Today was our first of 2 full days in Prague! We started off with breakfast included with the room at the hotel and then headed into town. On the train over I had read through the Prague part of the guide book and we compared our recommendations from different people so we were able to plan what we wanted to do for the different days.
We first headed to the central square. It was a lot closer and a little smaller than I was expecting. But then again I have been traveling around to large cities throughout all of Europe. There we found... yet another Christmas market. We didn't stop there then, because we had read about a street with lots of crafts and shops that gets crowded later in the day so we headed in that direction.
In the center square there is a famous astrological shop that tells different astrological things along with the time and there is a little march of apostles at the top of each hour. We saw it later in the day and it was very cute. Following the chimes of the hour there is also a trumpet player that plays a little song at the tower.
Then we headed to the street right off of the main square. I was expecting more of hand made crafts and interesting traditional things like that, but it was mostly tourist stuff. The majority of the stores were cheesy tourist things. There were some crystal stores too that were very pretty but very expensive. Laura said that someone had told her that crystal is very famous from here too. Another Christmas market was along the side of there but was mostly touristy stuff. Laura did buy a typical Czech hat from the market there that she regretted later but hopefully with think of as a joke after a while.
From there we came to another street that was a lot larger and had a lot of the major clothing shops on it. We went in H&M for a while looking for a coat for Laura but ended up leaving without anything. At the end of the street there was a magnificent building that I later found out was a National Museum.
We grabbed lunch of kielbasas off of a stand that felt like very typical food from there. Then they also had these dessert things everywhere. They were made of dough that was rolled out into a line, then wrapped into a cylinder around a think wood rod then cooked over coals and rolled in sugar after. They were okay, but the ones we had were a little over-cooked.
Heading back we checked out the central square Christmas market which was very pretty and had lots of fun booths to look at. It has a very large decorated tree with lots of lights and a big stage next to it that we saw a children's show going on on it the following night.
After that we headed back to the hotel and I got to skype with my grandma for her 90th birthday! I was really excited about it because it would be a surprise for her that she would really like. One of the last times we were visiting her, we told her about ipods and she was amazed by them and told her friends about the. So I thought it would be a great gift and surprise to get to talk to her from close to the other side of the world.
After a break and relaxing we headed back out. Prague has a lot of synagogs and a famous Jewish cemetery. The cemetery is very full of tomb stones since there are layers and layers of tombs upon each other. There are about 12,000 tomb stones visible and possible 100,000 people buried there. The tomb stones aren't all straight and in rows either because the ground has settles and changed some over time.
We also went and saw the Charles Bridge at night as we were advised by multiple people. It was magnificent and extremely beautiful. It had a big tower at the start of it, and then was a very grand stone bridge going across the river with lights and statues on both sides. It was absolutely beautiful with the lights and the snow and the city on each side. We could also see the palace on the hill next to there and that was quite a sight to see.
After that we went out to find a typical Czech dinner. On the way we passed a store with hand made typical Czech crafts. It was a store for tourists but had a lot higher quality of good. Most of the other places had cheesy tourist trinkets but this actually had crafts. They had some hand painted eggs ornaments there that were really pretty and Laura and I each got a couple.
We found a place for dinner that had a generally more expensive menu but they had a special on a board outside for borscht and dumplings for a discounted price so we went there. Luckily the nicer menu lead to very yummy food. My friend Katie studied abroad in Prague last semester, and she told me that pickled cheese was her favorite food from there. That was on the menu, so we tried that and it was really good! It didn't taste pickled like pickles but a yummy cheese.
After that we headed back to the hotel after a very fun and full day.
No comments:
Post a Comment