Prague: Day 4

Today was mostly a travel day. We had a leisurely breakfast at the hotel and then spent some time up on our balcony reading. It was the coziest place to just sit and read and I definitely recommend Krumlovska Pohadka if you ever visit Cesky Krumlov. 

Wandering through the town before the tourists came it felt different than yesterday. It was 10am and barely anyone in the street yet; I definitely see why its recommended to stay overnight. 

Another train ride, this time it was three hours long but we had first class again and I got the most delicious hot chocolate on the train. I was not expecting much, but it was sooo good. We won’t mention the tuna and egg sandwich that I had to deconstruct…let’s just remember the hot chocolate: 

Arriving back in Prague, it was the afternoon so we decided to visit a part of the town we hadn’t spent time in - the Lesser Town as it’s known, but that only meant it was below the castle, not that it was a bad part! There’s an island close to the river, which the boat tour called Little Venice so we wandered over there. Prague is so pretty. 

We ended our day at the same outdoor market we had dinner at the first night, Manifesto Andal. 

The one last thing I want to mention are the trams - they are just so handy! One ticket cost 30 koruna which is $1.24 and they are valid for 30 minutes, meaning you can ride them to get a trdelnik and then hop back on and head home, like we did for our last bite to eat in Prague (it had more flavor choices than our first one but was disappointingly not fresh). Some of the trams are from the 1960s and are just so cute. 

Česky Krumlov: Day 3

After two full days in Prague we took a short overnight trip to a small town called Česky Krumlov. Like many small towns in Czechia, it has a castle - a really big castle. The Vltava River, which runs through Prague, wraps itself around this town so it was well fortified. To get here, we took a 2.5 hour train ride and now I’m spoiled for all future train travel because we went first class. Now…things are much cheaper in the Czech Republic (I just bought a dinosaur book for $1) so first class, for two people, cost us $36. It was definitely worth the splurge - you get a server to take your order and there’s a huge menu!

Arriving in Česky Krumlov we walked the 24 minutes from the train station to the hotel where we booked for the night. Some people try to do it as a day trip, but we wanted to not feel rushed. As we walked to the town you can see the castle looming above:

It really is the cutest little town - very medieval feeling with winding cobblestones, narrow alleys, and gorgeous old buildings. 

We decided to have a more relaxed visit, plus apparently for English speaking tours of the castle you need to book ahead and they only run twice a day. So instead of getting to see the inside of the castle, we just wandered around the castle grounds for free. It really is a massive complex, and you can clearly see how successive generations built new sections. 

We decided to grab our books and sit in a little park, which of course had a view of the castle from a different angle:

Dinner was a vegetarian restaurant with a very friendly and a bit eccentric owner. We got to eat next to the river, and enjoyed watching the rafts go by. Apparently other than touring the castle, the thing you do when you come to Česky Krumlov is go rafting. It was not a simple floating river so we decided against trying it ourselves. 

Right now, Česky Krumlov has been my favorite part of the trip. Prague is lovely, but it didn’t have the same charm. I wonder if old Prague, before all the tourists, felt like this. Now I’m not saying that there weren’t tourists in Česky Krumlov because there are - the old town, the part wrapped on three sides by the river, in 2018 had only 300 residents who lived there - the rest are all hotels and pensions/bed and breakfasts. I’ll leave with one last picture: 

Prague: Day 2

 On our second full day in Prague, our theme was castles and monasteries. The guidebook said you had to be at the Prague Castle complex as soon as it opened due to the hoards of tourists, so that was our aim. The name castle is a bit of a misnomer - it’s a castle if it is fortified, which Phil did notice cut out holes in the wall for guns to fire out of…but that is the only fortification. It really is more of a grouping of palaces, which were all lovely, but they do not constitute what you picture when you think “castle.”

Our first stop was at St. Virus Cathedral.

It was finished quite recently, in the 1930s - half of it was built and finished in the 15th century and then it was just stopped. The “new” part of it did a great job of matching the old. It was beautiful inside with many decorations, like this one over a tomb. 

After the cathedral we visited an older chapel of St. George. It was from the 13th century and at one point had been decorated in the Baroque style but then later was stripped when it was looked down on to be over the top. It was a great example of a medieval church. 

