Prague Day 3 - Pwn it like a Monkey

We took a fairly touristy approach to see some of the surrounding Prague country side. On the way out we saw a lot of the crazy communist buildings they built. They were very ugly and boxy but really helped you imagine life in the communist regime.










The first stop was the bone church. Our guide gave us some direction and then we headed in to the bone church on our own. The bone church is crazy because it is totally decorated with bones - even the chandelier! Afterwards as we headed to the town near the bone church, Kutna Hora, and our guide talked through the background.















We wandered through the town and our guide gave us some activity suggestions for the next hour and half while we were on our own. We went to one of the lunch suggestions at somewhere I don't remember but hopefully Megan does. The town as a whole is touristy but fun.

We made it back by the time our guide recommended but were the only ones to do so. We waited for another 15 minutes while the other chumps showed up and then were whisked away to a beautiful cathedral nearby which was under construction. We walked through the cathedral and then hopped back on the bus back to Prague. We were exhausted and passed out for the ride back.

Since they dropped us off at our hotel, we had some time before our train so we hustled over to Staropramen. We had been there before and knew they were closing soon but we made the last tour of the brewery. This tour was also self guided but you'd go to the next room, press a button and there would be crazy European dance music and then a story about Staropramen. We were the only people there but we managed to ROCK OUT to the music. I hope they had video of the rooms and were laughing at us the whole time. Afterwards, we hit the most important part : tasting. There were a bunch of good beers and since Staropramen is pretty big, it is possible to get their beer in the US.


We checked out of our rooms and left our luggage at the hotel before heading to dinner. We heard that Pivovarsky Dum had good beer and food so we stopped by and grabbed one of the last tables available. We weren't sure what to order, so we ordered EVERYTHING. We did the beer tasting and also ordered tons of different foods (MEGAN WHAT DID WE GET?)















We had some time to kill after dinner and the light was good, so we headed back to take some more pictures of Prague Castle. After wading through tourists at the Charles Bridge, we found our way south to take a picture of the castle. There was a crazy boat festival going on and it was fun to watch their competition from the bridge.

Afterwards, we took the train back to our hotel and took our gear to the train station. Time for our overnight train to Vienna! We were in a private sleeper car. This train was super nice and actually had a shower. We both took a shower before going to bed.

In the middle of the night, Megan had to go to the bathroom and tried to use the bathroom but the door was broken. After trying for a while, she just used the sink. Then she started panicking that we wouldn't be able to open the door so she contacted the train operator to open our door. That was the start of his hatred for Megan.

In the morning, they served us our breakfast and asked if we wanted coffee. We only wanted one (I don't drink coffee) but he brought two anyway. He was fumbling with the door so Megan tried to help by opening the door. She succeeded in opening the door into him and spilling the scalding hot coffee all over him. He screamed AAAARRRRGHGHH and ran away. He then came back with more coffee and Megan tried to open the door to help him again, and hit him once more. He might have murdered us except there were some people in the hallway waiting for their stop. At this point, we got no more coffee. Megan nicknamed him Gollum.

Prague Day 2 - Lobkowicz Palace

We decided we didn't have a good sense of the city, so we decided to try using the Hop On Hop Off bus to get a ride around the city and to learn some of the history. We had walked past  the Lobkowicz Palace (inside the Prague Castle) but it was separate from the Prague Castle ticket. After we had read about stuff on Tripadvisor, we saw it was awesome so our plan was to head up there and stop at other cool places along the way.














 The first place we jumped off the bus was the monastery. The monastery itself was cool but there was a self guided tour which didn't really have a lot of information. After pushing through the tour, we had built up quite the drinking appetite so we went across the street to the brewery attached to the monastery. Everyone knows monks brew sweet beer. We sampled a few different options before heading over to the Prague Castle to try and see the changing of the guard. We kind of saw it and it was cool from what we could tell, but we were looking at it from the wrong side so it wasn't quite as impressive. After the guard's finished their swap we headed over to the Lobkowicz Palace which is inside of the main Prague Castle.


