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.