last full day in prague. we started it off with a trip to the mucha museum, where i learned how to pronounce mucha (hint, he’s not spanish…it’s moo~ch-ha). we then wandered aimlessly a bit before deciding to head up the astrological tower in the old town square. that was some awesomeness…seeing the whole city like that (and especially on the last day after we’d wandered the streets for a week). i was craving a doner (they do it a wee differently than the style imported to nyc), so got that before taking a break back at the hotel. we also got some pastries from one of the stands in wenceslas square…something called “trdelnik”, then sort of slummed it (we were literally down to our last few dollars) with cheap beer, night-time photography, and an early bedtime. sad face. the next morning, we took liberal advantage of the hotel breakfast, then headed off to the airport.
bai bai prague…

continuing on!

thursday was designated ‘get in shape’ day…sort of. k, that’s a lie. but it turned out to be a bit of a workout anyhoo…lots of climbing and stuff. elaine wanted to head up the hills we always walked by in mala strana, so we strolled that-a-ways in the morning…towards petrin hill. the area was similar to the other park system we walked up two days prior, except with extra attractions! like the eiffel tower clone (petrinska rozhledna), the hunger wall, and the mirror maze…which was this small faux-castle with a mirror maze inside and a diorama of some battle that happened on the charles bridge. fascinating stuff.

we made our way down the hill back into mala strana and decided to go see the wallenstein gardens too, which were nice and full of peacocks. we then stumbled onto the vojan gardens by accident (we were looking for bathrooms), walked past the lennon wall (dedicated to john lennon…no one really knows why), had a sausage lunch in wenceslas square, then a beer break at skorepka in stare mesto. i ordered a liter of the tuplak…of course i didnt know i was ordering a liter, but…yea, surprise! it was evening by then, so we caught the free goran bregovic concert in the old town square (very cool btw…check the youtube video above), then ate a shitty dinner at a touristy italian restaurant near the town square. your service sucked!

KUTNA HORA
wednesday was our official “day out of prague” day…yea. to kutna hora that is, a town east of prague full of “old crazy shit”. we took a train out from the prague train station, and got dumped off at a station that resembled nothing in our guide book. blah…apparently we had to bus it another half an hour to the town center, on the way passing by apartment complexes and supermarkets, all the while next to a passenger that looked like a blonde doogie howser.

it took us a bit of wandering and map-hunting to get our bearings. the town was a bit oddly laid out, though they did have plenty of half-assed signs directing us in the general vicinity of what we think we wanted to see. seriously, fuckshit worst maps ever made. the town itself seemed half-abandoned…the center of it anyway. definitely a bit eery, like the townsfolks knew something the tourists didn’t. “oh, don’t mind the ravenous zombies that pour out of the human bone-decorated crypts and terrorize the town at night during the months of august and september“…*hops in a car and drives away…”

ST BARBARAS
we finally found our first destination, the cathedral of st. barbara. definitely wow. it’s architect was the same designer as st. vitus in prague castle, but i liked this one a little better. its trademark are the 3 distinctive steeples that look like tents…i couldn’t get any decent exterior photos, so you’ll just have to google that. we then wandered aimlessly a bit through town, trying to figure where anything was. we eventually stumbled on the italian court, which used to be the town’s mint. it was pretty quiet that day tho…just us and a few people resting on the benches.

eeery.

it was getting late in the day at this point, and we didn’t want to stick around for the aforementioned zombies (jk), so we bused it halfway back to the train station since the ‘prime’ attraction of the town was actually in a smaller village outside of the town center called sedlec. the prime attraction in question is of course the sedlec ossuary, a creepy crypt underneath a church with chandeliers and wall decorations made from human bones. yea, creepy…but totally worth it. afterwards we treked the rest of the way back to the train station on foot and chatted up an elderly australian couple while waiting for the train to arrive.

we made it back to prague early evening, and decided between the two of us that we’d done the “czech” thing enough and needed some variety. so we headed to a thai restaurant called noi we frequently passed by whenever we wandered around mala strana. it was good stuff…they even had free wifi. score!

mashburns in the morn’…yum yum. we decided to do a bit of wandering tuesday. we started at the havelska market for some souvenirs and knick-knacks, and then spent a good deal of time hunting down two modern design stores, modernista and kubista, which were definitely not where the guides said they were at…blah. but while we were on celetna street, we perused those shops too. i even picked up something for my niece…woot. it’s actually still on my shelf (i blame my sis and her laziness in making plans).

