Prague, day 2
Woke up and had a yummy continental breakfast buffet provided by the hotel. Breads, cereal, cold cuts, cheese (some laughing cow), yogurts (which i stayed away from...dairy...could be dangerous), hot teas, pate, and pastries. Checked out of the hotel and then set off for a full day of touring. Surprisingly beautiful day as we'd checked the forecast before coming and only saw rain rain and more rain. So that was really a blessing.
Walked through Wenceslas Sq & Old Town Sq & Jewish Quarter to get to the river and walked over Charles Bridge up to Prague Castle. Which wasn't really castle-like, but more like a mansion with a courtyard cuz the architecture of the castle was pretty modern looking. Went into the cathedral, tons of tour groups everywhere. On the way back, saw the start of PIM (Prague International Marathon) as the runners all jogged across the Charles Bridge...seems like a very cool idea to run a marathon in a foreign country. But 26.5 miles? I'll never do it.
Went back to Old Town Sq to lunch on Euro dogs
(where the bun doesn't open but instead has a hole at the top and the dog & sauce is injected into it. It was super mustardy but pretty good. Christine got this bracelet-ish looking sugar-covered bread thing that was quite tasty! :) Waited for the famous Astronomical Clock to chime the hour, but that show was really unimpressive (i took a movie of it). But it's a very neat clock. So many dials and wheels. Have no idea how to read it or how it works. But very pretty.
Then we set off in search of Havelska Market (recommended by RS for souvenir purchases)...got lost...R & I argued over directions...finally stumbled upon it (...again! cuz we walked past it in the morning quite by chance but decided to do our shopping later). Lots of wooden toys. And painted wooden eggs for easter. Didn't really see anything interesting tho, so only got a bookmark & some wafers (recommended by RS - and were indeed quite yummy which is a good thing since i had to lug it around for another 9 days across 4 countries!!)
Had an early dinner at the Czech Kitchen which RS said had cheap, traditional, cafetria-style food & promised had an English menu on the window outside, but it didn't! So we went in and were completely lost...I tried asking the guy in front of me for suggestion on what to order, but he didn't speak English!! We looked at the stuff available, but it all looked like sauces/soups to us! so R & C just went on ahead in line and asked for goulash...and i was like..."what the..."? But thankfully, the cafetria ladies were able to speak a little English and helped me out! I ended up getting a chicken schnitzel (fried chicken cutlet). Table space was also limited, so we did as the locals did, and asked to sit with other ppl. We ended up staying thru 3 rounds of ppl cuz we were so tired and really had no specific destination in mind for the rest of the day. We got to talk to one girl, Sonya, who sat with us for a bit and knew a little English. That was fun.
After dinner, we spent the rest of the day just wandering aimlessly around Prague. Popping into and out of the many churches and just generally soaking in the atmosphere. Did a bit of shopping too. Love the buildings and the narrow, windy streets and the cobblestones (even if they aren't fun to walk on or roll luggage over)...
Finally, we headed back to the hotel to grab our luggage and metro over to the train station (first stopping for a snack at the many street vendors in Wenceslas Sq and R&C began realizing that i need to be fed every 2 hrs! hee hee). First overnight train experience! The train station was a little ghetto and totally confusing. Where were the platforms? Which one do we need to be at (didn't find out till 20 mins before departure!!)? Who's the conductor? He took our eurorail pass!!! is that ok?? was he really the conductor? yeah. a little bit of paranoia set in, but everything was ok. so whew!
Train ride was a little creepy cuz we were the ONLY people in the entire car!! Which also means that the 3 of us had a room to ourselves. So instead of 6 bunks, we were able to put up the 2 middle ones, giving the bottom bunks a LOT of head room. We also got woken up in the middle of the night to get our passports stamped as we left the Czech Republic.
Total walking distance: 8+ miles!!!!!!!
Walked through Wenceslas Sq & Old Town Sq & Jewish Quarter to get to the river and walked over Charles Bridge up to Prague Castle. Which wasn't really castle-like, but more like a mansion with a courtyard cuz the architecture of the castle was pretty modern looking. Went into the cathedral, tons of tour groups everywhere. On the way back, saw the start of PIM (Prague International Marathon) as the runners all jogged across the Charles Bridge...seems like a very cool idea to run a marathon in a foreign country. But 26.5 miles? I'll never do it.Went back to Old Town Sq to lunch on Euro dogs
(where the bun doesn't open but instead has a hole at the top and the dog & sauce is injected into it. It was super mustardy but pretty good. Christine got this bracelet-ish looking sugar-covered bread thing that was quite tasty! :) Waited for the famous Astronomical Clock to chime the hour, but that show was really unimpressive (i took a movie of it). But it's a very neat clock. So many dials and wheels. Have no idea how to read it or how it works. But very pretty.Then we set off in search of Havelska Market (recommended by RS for souvenir purchases)...got lost...R & I argued over directions...finally stumbled upon it (...again! cuz we walked past it in the morning quite by chance but decided to do our shopping later). Lots of wooden toys. And painted wooden eggs for easter. Didn't really see anything interesting tho, so only got a bookmark & some wafers (recommended by RS - and were indeed quite yummy which is a good thing since i had to lug it around for another 9 days across 4 countries!!)
Had an early dinner at the Czech Kitchen which RS said had cheap, traditional, cafetria-style food & promised had an English menu on the window outside, but it didn't! So we went in and were completely lost...I tried asking the guy in front of me for suggestion on what to order, but he didn't speak English!! We looked at the stuff available, but it all looked like sauces/soups to us! so R & C just went on ahead in line and asked for goulash...and i was like..."what the..."? But thankfully, the cafetria ladies were able to speak a little English and helped me out! I ended up getting a chicken schnitzel (fried chicken cutlet). Table space was also limited, so we did as the locals did, and asked to sit with other ppl. We ended up staying thru 3 rounds of ppl cuz we were so tired and really had no specific destination in mind for the rest of the day. We got to talk to one girl, Sonya, who sat with us for a bit and knew a little English. That was fun.After dinner, we spent the rest of the day just wandering aimlessly around Prague. Popping into and out of the many churches and just generally soaking in the atmosphere. Did a bit of shopping too. Love the buildings and the narrow, windy streets and the cobblestones (even if they aren't fun to walk on or roll luggage over)...
Finally, we headed back to the hotel to grab our luggage and metro over to the train station (first stopping for a snack at the many street vendors in Wenceslas Sq and R&C began realizing that i need to be fed every 2 hrs! hee hee
Train ride was a little creepy cuz we were the ONLY people in the entire car!! Which also means that the 3 of us had a room to ourselves. So instead of 6 bunks, we were able to put up the 2 middle ones, giving the bottom bunks a LOT of head room. We also got woken up in the middle of the night to get our passports stamped as we left the Czech Republic.
Total walking distance: 8+ miles!!!!!!!
posted by ss @ 11:59 PM
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