gorgeous sky.
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| St. Vitus Cathedral, in the castle complex |
Eventually we walked back down and rode the funicular down the hill. We walked to Kampa Island, which was barely an island but had a nice park and good view of the river. Then we went looking for the narrowest street in Europe, which was mentioned in a pamphlet Nora had picked up. We knew the general location, but we couldn't find it at first. Then, retracing our steps, we saw it; we must have just missed it the first time through, because it really was tiny (42cm, according to the pamphlet). It had "walk" and "don't walk" lights because it was so narrow that people could only walk one direction on it at a time. It actually barely counted as a street, because it was really stairs leading down to a restaurant by the river, but it was still fun to see.
We looked for Wallenstein Palace next. When I thought we should be really close, based on our map, we stopped under a big archway to check (it was raining again, harder), and a guard standing there said something to us in Czech. He showed us where we were on the map, which was where I'd thought we were, and which should have been right by the palace, but we didn't see it. Then two ladies walking by saw us looking at the map and asked, in English, what we were looking for. I told them Wallenstein Palace, and one of them said, "You're standing right in front of it." The big archway was the entrance to the palace. I felt kind of silly, but it was funny.
The gardens were free, so we went in to see them. There was some big senate party going on, so there were all these nicely dressed Czechs under a roofed area and a few wandering around the gardens; Nora and I felt very under-dressed and out of place.
We walked around the gardens, which were nice; there were fountains and statues and tall hedges lining some of the paths and a pond with lots of fish, including one huge one, and also ducklings. Next to the pond was a bench encircling a tree, and on the bench a big white bird was sitting. It was a funny surprise to see a large bird sitting on a bench. When some other people went near it it got up, and it had a really long tail; it was like a big white peacock.
It was evening by then, so we took a tram back to the big Tesco to get dinner. We picked out lots of bread and pastries to try and got some drinkable yogurt too; it all cost only $6, and we had plenty for dinner and a meal or two the next day as well. Back at Lucie's we ate some of it, and then I packed up, showered, and used the internet. I was in bed by 12:30, but I must've gotten only about four hours of sleep; I was tired, but I couldn't fall asleep, probably because I'd gotten so much sleep the night before. But I woke up fine at 6:30 the next morning, not feeling very tired. We made it to the bus station for our trip to Vienna, and once on our way we enjoyed a breakfast of baked goods.