we headed north after our shopping towards the jewish quarters, but once we got there, we didn’t really feel like paying to see the inside of a synagogue. *shrug* we wanted to see the old jewish cemetery, but you also had to pay to get into that as well. it must suck for those with family in there hehe. we continued northwards towards the massive metronome on the hill overlooking prague. i read in my guidebooks that the largest statue of joseph stalin used to stand on the spot where the metronome sits now, but it was torn down in the 60’s…too bad. the metronome was interesting tho…and massive. like, really big. we started snapping postcard prague shots once on the the hill, and then we just continued westward, winding thru the massive parklands that eventually connected with the palace gardens of prague castle…convenient! so since we were back in hradcany, we decided to make our way to the loreto church. we got there literally right as it closed…which sucked. so we then took a stroll thru picturesque novy svet, then to the strahov monastery, which also had closed. whups. we decided instead to hang out at the brewery across from strahov, klasterni pivovar strahov, which incidentally had some pretty rockin’ brews and food. we even chatted up this american couple who were from saudi arabia and were on their way to oktoberfest. rock on dudes.

whups…been busy these last few days. continuing our czech sojourn…

we had breakfast monday morning in the hotel restaurant. pretty good for your standard continental breakfast. on a side note, they called hash browns “mashburns“…i heckled, then immediately adopted this funny new vernacular. mmm…mashburns. yurrrmmm…

PRAGUE CASTLE
we immediately headed out towards prague castle. given that it’s the prime attraction of the city, we thought we’d hit it up as soon as we could. prague castle isn’t so much a “castle” as it is a massive complex (tho i think it’s officially the largest “castle” in the world). there’s no recognizable bailey, turrets, or even pronounced castle walls (there are walls…they just don’t look like your typical castle walls). the most prominent silhouette of prague castle is of course st. vitus cathedral, which was pretty boss. we roamed the cathedral for a fair bit, along with a few side chapels. the castle grounds themselves were pretty nice too…old golden lane, some of the older medieval aspects left intact, the castle gardens, etc.

afterwards we had dinner at a small restaurant near the base of the charles river on the mala strana side called biskupsky dum. i had to write that down. it’s not exactly something i can go back and google for. actually…i wrote down all the restaurants we went to, because half the time we couldn’t even pronounce it.

hokay…i finally finished photoshopping the shit out of my photos, and they’re already up on my flickr. once they were up, i got a bit complacent and never got around to actually posting about my trip. whups…heh. but i wasn’t worried, because i actually had the whole trip logged in my iphone, so there wouldn’t be a need to sift thru the photos to jog my memory, or to make shit up to fill the gaps of memory…whichever the case may have been. but yay for thorough recaps! well, thorough enough anyway. the iphone keyboard blows testicles…i wasn’t keen on typing away on that fucking thing…

elaine flew into nyc early saturday morning at some ungodly hour from phoenix. we hung around my apartment some before heading out for brunch before the flight. the flight itself was fairly uneventful, aside from the dude in the safety instructions video who looked like a cross between ted danson and ivan drago. “i vil brreak you…then vasten your seeet-belt“.

DOBRY DEN PRAHA
we got into prague early morning sunday…like at another ungodly hour. we couldn’t check into the hotel yet, so we dumped our stuff off with the hotel staff and went wandering the early morning streets. our hotel was right off of wenceslas square, so we headed up and down that for a bit, then wandered south into nove mesto, then north thru the stare mesto. we ended up crossing thru the charles bridge into mala strana, then hradcany, and almost all the way to prague castle within an hour. yea…so we had to stop ourselves, otherwise we’d have nothing to do the rest of the trip. we headed back south into mala strana and took a lunch break at a place called luka la. czech (the language) was noticeably absent in that area, and not because of tourists necessarily. maybe it was a big overseas college area or something…loooots of english spoken by the younger-than-me people we saw.

we made our way back to our hotel, the yasmin (the picture above is of the lobby…woot), and checked in. i think we passed out for a bit before heading out again late afternoon. we wandered some more along the vltava river, saw the fred and ginger building (it was just ok), late afternoon/early evening beering at potrerena husa in the smichov neighborhood, then a czech dinner at krusovicka pivnice…i had schnitzel. yum yum.