Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Fall break: Prague, part 1

After our train ride, we finally arrived in Prague. It was night by this point, and pouring rain. We were able to find a map at the train station, and the walk to our hotel ended up only being about 10 minutes. Our hotel was actually an apartment -- the couple that runs the place rents out small apartments to tourists. It was nice to have not only a huge bedroom, but a bathroom, corridor area, and kitchen (which went unused, but it was a nice thought :))

We went to bed not long after arriving because it was late. The next morning, we woke up early and had breakfast at the hotel, then set out to explore. Luckily we had a map that had pictures of the monuments on it, because signs like this were of no use to me ;) Czech is very confusing



The first thing we saw on our walk to Old Town Square was the Powder Tower


And after walking through some cute streets like this...


We arrived in Old Town Square, the main square in Prague






We went into the Church of St. Nicholas


I loved the chandelier inside


The Astronomical Clock is probably the most well-known sight in Old Town Square


The top has the signs of the zodiac, which indicate the location of the sun


And the bottom has an hourly procession of the 12 Apostles


Everywhere in Prague sells those wooden, painted Russian stacking dolls, and painted eggs


This shop is apparently really famous. There were pictures on the wall from a few years ago -- Bill Clinton came to the shop and was pictured with the owners...once I saw those, I left. Hah! ;)


We were headed toward the Charles Bridge, which would bring us to the other side of the city. The bridge had some great views




Prague is SO pretty!


After crossing the bridge, my roommate had to make a stop for Starbucks coffee (blasphemous after the coffee we've been drinking in Italy, but I'll give it to her...it's been sooo long since we've had Starbucks! There are none in Italy of course, but there are 6[!!] just in Prague alone.)

From there we headed to the Lennon Wall, something I was dying to see. This is basically a wall on a quiet street that is covered in John Lennon-inspired graffiti. In the 80's, a group of people would draw this graffiti on the wall, and no matter how many times authorities would cover it up, it would reappear. Because they couldn't keep up with it, they decided to allow the graffiti -- the wall is the only place in Prague where it's not illegal to draw graffiti.

Since I love the Beatles, to say that I was obsessed with this wall is an understatement...




It is so awesome, full of great lyrics and is very colorful. It makes you wish that everything written on the wall would be true!

All you need is love


You may say that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one


Imagine peace and freedom




Peace within yourself will set you free




In the "a" of 'imagine'...


You can now find my mark on the wall


After I stared at the wall for a half hour and took about a zillion pictures of it (literally), we went to a street vendor and tried a popular Czech street snack...Trdelnik. Trdelnik is grilled dough topped with cinnamon sugar and walnuts...it was soooo good




Afterwards we found a little ghost museum that we walked through for a while -- it was full of posters with ghost stories from Prague's history, then downstairs there was a big room where you had to find all of the ghosts mentioned in the stories. The downstairs part was kind of cheesy, but the reading the stories upstairs was really cool, especially because I'm really into ghost stories, and it was so close to Halloween :) Before this trip, I had no idea that Prague is one of the most haunted cities.

From the museum we walked towards the upper part of town, where the Prague Castle is. The path we followed took us on a steep hill that had one of the best views of the city




Next, I'll continue with our visit to the Castle, and our last day in Prague.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

1. Your weekend trips are amazing, I'm actually super jealous.
2. Why do you always tease me with the delicious food and desserts you're always eating in your pictures :(
3. Why are you still so effing TAN!! I'm casper over here and somehow you still have a hawaiian tropic face. ugh.

Ok well I miss you and sorry I haven't written back to your emails. Still no christmas list, can you believe it?? But I did love the picture you sent me of you and the barrels of wine. ALCOHOLIC!

KLOVEYOUBOOO

<3LaurTaur

Danielle said...

To LT:

Even though I just talked to you on AIM...

3. I don't think I look tan anymore...but I'm glad that other people think I do haha

No Christmas list yet?? I'm shocked...what's gotten into you? I'm on deadline to give mine to my Mom at the end of this week and I have no idea what to ask for haha

Hope you're eating 5739227471 buffalo chicken wraps for me at the Rat at this very moment...that's one thing I am soooo excited for when I get home!

<3 Dig-a-lig