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!

Barra: Day Seventeen

Our last day in Barra began with a tour from Rob our taxi friend. He had only lived on Barra for the last ten years, when he and his wife took an early retirement and moved back to Barra where she had come from. He professed to not be the best at being a tour guide, saying he mostly did grocery store runs and airport runs, but he was really wonderful. We really had only seen, up to this point, Castlebay and part of the east side of the island, up to Brebhig where we were staying. 

Rob began the tour driving through Castlebay, on our way to Vatersay. Vatersay is a separate island, though in the 90s they built a causeway to connect the two islands. Currently, there are around 100 residents on Vatersay. The reason I wanted to go there was those tantalizing beaches we could see when looking across from Castlebay. And they were no less beautiful in person:

Unfortunately, the beaches are better viewed when on foot, so we did not get out and go down (though I'm sure we could have). Rob pointed out various things as we drove by, like the smallest post office in Scotland, which is in the back of the post mistress's house and you have to knock on her door if you want to mail something! 

The scenery was gorgeous. It was overcast but the rain held off during our drive and just added more to the atmosphere. The west side of the island had more of these rolling hills and white sand beaches, which is a contrast to the east side and the rocky inlets. 

We arrived to the airport right when a plane was about to take off, so we stopped and watched it, to see what our experience would be like the next day!

We still can't get over how it takes off when the sand still has a little layer of water! This beach completely disappears during high tide, so the plane can only land and take off during low tide and that means that the departure times are tide-dependent and weather-dependent. 

It was a great way to spend two hours, and Rob dropped us off in Castlebay at the post office. We weren't planning on mailing anything...we were going for afternoon tea!

The post office has a tea room inside, and this was more than enough for lunch. After one last wander around Castlebay, we said goodbye to the castle and began the walk back to the B&B. This time, we knew what to expect so it didn't seem so bad. Once we reached the crest of the hill, and only had 1.5 miles to go, mostly downhill, a local drove by and offered us a ride! I said yes, and so we had a pleasant conversation with an older man about the weather. 

We spent the rest of the afternoon just relaxing, listening to the ocean and reading books. 

Barra was so lovely and just what we needed. It was a busy trip, seeing city after city, and it was much needed to get to a quiet place, where we didn't see other tourists, and we could just relax. I think one of my favorite things was sleeping, cozy under the warm duvet, with the windows open so I could fall asleep to the waves.

Barra: Day Sixteen

The day began sunny and bright, and after a bit of a lie in, we decided to hike up Heaval, the tallest point on the island and only about a mile away from us. 

It was said to just be 40 minutes to climb, and there was a statue of the Madonna and Child near to the top, so we said our goal was to reach the statue. This is Heaval:

We felt it was a little bit out of our league, but everything we read mentioned climbing it, and there was a trail, so we decided to tackle it. 

Once we got over a fence (which reminds me, we really feel you shouldn't have to climb over a fence to get to it!) we started up. It wasn't so bad at first. 

But eventually, it got much steeper, and we were thankful for footholds that we could step into from previous hikers. 

We got a little over halfway up and decided to stop there. The view was still lovely, and we figured it couldn't be much different than from the top. 

Phil wandered a bit, trying to see different views:

After a rest, we said we thought we could go for the top now, but the clouds were beginning to roll in and we made the decision that it would be best to get down. Just in time too, because it started sprinkling once we were off Heaval. 

As we were walking back, a car with the sign Barra Island Tours pulled over to offer us a ride, but at that point we were nearly at the turn off so we declined, though I took the opportunity to ask if he was available to do a tour the next day. He wasn't, but he suggested calling Rob, the taxi driver who gave us a ride the first day!

If I wasn't so nervous about driving on the single track roads (which, while signed at 30mph, the locals were taking at about 50mph) I should have rented a car. If we go back again, I will have to get a car, because it would have made our lives so much easier. The day before we booked for dinner at Cafe Kisimul at 8pm because they were having traditional music, so at about 5pm I started calling taxis to get a ride to dinner. There were only three taxis on the island, and one, Dan, said he could pick us up at 6:45 so we grabbed him and just hung out at a bar before dinner, reading books. He promised us that he would get us home and luckily he was right outside when he said. The whole taxi thing just added another layer of stress, even though the two drivers we used were just the nicest people. 

Glasgow-Barra: Day Fifteen

I think out of every place we were going on this trip, I was the most excited about visiting Barra. Five years ago I visited the Isles of Harris and Lewis and just loved the stark beauty of the Outer Hebrides. Barra is part of the chain of islands that makes up the Outer Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland. Describing it to Phil, he said it sounded like a good stop...though he somehow forgot that I said the plane landed on the beach until we had booked it all. Oops.

At Glasgow Airport we kept questioning if we were heading in the right direction, because there was no one else going to this gate, and it seemed in the middle of nowhere, down random hallways and at times it didn't look like we were supposed to be in that section of the airport - it was that deserted! In the end, it was right, and of course there weren't many people because the plane only seats about 20. They were weighing larger carryons, like Phil's backpack, and Phil realized it was so they knew how much fuel to put in the plane! We step outside onto the tarmac to see our plane:

It is so small and adorable! The copilot was also the one who gave the safety instructions, before climbing into the front seat. Unlike other planes, they kept the door open and we could watch them the entire flight. 

Ready for take off

The flight was only 50 minutes long, and the sky was mostly clear so there were beautiful views as we flew over the Highlands and Islands. I will admit that it was a little scary when we first took off - the propellers were making this "wub wub wub" noise that you could feel inside you, and you feel more movement than in a larger plane. The noise went away once we reached altitude, and I got used to the feeling of movement and then just got to enjoy the view. Soon enough, it was time to land:

Barra Airport is the only airport in the world with regularly scheduled flights that only land on a beach. We didn't realize the sand would still be wet as we landed, and water splashed up! It's not really true sand, it's a cockle-shell beach, so it is sturdier than regular sand. Just a few more plane pictures:

The runway:

And I have to post the baggage reclaim area:

This is the second one; we learned the first one blew away in a storm, so this one is anchored in concrete. 

So I assumed (wrongly) that the bus service on Barra would be similar to that on Harris - basically a loop of the island about once an hour. Well...it does one half of the island at a time, so not conducive to actually using it. We took the bus into Castlebay, the main town on the island, and then the bus driver flagged down a taxi for us who drove us to the B&B in Brevig, two and half miles away and waited for us to drop our things before driving us back to Castlebay. 

It is obvious why it is called Castlebay, because Kisimul Castle in right in the bay!

There's a little boat that will take you out to the castle and back, so of course we had to do that!

It has been restored, but was first built in the 1400s and belonged to the MacNeil clan, who have now leased it to Historic Scotland for 1000 years. 

After visiting the castle and getting lunch, we wandered around Castlebay for a little bit, visiting the community shop and the grocery store, before decided to walk back to the B&B. We've been averaging 6 miles walking a day, so we figured 2.5 miles would be nothing. Well. The first mile is uphill the entire way. But the views...

That last house at the end of the bay is our bed & breakfast. 

Mairi, the owner of the B&B, was nice enough to book us a table for dinner at the Castlebay Hotel, and also a taxi to bring us there and back. We learned her niece works there, so it must be good to have connections because got the best table in the place:

It was a great first day on the island!