Dobrý den

"Dobrý den" means "Good day" in Czech!

This weekend we went to Prague, Czech Republic.  All of the buildings were very decorative.  This is King Wenceslas Square.  (Yes, the same guy from the Christmas carol.)

 

Kieran thought he looked like Aragon from Lord of the Rings.

 

We walked from Wenseslas Square to the Old Town.  There is a famous astronomical clock there.

 

Every single hour the little people on the clock come to life (even the dead one...)  The skeleton rings a bell...

 

These little windows open and some saints or something come say "hi" out the windows.

 

And then....it's over....for another hour.

 

And then you can walk over to the little shops on the side and you get FOOD!  Yummy pastry baked on wooden rollers...and we got crepes!

 

We did a lot of walking in Prague.  If you go to Prague, make sure you wear good walking shoes.  It's pretty much all cobblestone.

 

More cool buildings...

 

We also saw what looked like the Statue of Liberty riding on a Lion.

 

More cool buildings...

 

Kieran thought they named a McDonalds' sandwich after him...

 

 

Here's our hotel.  It was super fancy, like all the other buildings.  It used to be an old bank.

 

 

This is the hallway where my parent's room was (in the original part of the building)

 

But turn the corner and here is the new hallway...where Kieran and I stayed!

 

We woke up the next morning and the city was covered in snow!

 

 

We walked across a big fancy bridge called St. Charles Bridge.  It had lots of statues along the sides.

 

AND this was the only place on the bridge where there was anything to hook a lock to.  Remember the locks?  There are only a FEW on here!

 

This is a wierd car we saw...

 

We walked up a long cobblestone hill to get to the Prague Castle.  It is the largest castle complex in Europe.

 

Inside the castle complex is the St. Vitus Cathedral. 

 

They had lots of stained glass windows that were very big and colorful and super detailed.

 

 See the tower at the cathedral?  What do you think we did?

 

Yep...we climbed to the top!  And this is the view!  If you look you can see the bridge that we walked across to get here.  We walked a LONG way.

 

Looking down at the castle complex...

 

Look at the teeny tiny people!

 

You can see, it's still snowing!

 

So here's a gargoyle barfing an icicle.  You don't see that every day.

 

Then we watched the changing of the guards.

 

"Yo Ee Ho....Yo Ho!"  I think I saw the Winkies from the Wizard of Oz!  There must have been a mix-up!  Oh, wait...their faces aren't green.  Guess they really are the Czech palace guards.

 

 

They do their thing...

 

Kieran got motivated to be a Czech palace guard.  Too bad he doesn't have a furry hat.

 

After a long walk back to our hotel, and after a chilly day in the snow, we headed down to the spa in our hotel.  Ah!  (Kieran's complimentary robe was a little on the large side...)

 

 

More from Prague next time...

 

 

Offentlichen Verkehrsmitteln

"öffentlichen Verkehrsmitteln" means public transportation in German!

This weekend we went to Munich.  When we were there we mainly traveled by subway and cable car.  If you need to go anywhere in Munich you can get there by public transportation.  In Germany public transportation is more commonly used than in the United States.  

To get tickets for the subway you have to go to this machine where you pay for your tickets. 

 

If you don't have any cash you can use the "Geldautomat" which is a fancy German name for an ATM.  (It means "Money Machine.")

 

Clearly, there are a lot of places you can stop!  This is one crazy map!

 

Once you figure out which route you are taking, (thanks to the "easy-to-use-color-coded" map), you head down the appropriate tunnel to wait for your train.

 

And when it comes....

 

You have ten seconds to get on!

 

Don't get too distracted while you are riding or you might miss your stop!

 

 

This is a giant two-level bike rack that people can hang their bikes on if they ride their bike to the metro.  (Apparently a lot of people do...)

 

Our first stop on our journey was the Marienplatz, which is the cetral plaza in Munich.  This is the Neues Rathaus (New Town Hall) and it has a famous Glockenspiel clock with animatronic people on it.  Something interesting about this building is that it was completely destroyed in World War II, but they rebuilt it using the same bricks!

 

We climbed to the top tower of St. Peter's Church and this is the view:

 

"Dramatic Picture of Locks"  Let me tell you about the locks.  They are everywhere.  Here is why:  Usually you would go to a bridge over a river and if you are in love with someone, you would get a lock, write your names on it, lock it on the bridge, and throw the key into the river, so your love will never come "unlocked."  I don't know where they threw their keys....I hope they didn't hit anyone below in the plaza.

 

Kieran and his friend Evan looking at the view.

 

This is the very small stairway you had to climb to get to the top of the tower.

 

I have no idea what this building is, but you can see the cable car lines all in front of it.  We took the cable car to.....

 

The circus!!!  (Actually, this isn't the circus, it's just some weird colorful lion we saw on the way.)

 

Dramatic picture of a building with Apple and Starbucks logos on it.  Hmm.....

 

Dramatic picture of moss....

 

And finally....we did arrive at the Circus!  It's the biggest circus in Europe.

 

After the circus, we stopped by the "Nymphenburg Palace" or the "Summer Palace" of the rulers of Bavaria.  We were too cold to walk down to it, so we'll have to come back in the summer.