So, we arrived in Prague in the evening (around 7:30ish), but it took us nearly 2 hours to get to our hotel, as we had the wrong directions written down. Despite Mark's navigational skills, he has shared that newly arriving to each place is probably the most stressful part. But, all you need to do is put a map in his hands, and he takes it away from there. His Dad would tell him, "Mark, as long as you know any two directions (north, south, east, west) for where you want to go you can figure it out." Those skills are continuing to be put to the test as it seems like just when he gets comfortable with a city we're off to the next one.
Once we arrived at our hotel, they told us it was overbooked, but given how we prepaid, they had arranged for us to stay at their other hotel next door that was nicer. The place we booked was a 3 star hotel, and the hotel they had us stay at the first night was a 4 star hotel. Not too bad. The first picture is from our 4 star hotel...One thing I've noticed is that it is not common to have a pool or workout center in hotels, which I'm pretty disappointed in.
Picture showing the difference between the two hotels, I think you tell just by the exterior as to which one was 3 star and which was 4 star.
Our first full day we went to church at the International Baptist Church that we heard about from Kim and Nash's (some of our Doha parents) son who has been living in Prague for the past year.
Once again, I love the buildings...they are so pretty.
First impression of Prague was not the greatest, as I just felt it was very dirty...partly because of the street art. I am not a huge fan of graffiti, and I think it makes things look worse (not always). Some parts are definitely dirty, but after we started walking through more of the "touristy" parts, it was much cleaner.
I 'm not sure what this building is, but I think it's beautiful. We walked the city the entire first day. It was supposed to rain "hard", so we elected to not book a tour or anything. However, it wasn't too bad; light rain off and on. We've heard that you cannot trust the weather reports at all in parts of Europe.
I always knew I married luxury! Nuff said.
Walking around Prague and enjoying the scenery
Astronomical Clock - it has a little performance each hour that we ended up seeing by chance the following day.
Entrance to Saint Charles bridge
Stopped in for a beer - we split this 1 liter beer (approximately 4 liters = 1 gallon); it was just under $3.50. If you're an American, you'll love the exchange rate as $1 = 20 CZK. Most of the cities we're touring use the Euro wherein the exchange rate does not go in our favor. That being said, we're trying to take a little advantage of the cities that do work in our favor.
Mark aka our The Navigator at work making sure we are going in the right direction. Mark's mentioned how Prague has been the most difficult one to navigate with all of its winding streets, crazy intersections, and streets that decide to end for no apparent reason.
We weren't letting a little rain ruin the day :). Choose your attitude.
St. Charles Bridge
Another love lock bridge (bottom left)
View from the top of the hill as we were walking up to what is commonly known as Prague Castle. It is the largest ancient castle in the world (approximately 7 football fields).
Entrance to the Castle with guards spread throughout
St. Vitus Cathedral sits within/near Prague Castle
Beautiful stained glass lied inside the cathedral.
Scaffolding could be seen on parts of the cathedral helping to restore it to its original color. Talk about a painstaking and lengthy process.
We needed change for the toilet, so Mark only had a 200 CZK ($10 bill) for the change machine...he got 20 coins in return, and we weren't happy about the excess of coins or having to pay to use the bathroom. It was a turnstile entrance, and we talked about trying to go through at the same time, because we hate having to pay to use the bathroom. Unfortunately, the woman who was talking on her cell phone by us apparently was the Toilet Guard, and she told us to go one at a time. Yes, we are cheap, but mainly hate having to pay to use the bathroom. Luckily, this bathroom was clean compared to some that we've paid for which are absolute dumps and have just a hole in the ground like in Istanbul.
Mark LOVES bubble tea, so when he saw Bubble Beer he couldn't resist...it tasted a bit weird. They added an orange syrup to it to make it better, but not sure I would ever get it.
Chuck, we took this in honor of you (and little Charlie!)
Taking a break from walking around to enjoy some cappuccino and tea (I love the little tea pot).
After meeting up with Alex (Kim and Nash's son) for lunch. We went to a local place that had good food and drinks on the cheap.
View from the Petrin garden
Overall, we liked Prague but it was our least favorite place travelled to this far in the trip. We were lucky in the fact that the weather predicted it would rain (hard rain) the entire time, but only had a light rain one of the days. It was nice to walk around and enjoy the city, but we didn't think there was a lot to do or see that interests us.
Thing we learned in Prague:
1. When you ask for change after you pay for your bill they don't understand what that means and will just keep the money until you ask for the change AGAIN and try to explain what that means.
2. While you are eating and set your silverware down next to each other and parallel on your plate, that signals that you are done with your meal.
3. Charles Bridge is one of the most photographed bridges and filmed in numerous movies (a couple include Mission Impossible films, GI Joe and Amadeus)
4. When a hotel overbooks they will send you to a nicer one and offer you something complementary when you return to their hotel.
5. Something Mark and I realized about ourselves, that even though we are next to public transit we still prefer to walk when at all possible. This is something we have realized in other locations, but somewhat laugh at the fact that we requested to be near public transit and hardly use it. Luckily we are getting in a better work out that way as we are not eating the healthiest here. We wonder if we have been on a walking withdraw since the weather in Qatar for parts of the year do not favor to walking outside.
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