Day One Part Two

After several delicious Czech snacks we walked across one of the many bridges over the Vltava River and stumbled upon what we thought was the love locks over a small canal.  We thought it was pretty cool.  The ledged is that once you find your true love you are supposed to carve your names into a lock and lock it to the fence over this canal.  Lastly throwing the key into the canal to seal the deal.  We heard a tour guide say that it is not the real lovelock fence in Prague but at the tour guide put it, “Lovers are crazy!”

In the canal under us there was a family of swans.  They were so pretty and I was excited.  Little did we know that Prague and the Vltava River is home to hundreds of swans and soon four would be no big deal at all.   

Next, we walked across Charles Bridge.  Our book told us that it is best viewed in the early morning before the large crowds of people arrived and we learned why they recommend that quickly.  It was so packed and continued to be that way all weekend!  This bridge was built in 1357 and is lined with 30, 18^th century statues. 

 Until 1841 this was the only bridge in the city.  In the middle of the bridge there is a statue of St John of Nepomuk.  He was a priest who was thrown off the bridge in 1393 for refusing to tell King Wenceslas IV the queen’s confession.  Unfortunately, somehow I managed to miss taking a picture of this.  You would think in over 3000 pictures their would be one, but no.  Another unfortunate event is that if you make a wish and rub the plaque it is supposed to be good luck.  We didn't do this either.

After that we went to Old Town Square and saw the Tyn Church, the Church of St Nicholas, the Jan Hus Monument and the astronomical clock.

Lastly before heading back to the hostel we ate some good Czech food.  I had beef goulash in bread with dumplings.  It was very similar to how I would describe beef stew.  Kayla had Pesto Steak!  We even tried the “best” Czech beer Pilsner Urquell, it was just fine.   

Day One Part One

On our first day in Prague we were so tired.  We learned that you just don’t get that much sleep when you are on the train.  We started at the National Museum for the day.  We walked around far too long to find it and when we did we couldn’t believe that we had missed it.  It was just as people has described really big and really old!!! But also really cool!  Unfortunately for us the old part is closed because of renovation for the next 4 years and the new section was in the middle of a turnover.  So we took some cool pictures outside.  

To get to the National Museum we walked through Wenceslas Square dating back from 1348 this large sloping street is lined with shops and other businesses.  This has always been a place of demonstrations and public gatherings.  This squares focus is a large statue of St Wenceslas on horseback.

 Then we were walking around taking pictures of architecture and we found these little stands selling Czech food and other things.  We sampled some of the Trdelnik.  This is dough that is wrapped around a metal cylinder, rolled in sugar and placed on two chains that almost look like bike chains.  Then they rotate over fire until golden.  The last and most important step is that they are rolled in a sugar again and are best eaten hot!

We also tired some Bramborák.  Essentially really thin spiral sliced potato chips.  They were so good!!!  Then we sampled some honey wine that was good and we learned that in Czech Republic people commonly drink hot wine in the winter.  We were both a little apprehensive but honestly with the honey wine it was pretty good and almost tasted like a cider. 

Halny

Halny is a dry down slope wind blowing from the north that occurs in valleys.  Halny occurs in southern Poland mainly in October, November, February and March.

This video kind of shows how windy it gets here from time to time but it has been even winder than this too!  At first I thought for sure a storm or something was coming but nope it it just sunny as can be before hand and afterwords.  

Back to Krakow

Last weekend we went back to Krakow for what we thought would be a day trip but it ended up being slightly longer due to the fact that we did not know how to correctly read the bus charts.  We learned that some bus times are only select days!

This time we met up with one of Kayla’s friends from high school Nicole.  She was an exchange student from Germany, and last year she studied in Krakow and so she was back visiting for the weekend.  So we met up and got to walk around the Wawel Castle grounds.  We had a nice lunch and we also went to a cupcake shop! 

 We didn’t walk around too much because again it was very rainy and cold.  We have decided that we will not go back to Krakow again unless no rain is in the forecast!

Since we missed the last bus we stayed overnight and when we woke up in the morning to my excitement it had SNOWED!!!!!