Well I’ve been spending a lot of my free time arranging these and going through all 1,500 photos. But here’s a movie of my favorite sites in Prague and Vienna.
You can download the FULL movie here. (Please note, it’s 350megs, so it’ll take a while).
Or watch it individually in the following two youtube clips
Prague:
Vienna:
While we were out and about in Prague and Vienna we ate out a every night. Here’s a list of some of my favorite places we ate at while there (in no real order):
Vienna
1) Cafe Central – Vienna. They had some very good cakes and desserts. As well as excellent Coffee and Tea
2) Hotel Sacher – Vienna. You must visit this place for the famous Sachertorte. It’s well worth the price. Plus the waiters were all hot. 🙂
3) Cafe Frauenhuber – Vienna. Excellent Wiener Schnitzel. Also a great atmosphere and history as this is the supposed last place that Mozart’s last public performance took place here.
4) Cafe Landtmann – Vienna. A fairly expensive place, but well worth it. The food was excellent as well as the atmosphere. I’d suggest sitting inside in the “Smoking” area as it’s much nicer then the outdoors area. However, when you sit in the glass enclosure outside you get a wonderful view of the Rathaus.
5) Haas & Haas – Vienna. Stop here in the afternoon for a wonderful drink of tea and some excellent desserts. They have a WONDERFUL chocolate brownie type thing. Just amazing. I can’t remember the name, but ask your waitress, it was the first item listed on the dessert menu.
Prague
1) Jama Pub – Prague. Stop in here for a quick bite in the afternoon. They have some pretty americanized food. But it was excellent and everyone was very friendly. This is also a great pub to stop into at night for a quick drink.
2) I honestly don’t remember the name of this place and sadly I can’t find the business card we took from there, but it’s right next to Jama Pub in Prague. You can find it because they are next door to each other (there’s a car lot in between then, it’s down the street towards Vodickova) and this one has a fish tank in the window.
3) Marie Teresie Restaurant – Prague. Another great place to go eat, it was a little dead when we went, but we were there early and on a week night. It’s in the basement and they had some excellent decorations and history.
4) Restaurant Gratia – Prague. This was probably my favorite place we ate at while in Prague. Located in the arcade of the house is a commemorative board reminding of the fact that at that very place, in November, 1989, by the brutal suppression of the peaceful students’ demonstration the “velvet revolution” started. The food was soo good. You can see a picture of me and my food here!
5) If you’re there during the Winter Festival/Christmas Market time, be sure and stop at one of the stands and pick up some Staroceske Trdlo . I’d highly suggest hanging around and watching it be made too. It’s pretty interesting.
6) And lastly, if you’re feeling adventurous! Try out one of the MANY MANY stands located between Mustek and Museum metro stations in Wenceslas Square. You can smell the meat cooking from a long ways away! It was actually really good. 🙂
Ok, So where to start with this trip! This is going to be one long as entry probably. Unless I get lazy!
Wed Nov 14th we packed up and headed to the airport. Got there and got through security with no problems. We were extra early because of the shuttle bus thing, but it really wasn’t much of a problem. We got the inner row (no windows) of the plane, but one of us had the isle, so that was good. I was sitting next to this older lady who was pretty funny. The flight was 10 hours from LAX to Paris. The TV screens on our seats didn’t work and about half way through the flight my glasses broke. Thankfully the old woman next to us had a nail file, so Constantine was able to screw them back together. At one point the turbulence was soooo bad that the old woman was praying! So Cute! Landing was HORRIBLE! We bounced and on the second time hitting it felt like the plane was going to tip over! Like EVERYONE was suddenly jolted hard to the left!
Got to Paris and had to take a bus to our next plane. Got on that and that flight was pretty good. Got into Prague and our luggage was no where to be found! We filed a report and headed to the hostile. Since our luggage was missing, that basically killed our plans for going out. Thankfully our host at Shelter Pension was very nice and stayed around so that we could go out for a little bit. I didn’t have my jacket on me (it was in my luggage) so I borrowed Constantine’s light jacket and we explored a little. We were very close to everything so that was great. We could easily walk to Wenceslas Square which was just perfect!! Spent most of the night in our hostel room though.
