Weekend in Prague 3

Oh dear, so many great impression at just one weekend, and I cannot resist to put as many of them in this blog as possible. So here is our Saturday afternoon in Prague, same procedure as before, few words, many photos!

We definately enjoyed the great sight from the Palace area, so here is some more of the stunning view.

Can you see the US flag flying in the wind? I don´t have any idea what building this is, and why the flag is there, but it looks great on the photo.

Then we met up with Julia again who came to meet us in front of the palace after having finished preparations for next weeks presentation. Next we went for a stroll in the area around the castle and the so-called "Kleinseite", the area a bit further around the Castle. Here you find lovely little lanes and lots of churches and other historical buildings. But this very first time we especially loved it because it was relatively quiet, and the little lanes were perfect for strolling.

One of the very few photos of Stefan and me together, so of course I had to put it online.

 

This is the so-called "Loreto-Heiligtum", a big monastery where the Holy Virgin Mary is worshipped. It was built 1626 by the Countess of Lobkowitz, has been expanded continuously as pilgrims from all over the world came here to worship, and nowadays it is still a very important place of pilgrimage!

And for us it was time to walk back downhill to the Vltava where most of the tourists gathered to enjoy the beautiful day.

Happy St. Patty´s day everybody!!

Of course many beautiful spots to be discovered here as well. Thanks to Stefan and his camera!

Little boats were out, the sun was almost like in very early Summer, and we enjoyed a little break leaning on the park walls and took in the sight.

Walking back over the Karlsbrücke we found many musicians entertaining the passersby.

Isn´t this guy great? Yeah, dude, let´s rock! Or something like that.... I agree, he looks more the gone Bohemian sort. He is so cool anyway!

For us it was time for an early Dinner. We had had breakfast very early and a lot of walking around, so we definately felt hungry. Julia took us to this great place in the old town where you can sit comfortably and order typical Bohemian food.

Lots of meat with dumplings and potatoes in various combinations. If you ask for salad they look at you funny, so you prefer to order meat with something. Believe me, just do it. And in case you did not have enough calories after this and still feel a slight hunger in your belly, just order pancakes with sour-cream filling - sour cream with LOTS of sugar, to make it especially nice. Something to die for! (And probably to die from - if you eat it more often.)

Then some more strolling while the night came. We discovered this very exclusive shopping mile right next to our hotel, but unluckily everything had closed for the day.

Not even Louis Vuitton wanted to open its gates for me, so I stood there with my nose pressed to the window and wondered how it would have been.... I read in the newspaper recently that the manager of the LV-shop in Prague says, that finally even the Czech people learned to appreciate a little bit of luxury. - Well, I think "appreciate" is not the right word. Maybe "afford" is the better choice?

Good night, Prague! It was a great day, but now let us sleep, we are dog-tired.... Still more to come the next morning....

Weekend in Prague 2

Please, bear with me, this time we have so many good photos, and what you will find here is the absolute minimum for our first half Saturday. Stefan has strict order to shoot so many good photos at once never evermore! To cut things shorter I will spare you my endless comments and put fewer text online. (By the by I am learning for some hillariously complicated exam right now - so there is not that much time. But still one needs to take breaks, lol.)

So: On Saturday morning we were headed to the castle of Prague. In fact the Prager Burg is a whole part of the city, the castle having expanded over the centuries, in total for example you have three inner wards from various centuries, an Old and a New Palace. Huge buildings like the Dom St.Veit have been added, there are various museums and basilica. This time it was more of a walk-through for us, but next time we will definately have a look at the great rooms in the palaces and the exhibits there.

This is the complex of the Prager Burg and quite a walk up there. We came up over the Alte Schloßstiege, which is why we entered into the area from the back entrance. But it simply was closer to our hotel and just as beautiful.

It was a beautiful day, and boats where out. But our aim was the Burg, so no boating, and off we went!

When you enter from the Alte Schloßstiege, you walk tiny alleys and pass buildings like the Toy Museum or the Palais Lobkowitz. Of course great photo spots everywhere!

A must-see for everyone coming to Prague is the Dom St. Veit, the place where all the Bohemian kings were crowned. Now they rest there in their tombs... Building constructions on the dome were started in 1344, in in fact it was a torso until the 19th century (of course the krypta and the main building had been built in time for the crowning ceremonies and the funerals). My guide says that it was only finished from 1872-1929. To me, as a typical European, used to really old things, it felt irritating. I mean, it looked old - as it SHOULD (for European thinking), but it is actually brand-new (also for European thinking). But anyway, it is a great place. And it is HUGE!!

Light streamed in, and the glass windows came to life with great colours and reflections.

 



You need to pay extra to be able to go up to the altar, but as fast as we could get we had a great impression of the dimension and the colorful windows anyway. And we had a very strong photo lens, haha.

The dome from the back. Did I say, that it is huge?

Then it was definately time to take a break. We sat on the stone bench of the dome, toasting with H2O brought in my little pink waterbottle. Next to us were people sitting with actual mugs and hot tea, so we were not the only ones in need of a break.

The dome from the Pulverbrücke, one of the exits of the castle area. Here we also saw a small version of the change of guards, the main change of the guard being exercised each day at 12.00 hrs, but we missed that. But there is a small version every hour. Anyway, it cannot get any better than the change of guards at the Royal Castle in Stockholm, where the guards played "Lay all your love on my" from ABBA!