The reviews did not lie. This tour was awesome. I think it may be the best audio tour I've taken. It told a great story of the Lobkowicz family and had many beautiful artifacts which stories for each of them. All told, the tour took about 2 hours or so and we absolutely loved it. This is a can't miss for a trip to Prague.









We had paid for the boat cruise with the Hop On Hop Off bus so we hustled over to the port by the north of the city to get on the boat. We had a drink on the boat as we cruised past the city but unfortunately we had already gotten a good sense of Prague so we didn't really learn anything new from the cruise. Certainly not something I'd feel like you HAVE to do.

We headed back home to change because Megan had booked one of the nicest restaurants in Prague for dinner and we needed to fancy ourselves up. Before we jumped on the bus, we stopped by a jewelry shop and picked up a pair of cufflinks for me because I forgot them but only brought french cuffed shirts (oops). We had early reservations at Kampa Park and were seated right by the window overlooking the river.

Afterwards, Megan and I crossed the Prague bridge because the lighting was getting to be perfect for some pictures. We then took a few pictures looking back at the Prague Castle before heading back home for the night.

Prague Day 1

Placeholding this

After a quick flight to LAX and a long 9 hour flight to London, we are finally in Europe! We tried to jump on an earlier flight to Prague, but couldn't so we had 6 hours at the airport. We both napped and then went over to an English pub (I forget the name) to eat before flying in to Prague. Megan got a Malasian chicken and cucumber sandwich and you can see part of my fish and chips on her plate. We hopped aboard an uneventful flight to Prague. Once there we went through the easiest customs ever and set out to get to our hotel. We were in a rush and the machine ate our money, but we managed to sort it out and get our tickets just in time to hop on the bus. The bus took us to Prague's subway and we took that and somehow managed to get to the right stop and then got lost above ground getting to the hotel. It turns out "continue straight on" means take a left, walk 3 blocks and take another left and walk 2 more blocks. We were tired and grumpy but got to the hotel, checked in, got a few drinks and ice cream at the hotel bar and then went to sleep.

It is amazing how much better we felt after a shower and a good nights sleep. We woke up early and got info from the concierge on Prague Castle and the metro and then we were off! We took the tram up and walked in the back entrance up the steps to the largest Castle by area in Europe (or maybe the world? who knows) It was pretty cold and we wandered around and looked back towards the city in time to see runners from the Prague Marathon packing the streets we had just navigated up to the castle.

We continued on through the back entrance to the astle over cobblestone streets to the information center where we got tickets and started the audio tour. The castle is very interesting with a lot of period furniture still there which makes it much better than the empty hulk that is Versailles. We saw the window where the defenestration of Prague took place and 3 people were thrown about 100 feet out of a window and all survived to seek refuge elsewhere. After finishing through the royal apartments, we took our time examining galleries and exhibitions. Prior to entering the very impressive St Titus Cathedral, we stopped for a sausage snack and then walked through the Cathedral and the gardens. There was a cool fountain that sang to you if you listened below it.

Since we had entered via the back (TWSS), we exited via the front side which gave me opportunity to eat another sausage from a street vendor and Megan a chance to walk through more cute cobblestone streets and to buy a trdelnik, which is dough cooked on a rotating spindle then coated with nutella. I may have stolen some of it from her. We took the tram back to our hotel and then headed back out to old town so we could make our dinner reservation at Amade. It is in the Mamasion hotel and is amazing. We had great food and top notch service. They suggested a good red Czech wine and we split a bottle of it. We wanted to head out for some drinks afterwards and asked for some suggestions. We ended up just down the street at Hemmingway Bar. I got some Captain GOLD and coke while Megan sampled absinthe which came with a crazy ice water drip serving device. When they were setting that up, Megan complained that she wished she had ordered THAT drink, but it turned out she was good to go and they were fixing her drink! I also had a really good Venezuelan rum that I sipped while we talked with a couple from Holland before heading home for the night.