After strolling through the Royal Hall, we stopped inside Lobkowicz Palace. This has no pictures but an interesting story. Their property was seized by the Nazis during WWII and then after they spent time getting it back post-war, it was seized by the Communists. After Communism fell in the early 1990s, William Lobkowicz from Boston went back to see about getting his family’s property back yet again. The Lobkowicz family were princes and had enormous wealth. The palace and belongings were restored and now the palace shows off their art collection. The audio guide was narrated by William and interspersed with talking about the art, he shared his family’s story. It was really interesting and now he and his family have moved back to Prague. The palace had a gorgeous view of Prague. 

After a quick lunch we went to the Strahov Monastery, where I had booked us a private tour of the library. They have a gorgeous library, but like the one we saw yesterday, most people can only look in through the doorway. But they do offer limited private tours so of course I had to book one for us. We felt VIP strolling around the library while everyone peered in through doorway. Our guide, Ivana, was wonderful and shared so much information about the library and monastery. 

We got to be up close to their collection of globes, including one from 1645 which notes Cambridge MA on it. The one from 1630 doesn’t name Boston because the city hadn’t been founded yet. 

I

We ended our visit to this area of Prague with a stop in the Loreta Church. The main focal point of the courtyard is the Casa de Maria, or Mary’s House. Inside this structure is a a wooden beam said to be taken from the house of Mary in Nazareth. 

We stopped for a piece of cake and some hot chocolate and then headed back to the apartment to regroup. We decided to book tickets to a classical music concert. Everywhere in the Old Town were signs advertising concerts; the guidebook says they range from great to amateur and we figured we’d do it to have something to do and be cultured. So after getting some delicious pizza at an Italian restaurant, we went to the Municipal House for a concert of Beethoven and Mozart. 

 It was very well done even though I kept getting annoyed at the tourists who clapped after each movement! 

I’m writing this on a train heading to Cesky Krumlov where we will spend the day and overnight. It looks to be a perfect sunny day today so more castles to come!

Honeymoon Trip Day 1

 Technically its day 3…but the first two days were travel days and there really isn’t much to say about that. I thought it would be nice to break out this blog again for another big trip - I can’t believe it’s been four years since we were last in Europe…well I guess I can because covid. 

This time our trip goes like…

Prague 5 days (with side detour to Cesky Krumlov

London 5 days (joined by my family!)

Liverpool 5 days (with a marriage celebration party)

Isle of Harris 5 days

Today in Prague we walked so much - it is a beautiful city, and we decided to orient ourselves to it using two different self-guided tours from Rick Steves. 

First, we started with a walk around Wenceslas Square (yes, it’s named after the Duke from the Good King Wenceslas song except he was not a king). Then we headed to the Old Town square, with the famous Astronomical Clock.

What is not shown in this picture are the tourist hordes everywhere in the square. Our driver yesterday who brought us to our Airbnb said its the most crowded on the weekends, so at least we miss that. There are just a lot of people here, and after not traveling for awhile, you forget how busy popular sites are. Thankfully, our friend Rick Steves is good for getting you away from the masses. 

The buildings are just lovely; Prague wasn’t bombed during WWII, and the Communists didn’t destroy anything. So everywhere you turn they look pretty: 

We walked to the famous Charles Bridge, which was nice and all but I don’t quite get the reason it’s so famous. The view from beside it is actually better:

Tomorrow we head up that hill to see the Prague Castle complex. After seeing the bridge and walking over half of it, we backtracked to the Klemenatium, which now holds the National Library of Prague. Unfortunately the current library was closed, but we could do a tour of the Baroque Library…which was definitely worth it:

Unfortunately they wouldn’t let you walk inside it and technically pictures are not allowed but our guide said we could take them without a flash as long as we didn’t tell her boss - so this needs to be a secret!

Afterwards, we decided to hop on a river cruise. It was not recommended in the guidebook but we wanted to sit down. I think the reason it wasn’t recommended is it narrated what you were seeing in eight languages, so it was not easy to follow and the timing of the narration was off. Still, it was nice to relax on the water for an hour and see the city from a different perspective. 

We ended the day painting a brick for charity and then heading to an outdoor market for dinner. It was a lot like the TimeOut market in Boston, with many different vendors and outdoor seating. It was a great first day to the trip!