The second day we got up and our luggage still wasn’t there. They said it might be delivered at night, so I hardly slept at all because every sound I heard I woke up thinking it was them. The hostle guy came again at 9:30 and said they called him last night saying they would deliver at 2am, I guess he told them not too and what not. He again agreeded to stay for a while and Constantine and I headed out in the opposite direction from our hostle. We found a neat park and some other cool stuff in our area. Came back to the hostel because the guy had to leave and we waited an hour or so for our luggage. I finilly just decided to go to one of the THREE H&M stores within walking distance of our Hostel and bought some warmed clothes. Of course, once I got back our luggage was there! That afternoon we headed out to the Dvorak Museum. We also got very lost, saw lots of interesting squares and other stuff in the city. Saw a wonderful sunset from the banks of the river.
The third day we headed out to Prague Castle, which was just amazing! We saw St. Vitus Cathedral, Dailbor Tower, Powder Tower, Golden Lane, the Old Royal Palace, and lots of other stuff in the area! The whole thing was just overwhelming! From there we headed over to the Loretto and some other churches in the area.
Day four was a good day, but a little light on things. We basically went to Little Quarter and saw some churches, Charles Bridge, the Kampa Museum of Modern Art, the Hunger Wall and the Memorial to the victims of Communism.
The last day we had to fit in both the Old town and the Jewish Quarter because of the luggage mishap. We started off with the Old town and the Powder Gate and then wondered around the old town square area while waiting for the Astronomical Clock to go. That was totally a waste of time, but I guess it was probably reall cool when it was built 1410! We also saw the Church of the Holy Ghost. The day was very clear, so we climbed the tower at Charles Bridge, headed over to the Jewish quarter and saw a few synagoges and the jewish cemetery. We walked from there over to Prague Castle again and this time walked up the steps from the Little Quarter and saw the Cathedral again. The inside was just AMAZING this time! We also climbed the tower and it was a wonderful view of the city. That was our last night out so we went to this really nice place to eat which was in a basement but it was done up really cool! I can’t remmeber the name of it right now, I have the card or something at home. On our way back to the hostel we stopped at this cute little street vendor who was selling Staroceske trdlo
I was a little sad that we didn’t get the 6 inches of snow they had forcasted, but on the third day it snowed a little bit in the morning. On the flight in and the trainride out, there was SNOW everywhere! Idon’t know why it wasn’t in Prague! :'(
If you want to see our tracks that we did here’s a few different ways:
1) Download the GPX file and load it into your favorite program.
2) Download a Google Maps static image.
3) Download the Google Earth KMZ file. Download Google Earth here.
4) Or view it directly in your browser on Google Maps.
You can see all 959 photos from our trip to Prague on the photodump.
Apartments in Prague
Provides a variety of cheap and luxury serviced apartments for short term rental in Prague.
We are leaving for Prague and Vienna sooon! I can’t wait. You have no idea how excited I am.
Let’s see.
Passport… Check
Money… Check
Heavy winter clothes… Check
Camera… Check
Tickets… Check
Everything else… Check!
We’re ready to go!
Be sure to follow along with our Itinerary here!!
It’s almost like you’ll be there too!
As I said before, I’m going to be geotagging all our photos, but that probably won’t be done till we get back in the states. I’ll try and keep updates here daily, but in case we don’t have internet access I will just post them all once we are back.
And let’s hope the Riots in Prague are over with by the time we get there! Why are there always riots in the cities I want to visit!
We’re out!
So I heard from my dad yesterday afternoon. I don’t recall if I mentioned it, but nearly three weeks ago we put an offer in on a house owned by the VA. We put the offer in the DAY the house became available (after months of watching it sit there empty, waiting for them to put a price on it). Then we were told they were taking bids for the whole week.
Then we were told that they haven’t opened the bids and won’t until a week after the bidding ends. NOW we find out there’s all this paper work we have to do. I guess the Realtor filled it out and my dad is going to sign it today. lol. What a mess.
Anyways, last night Erick and Sirin stopped over while I was planning the Europe trip and they drank wine and chatted while I did that. It’s coming along great. You can see our Prague and Vienna itinerary here. I have only planned up to the 21st so far. Hopefully Thursday I will planning the 22-25. One week till we leave LA!!! How exciting is that!
Last night Consty went to some business party. When he first mentioned it over the weekend, I kinda thought maybe he was hinting at inviting me, but I guess not cause I didn’t go. Would have been fun to meet him work people after hearing so much about them all. Either way, it sounded like he had fun.
Tonight I am hoping to go and buy new glasses! 🙂 Yay! I am debating about buying some sunglasses as well.
I’m also in the process of cleaning/organizing my apartment for the time that Brian is there to watch my cats while in Europe. I’ve been going a bit crazy though and cleaning out drawers and cabinets!
Nothing much else going on. Adios!
