It time again for more travel! We went out in the afternoon on Saturday to Luton Airport (the first time we flew from that London airport.) We were going with Dan and Rebecca, so met them on the bus out to the airport to fly out to Prague in the Czech Republic. To be honest, Prague wasn't on our list of places to go, but an amazingly cheap deal became available and we heard good things, so we couldn't resist. Our flight was an hour late (which unfortunately meant that we found the Krispy Kreme at the airport lounge and couldn't resist), so we didn't leave until 9:30, which with the time difference had us landing at 12:15. There wasn't much we could do, so we caught a cab to our hostel.
Yep, I said hostel. We stayed in a hostel that was 8 person to a room. However, we lucked out and they split the room into two separate areas with 4 beds apiece, so we were just in the room with Dan and Rebecca. The other side only had one person and we didn't ever really see her, although she did ask us to be quiet since we came in late and were pretty loud getting everything ready for bed.
Sunday, August 24 2008
This is the real start to our trip. We only had one day to tour all of Prague, so we went ahead and got up in the morning and got started ASAP. We took a tram into town and walked around a bit trying to find a place for breakfast. We finally settled on a place called Cafe Savoy where we had a really good breakfast. We then walked along the river in search of the Lennon Wall. We ended up going by the Kampa Modern Art Museum first though which was interesting with the giant pink dogs, giant orange rabbits and other interesting giant colorful animal statues. After a bit of searching, we did find the Lennon wall (where a Mexican art student painted a graffiti portrait of John Lennon back in the 80's) although the picture that is currently there isn't nearly as impressive as the original which we've seen pictures of. We then walked across the Charles Bridge which is filled with statues. Unfortunately, it is under construction for the next 10 years, so it's not as impressive as it could be. At the end of the Bridge there were a bunch of souvenir shops, so we ended up buying a marionette doll of Pinocchio before walking to the Old Town Square and watched the Astronomical clock go off at noon.
Watch out for the giant bunnies Tami:
Greg at the John Lennon wall.... this version isn't that impressive:
The peace sign was pretty cool though:
The Astronomical Clock:
By this time, we realized that we wouldn't be able to walk everywhere since the day was half over. We found a solution to this by the old timey car tours that go around the city. For four people, it wasn't that expensive so we piled in and went around town. It was a 40 minute ride which took us around Old Town, the Jewish Quarter with a very cool looking cemetery and through Lesser Town. We had the car drop us off at Cantina, a Mexican restaurant that Dan and Rebecca's flat mates had said was really good. They had a very strange Fajita combination that I never heard of, so I had to try. Banana, Coconut and Chicken. While interesting to try, the banana's really overpowered everything, so I ended up saving those for desert. Aside from the strange combo, the food was really good and reminded us of some of the places from back home, something we haven't gotten from any of the places in London.
Everyone in the car to tour the city:
Here is the car we drove around in:
After lunch, we took the tram out to the Staropramen Brewery to see how they brew beer in the Czech Republic. Unfortunately when we made it out there, we found out that they only have one tour a day and we had missed it. We ended up going to a Staropramen Concept bar that was next door. The beer was really good, but the staff wasn't too friendly, so we hopped back on the tram back into town and took the funicular up to the top of Petrin Hill. At the top, we walked around the rose garden and saw the mini Eiffel Tower. We also went through the mirror maze which was
disappointing since it wasn't a maze at all, more of a mirror hallway. They did have the mirrors which distort your image, so that was fun. After that, we walked down the hill a bit and grabbed a Krusovice beer at a cafe that had a spectacular view of the city. The view was great, but the beer was only so-so. We took the train back down the hill and headed to the center of town to see about a marionette show. We bought tickets for the 8:00 showing of Don Giovanni and did some shopping while we waited. We ended up going to a bar for a drink and a snack of sausages and beer cheese. Then it was back to the show.
The nice thing about a room full of mirrors is that it's easy to get a couple shot without having to ask someone else to take it:
The mini Eiffel Tower
The view from the cafe:
One of the nice things about wandering around a town is that you run into wacky things such as this statue of a guy hanging from a flagpole:
Don Giovanni is a famous opera by Mozart, and they do a version with marionette puppets. It was quite interesting and not as dull as you would expect for opera, although we weren't familiar with the story so were very confused as to what was really going on. The puppeteers did a good job though and we enjoyed it, it was definitely something different. After that, we walked back up the river and had supper at Kavarna Salvia for supper of Goulash for me and Caprese for Tami. After that, it was a tram back to our hostel to get ready for our 7:30 am flight back to London the next morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment