Lisa came to visit me last week! We spent a couple days in Paris and then
traveled to Prague and Berlin.
Prague was pretty grey and rainy while we were there, so it
seemed a little depressing. (You would
think I’d be used to that by now!) But it was a great city to walk around, and the
buildings were very cool. It’s actually
the 6th most visited city in Europe after London, Paris, Rome, Madrid and Berlin.
I guess that explains all the tourists who
were walking around.
Our plans for the first night were foiled – we tried to go
to a Mexican restaurant that had really good reviews (I haven’t had Mexican
food in so long! Papagayo when I get home?), but we didn’t have reservations
and were told we could try again at 9pm.
Obviously that’s far too late for Americans to eat, so we stumbled upon a
delicious Italian restaurant serving fresh pasta (and aptly called Pasta
Fresca). We had more ethnic food the
next night at a really good Indian restaurant.
Basically, we were just trying to avoid Czech food. Goulash and pork knuckle do not sound
appealing.
We walked around a lot and saw the old town square, the
Charles Bridge, the astronomical clock, and the castle. It was tricky to find though. We took the metro to the closest stop and
walked a bit until we found the Royal Garden.
There was a nice looking building, and I asked Lisa what it was, and she
said, “I think it’s the castle…but there better be some damn cute animals in
the zoo if this is the castle.” It turns
out it was the Belvedere – the Royal Summer Residence. We spotted a tall majestic building in the
distance and decided that was the castle, so we walked through the gardens to
get there.
There was another building called the Ball Game Hall that
was beautifully decorated on the outside.
A bunch of tourists were outside taking pictures, but the guide said that
they couldn’t linger too long because the guards were about to change at the
castle. I decided that we should see the
guards changing too, so we hurried along, found some guards, and waited outside
the entrance for them to change. I
figured it would be at noon, but nothing happened for five minutes, so I
thought we might have the wrong guards.
We decided to leave and explore the grounds instead. Of course we get to the plaza and then see
guards marching back towards the entrance.
I debated chasing after them, but they probably wouldn’t have been happy. I snapped a picture instead.
The guards were very serious and didn’t move (like the
British ones). They had a small railing
barrier around them with an opening in the front, and one Asian lady walked
into the opening, stood extremely close to the guard, and smiled for her photo.
The guard looked very uncomfortable and
told her (I assume) that she couldn’t be there.
It made me laugh.
Anyway, we bought our tickets for the castle and I asked
Lisa “Is this the castle?” to which she responded “No, that’s a cathedral.” We walked around the cathedral, which was
very pretty. It also had gorgeous
stained glass windows (difficult to capture in pictures). After we left and walked around outside, I
pointed to the cathedral and asked whether that was the castle, and she said, “No,
that’s the other side of the cathedral we just went into.” It looked different from the side. To be fair, there isn’t one building that is
a castle. It’s more a royal
complex. Anyway, there are lots of
interesting buildings to visit, the grounds are very pretty (there were lots of
people taking wedding pictures), and there’s a beautiful view of the whole
city. If you’re in Prague, go to the
castle!
There was also a bar right outside our hotel, but sadly we didn't visit it. Their drinks seemed tempting though. I've never had sex on the bench.
No comments:
Post a Comment