May 1st - Travel Blog

Hi, it’s Christina –

Greetings from well… I’m not exactly sure where. While you are reading this, we are somewhere, on a train, between Prague and Budapest. We had to leave the hotel via taxi at 7:00 am, so this blog was prepared last night and put into the queue to post at a reasonable hour.

We didn't do the funky bike, the horse
drawn carriage, the fancy convertible
or the segways, but they are available
if you're ever in Prague.

Yesterday was Saturday, and while planning on what we wanted to see, the thought didn’t enter our heads that certain things we wished to visit, ie: the cemetery and the synagogue, would not be open on a Saturday. My apologies to all my Jewish friends, I should have known.

We started our day with breakfast. Pretty much the same fare as yesterday, with the exception of the yummy ham was replaced by what looked like a pasta and salami dish. Sorry, not my idea of breakfast food – and this comes from someone who is known to grab a slice of cold pizza in the morning.

You can just make out the Swan boats
and those bubble water walking
thingies through the bridge arch.

After breakfast, we headed to the Metro. It only took a day, and we got the transit system down. Not a single wrong turn today – yeah us! We hopped off at Old Town, but first headed toward the river to take some pictures and then head to St. Charles Bridge. The river was teaming with all sorts of floatage. There was a paddle boat, several smaller motor boats, a gondola, those bubbles where you can walk on water, swan paddle boats and the largest real swans I have ever seen in my life – I’m talking nuked swans on steroids big. I’m sure glad I was several feet above them and not in the water near them.

3rd picture down on the left - those
buildings have a river running
through them!

St. Charles Bridge was packed. Along both sides are various religious statues, some of which people were standing in line to touch. Between my Czech not being so good (I very slowly sound out the words on the signs and then only recognize every third one), and my non-Catholic background, I’m kinda clueless as to the significance of these apparent pilgrimages. Sorry.

It's not an optical illusion, some of
the buildings actually curve.

Between each statue, there were vendors and artists and musicians peddling their wares (interspersed with the occasional beggar). If you look closely at the picture right next to the word “Bridge”, that musician’s choice of instrument was wine glasses. He played the most lovely Pachelbel canon, in D I believe, I’ve heard. If the sun wasn’t beating down so strongly and there wasn’t such a crush, I would have stayed longer to listen.

Bottom right are the treats I wanted
to try. Middle left is as close as we got
to the Synagogue. 

From the bridge we headed into Old Town – skinny, winding, cobblestone streets with tall attached buildings on either side. Here you could purchase everything imaginable; and I did find the shop I was looking for, and found the gift I was looking for, but I will say no more in case the recipient of said gift is reading this – all I’ll say is, because I went to the source, I was able to actually afford the gift I had in mind, otherwise it would have been well out of my price range.

Mom's bacon and cheese strudel and
the fresh lemonade were good.  

Everywhere you looked in Old Town, there was something cool to see. I wish I had grabbed one of those cone desserts, they looked positively decadent. Perhaps they will have the same at one of our next stops. They even have a beer museum. We didn’t go in, but I did snap a picture because I thought Paulie would appreciate it.

Hey, who's that lady with
the silver man?

Then it was lunchtime, and we decided to be a little naughty. We stopped at a bake shop, and low and behold, they had a chocolate honey cake. Much to my dismay, it was dry, it didn’t have much flavor, and I didn’t even finish it.

After we took the edge off our hunger, we headed for the famed clock. We had heard stories about how animated the clock was when it struck the hour – we weren’t impressed. I’ve seen household cuckoo clocks with more action. Granted household cuckoo clocks don’t have a live trumpeter, but he was so far up, you can barely make him out in the photo. At least it was free, because if I had paid to see it, I would have been annoyed.

Another incredible pipe organ.

After the clock, we stopped into St. Nicholas' Cathedral for a few minutes, but after that, we had had it. Between the travel and then two days of walking, mom and I both felt we deserved a nap, so that’s what we did.

YUMMY!!!

After our nap, it was dinner time. Just up the street from our hotel was Bad Jeff’s Barbeque. At first I’m thinking, what does a Czech know about southern barbeque, but then I read the reviews and I thought we should give it a try. I’m SO glad we did. Southern barbequers beware, if Badd Jeff ever decides to come to the states, he’ll put y’all out of business. It was simply delicious, and his brisket was the best I have ever had in my life! As soon as I came back – or should I say rolled back – to the hotel, I posted a review on TripAdvisor. I wish there was a way to be able to give them more than 5 stars!

We won’t be getting into Budapest until after 4, and then we have to check in with the ship, so I don’t know how many pictures I’ll have to share with you tomorrow or what we’ll have time to see. I guess we’ll both find out.

Until then, have a WONDERFUL day & happy writing.

April 30th - Travel Blog

Hi, it’s Christina –

It's a nice spread for breakfast -
meats, cheeses, breads, yogurt & granola

Greetings from Prague, Czech Republic – Day 2! It is now 5 am on Saturday, and I’m surprised I’m actually up. Yesterday kicked my butt, and oh my poor tootsies – they be barkin’!

Just some of the stuff we saw on our
way to the castle.

So yesterday after breakfast, a trip to the train station to get our tickets for Sunday, and a few miss-starts, we finally found our way over to Prague Castle, where we pretty much spent all day. Prague Castle is on a hill overlooking the Vltava River. It was the Royal home since the 9th century, and then in the early 1900s, it became the home of the President of the Czech Republic, and is still so today.

You say I'm never in any of the pictures,
well that shadow on the cobblestone is
me.

Prague Castle is at the highest point in Prague, and yup, you guessed it, there is no transportation to get up there. At some points the incline was so steep, I didn’t think we’d actually make it up. Oh, and did I forget to mention, the streets and walkways are uneven cobblestone. Thank God it was a beautiful, sunny day, because there would have been no way if it was raining or even misting, because it would have been too slick and treacherous.