We passed through the rest of the area quite quickly, in fact it is walls if you do not go inside anywhere. But there is lots of treasures, rooms and exhibitions to be seen. We will do that next time.

But we saw a group of people with their English setters (maybe a group of breeders or a breeding club?), and the dogs were so charming, wagging their tails at us and licking Stefans face when he tried to catch a good shot - we will always cherish that memory! Dogs are fabulous!!! (Okay, you knew I would say that.)

Then we reached the main entrance of the Castle. With serious looking guards and all. I remember the ones in front of Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle - they never look at you and pretend not to see you. These here were different: They stood stick as a stiff but looked at you!! Eerie!!

The view from up there is gorgeous!! Especially on a sunny, clear and warm day like we had on this very special Saturday in earliest Spring.

Here you see some view down to the Karlsbrücke, where we had strolled very relaxed and almost remote the night before. See the people pushing down there????? And we had been thinking: What a peaceful place, and it is just us here....

Some more view. It is lovely, lovely, lovely from up there, and after working your way through the narrow lanes of the castle complex it comes almost as a surprise.

So stay tuned, there is lots more to come. I told you about this little "too many good photos"-problem.

Wavies for today though....

Weekend in Prague 1

Prague is a 4,5 hrs train ride from Vienna. And still we have never been! So this was a definate minus we wanted to correct. We booked a room via www.hofer.at (thanks for the tipp, Tschü!) and a ride with www.oebb.at and off we went. We knew before, that a weekend would be very, very short for a first visit, but nevertheless the opportunity was there, so we took it.

We were so lucky to travel on the first real Spring weekend, it was gloriously sunny and the temps were in the 20°C. Riding into Prague we had the most lovely sunset.

At the station we were met by Julia, a fellow student and friend who spends an exchange semester in Prague and who gave us the Grand Tour (pun intendend, the Grand Tour being one of the topoi in my thesis). She picked us up, bought the train tickets, took us to our hotel and out afterwards... We felt really spoilt and like V.I.Ps who do not have to plan anything themselves but are cared for all the time. Thank you so much, Julia! And please let us do the same thing whereever we travel from now on!

Our hotel was in the very town centre, so after checking in we strolled to the Karlsbrücke from there first thing. And it was great to do this, the night was so warm and really springish, and we got our very first impression of touristic/historic Prague. What a great idea to take us there, thanks to our guide!

The Karlsbrücke was built in the 14the century, in 1357, on the 9th of July at 5.31hrs the first building steps were done - gosh, I will never forget that date from now on! Anyway, I won´t bore you with information you can easily retrieve from Wikipedia, just let me give you my own impressions. It was the mildest night when we were there, few people around and we immediately had the feeling to be in the very heart of the city. Us and zillions of tourists (which we met the other day) cannot be wrong. So if you ever come to Prague - start your explorations from the Karlsbrücke. It definately is the perfect place!

Walking across the Karlsbrücke you have a wonderful view on the Prager Burg (the castle), the light is perfect for picture taking and everything is peaceful and relatively quiet if you come late. It was a brilliant first impression of the Old Town. Today it is connecting the Historic Old Town with the so-called Kleinseite. (It is called differently in Czech, please bear with me, I don´t have a clue about Czech. That actually ticked me off, because even going to Turkey I know a few lines.)

Walking over to the other side of the bridge is fabulous, especially on a Spring night like this. Colours, lights and impressions everywhere.

And at the end of the bridge a lovely bakery that was open late. We got great sweets there - thank you for inviting us, Julia!

It was quiet over there and almost no people - we did not know yet how much that would change the next day! We were munching our goodies and thought: This is Prague!

On our way back we got other stunning views. When the bridge was built originally there were no statues or anything. They were added in the following centuries as Holy people obviously where the "in"-thing to put on bridges. And everywhere else. And nowadays they are great photo models.

On our way back we found that the Prager Musikverein was close by. What a lovely building! Gee, wasn´t it nice in the days of the Habsburg Monarchy? (I am just talking about culture and architecture of course. Please do not get me started about the principles of monarchy.)

Of course we were hungry too, before we went to bed. So we went to this cool place that Julia recommended, and we had "Svicková" (svíčková). I know that this is spelled wrong, but I am missing the proper keys on my keyboard. Anyway, describing it as a non-czech, it is a lot of yummy sauce with Bohemian dumplings (extra yum!!!!!) and some sliced beef. It was lovely! And the beer went down with it great!

Then we were just too tired for anything else and we went back to our hotel. Honestly, we paid so much more for so much less! We immediately felt at home, the matresses were so soft, the bathroom so clean.... we loved it there.

This is the entrance area of our hotel. It is a piano bar, and we instantly liked it here. Even though we never saw somebody actually playing the piano, lol.

This is the view from our room. On the other side of the hotel there was a street right parallel at the river. Here it was nice and quite (excecutive floor, Stefan bribed additional EUR 5,- for it), and we loved it the very first second we went into our room.

So this was our very first impression of Prague, and we were really tired after it. So we went to bed hoping for some great day to follow.

Stay tuned...