Prague

The cities in the Czech republic that we have gone to on this trip are amazing. Prague completely lives up to the hype that it has. It has an old small city charm to it and is easily seen by walking.
Our walking tour with our tour guide started off at Hradcany Castle. Prague is separated into a few different areas of the city and this one is at the top and contains some amazing views. It also contains the royal palace and St. Vitus Church. The royal palace is still in use today as the government building. I really wanted to go into the church and when I returned up to this area later in the day I found out that it was closed for the day due to some concert. I was really bummed, especially because I had walked all the way there, however, the outside is very pretty.

After this, we headed down to the main square in the center of town. There is a lot in the square including two churches. The first thing we saw was the Astronomical Clock. Apparently, this is the oldest one in Europe and not only displays the date and the time, but also whose name day it is. In the Czech Republic, each day of the year has a name attached to it and babies have to have a name from on of those 365 names. Then, they get to not only celebrate a birthday, but also a “name day” based on what name their parents choose.

One of the churches is the Tyn Church. This church is a mishmash of gothic and baroque styles, which makes it very pretty. They don’t allow photos inside, but the outside is nice. The towers are actually different sizes and are sometimes called “his and hers towers.”

The other church is the Church of St. Nicholas. This church might not look as impressive from the outside of the Tyn Church, but inside a huge chandelier completely dominates it. When I first got there, mass was going on, but I was able to come back and get photos of the church.

After this, it was time for our river cruise. It was a relaxing cruise with an “all you can eat” buffet and I had Czech beer. Our guide on the cruise was very knowledgeable and we got to try traditional Czech food. 

Fun fact: Budweiser is apparently Czech. I thought it was American but I guess not. I actually had it on tap for dinner.

After the cruise I basically wandered around. I crossed over Charles Bridge a few times. This is a really cool bridge that is very useful to get between parts of the city. It gets really packed later in the day.

I walked with George (friend from South Africa) over to the John Lennon wall. It used to just be a normal wall but it has become a place where you can legally graffiti. It is covered in messages and John Lennon’s face dominates over parts of the wall. The cool thing is that it changes daily so these photos capture a little moment in time.

After this I pretty much just wandered around. I saw a few random churches and ended up walking along the river. It was nice to just walk around with no idea where I was going. Tomorrow, we will be heading to Munich, Germany for Oktoberfest. 

Česky Krumlov

The Czech Republic is absolutely amazing from what I have seen of it. Česky Krumlov is my favorite city that we have stopped in for lunch so far. We got a couple hours in this little Czech city and it was completely worth all the time.
The city is still enclosed within its city walls. You can go up and walk around the top of the city where the area that is called the castle is. It’s not a traditional castle that everyone imagines, but a sprawling group of buildings. They actually have brown bears in a little enclosure by the castle, but they weren’t out when I was there. I went to the gardens, which were very beautiful.

The river that runs through the city makes it very picturesque. It is really cool to see the river winding through a city the way this one does. Here are some pictures from higher up in the city to show what I mean.

It’s impossible to actually capture the charm of this town in photos. It really is an adorable little town. I grabbed lunch in the square where they had some kind of festival going on. I got garlic soup in a bread bowl and mead, both of which were both hot, and great. 

I tried my hand at some archery and I visited a local church. It really is a cute church and I wish we had been allowed to take photos in it but we weren’t so here are photos of the outside. 

Česky Krumlov was an absolutely amazing stop. We are now in Prague and will go into the city tomorrow, which I am totally psyched for. Prague was another one of those cities that was really high on my list of places to visit and we have another river cruise tomorrow during lunch. That should be awesome.

Vienna

It rained all day today. That is what I view when I think of Vienna. In my mental image of the city it is always raining, so this was typical of that. Despite this, Vienna is a beautiful city.

After driving around for a bit, the first place we went to was the Swarovski store. Swarovski crystal is from Austria and the one in Vienna is one of the largest stores in Austria. We learned some history about it and had the opportunity for shopping. There are some absolutely beautiful pieces in the store.

Brenton and I left the Swarovski store and headed off a gothic church in the center of the city. Gothic churches are really cool, but are hard to get photos inside because they are so dark. For some reason, they were charging a lot of money to go to the main park of the church so you could only walk along the outer parts of the church. It is a beautiful church though, inside and out.

After the cathedral we went over to Stadtpark. There are some amazing statues there and the most impressive one is the statue of Johann Strauss. Vienna is amazing because of its musical background so there are statues of musicians all over the place.

Lunch was really good today. I had a hot dog that was basically in a baguette that they toasted the inside of and stuck the hot dog into. It had cheese with ketchup and mustard. It was delicious.

We walked over to the statue of a Soviet soldier. It is the same time of monument that they had in Budapest with a small difference. This one is a memorial to all the Soviet soldiers that lost their lives in the liberation of Austria. This is also a controversial monument. Putin visits this monument every year, which is a big deal. 

We had another stop to look at a statue, which was the statue of Mozart. This was a really cool statue and possibly my favorite so far on this trip.

The parliament building in Vienna is gorgeous. There are a lot of ceremonial functions that happen in this building and it was definitely worth a visit. The façade on the building is very ornate.

After this we headed over to one of the palaces of the Hapsburgs. There we visited the Apartments of Empress Elizabeth I (Queen Sisi). We walked through the apartments and saw a huge collection of silver. There were lots of candelabras, place settings, and china. We didn’t get to take photos inside so there aren’t any photos of the apartments but the outside is pretty.

Next, we drove to Schönbrunn Palace, the seat of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. We only had 40 minutes here so there wasn’t enough time to see any of the palace but we walked around and saw the gardens which are beautiful.

After this we went to a schnapps museum. I was disappointed in it because we didn’t get to see the actual process, although it was described to us. After that we tasted different schnapps. I really liked the apple strudel one.

We returned to the campsite for dinner and after headed out to the Mozart and Strauss concert. I was expecting a different concert hall and was disappointed in the acoustics, but the music was good. The first song that was played was one that I played last year. It was by Johann Strauss, so that was cool to hear.

I was disappointed in not being able to go to the United Nations building, but at least I’ve been to the city. Tomorrow, we will be driving to Prague in the Czech Republic. It will be an exciting day.