The skinny one with the brick,
that's taken through an
arrow slit.

But after a break at the entrance to the castle, and a little time to take pictures of the incredible view, we sucked it up and climbed the last four flights of stairs, and WOW. The mosaic wall on the bottom right corner in the Pražský Hrad-Prague Castle picture is what greeted us. It was incredible. Unfortunately, I guess because it was so bright outside, the colors of the tiles did not come out as vividly as they actually were, but you get the idea.

The bottom right is a window of sorts.
It's a solid cylinder of wood which
rotates, one side has the opening, then
you turn it and the window is closed.

On Thursday we purchased our Prague Card which allowed us access to all the public transportation and to various sites. Four of the sites were within Prague Castle. Perhaps I should back up a little, Prague “Castle” isn’t what you picture a typical castle looking like, it’s more of a fortress comprised of multiple buildings within castle walls. There’s the Old Royal Palace*, The Story of Prague Castle, the Basilica of St. George*, the Treasury of St. Vitus Cathedral, Golden Lane*, Prague Castle Picture Gallery, Power Tower, St. Vitus’ Cathedral*, Rosenburg Palace & the South Tower of St. Vitus’s Cathedral. The ones with the * are the ones we visited.

The couple left center were from Japan,
The bride in red I believe was from
Spain, and the top left is the groom who
wore jeans to his wedding.

Starý královský palác – The Old Royal Palace was being refurbished while we were there. There are a few parts of the palace which date back to the 9^th century, but the palace sustained a huge fire in the early 1300s and was rebuilt then. Still, being able to walk around in a place that’s over 700 years old is pretty cool.

Everything smelled heavenly!

I guess I’m not the only one who thinks it’s cool, because it is apparently the place to get married when visiting Prague. Everywhere we turned another bride and groom were popping up. The only thing they all had in common was they were just the bride and groom and a photographer, no wedding party. One of the grooms was in a sports coat and jeans – can you believe it? The would not have made me a happy bride!

The domed ceiling with the copula has
been fully restored (bottom 2nd picture).

Everything is blooming at the castle. The little butter colored flowers on the bright green leaves (sorry, I have no clue what they are) were so fragrant. They smelled a lot like gardenias. On the lawn, where we’d have dandelions, they had those tiny daisies. Believe it or not, those big burgundy flowers were peonies. The lilacs were also in full bloom, but I guess I was too busy with my nose in the bush to snap a picture, but I sure didn’t miss the Japanese Cherry! It was breathtaking.

This is a picture off line, but
ours looked just like this with
a mass of whipped cream
drizzled with honey and
sprinkled with nuts on the side
Again - OH MY!

St. George’s Basilica was our next stop. It is the oldest surviving church building on the property, built in 920ad. It’s a little hard to see, but the 3^rd picture on the top is one of the murals on ceiling which has faded to just blobs of color, and the next picture is the ceiling right next to it which looks like it has been restored. The two picture on the left which look like a fireplace, look closer. There was no sign, so I do not know who that is in there.

Each of the gargoyles were different,
and since they weren't moving or
screaming, we knew it was safe to
go inside. 

I think it was at this point we decided we were starving and found a café on premises. Mom and I both had sandwiches which were good, but then we splurged and split a piece of honey cake – Medovic - for dessert. OH MY! You know what a chocoholic I am, and when given a choice, I’d always go for the chocolate cake, and there was one on the menu, but I knew I couldn’t eat a whole piece, and mom wanted the medovic. Let me tell you, if given the choice again, I’m going to have a hard time choosing – yeah, it was that good.

The massive pipe organ is the photos
all down the left side. Wish I could
have heard it play!

Next on this tour is Katedrála sv. Vita - St. Vitus’ Cathedral, which contains the tombs of Holy Roman Emperors and Bohemian Kings. I know I took a ton of pictures both outside and inside, but outside the gargoyles were awesome, and who doesn’t love stained glass? Again photos didn’t quite capture the vibrancy of the glass, but it did get close. What amazed me the most was the variety of colors used, how small the individual pieces of glass were, and how massive the windows were. It’s mind boggling to think about how much work went into each window.

If you look closely at the 2nd picture
to the right of the word Lane, you will
see the handmade puppets in the
display.

Our final stop was Zlatá ulička - Golden Lane. Golden Lane are a bunch of micro homes and shoppes built into the surrounding wall of the castle. The apothecary’s shop is slightly larger than the others because it had a basement level. The seamstress’ home was also a little larger because it had a cooking area. The cobblers home was the average size – roughly the bedroom was 6x4, the lu was 3x3, and the living area was 12x8. (The pictures are grouped together so you can get an idea.)

This restaurant was recommended to
us by the desk clerk at our hotel. We
weren't impressed. 

Last night we went for authentic Czech food at Hlučná Samota. I had a beef and dumpling dish, which was good. Mom ordered the duck, which was nasty and got sent back. I’m looking forward to the Slovak food in Bratislava, food I grew up on – YUM!

Today we are headed off to Charles Bridge, Old Towne and to see the clock and the Jewish Cemetery. Hopefully the camera battery will hold out a little longer today.

Until then, have a WONDERFUL day & happy writing.

April 29th - Travel Blog

Hi, it’s Christina –

Greetings from Prague, Czech Republic! It is now 6 am on Friday morning, at least I think it’s Friday, the brain is a little foggy at this point. 

Still awake and ready to leave
on our adventure.

Wednesday, Paulie’s birthday, mom and I got dropped off at Newark Airport around 3:45, breezed through security, and were at our terminal gate, waiting for the 6:25 plane, by 4:10. Not exactly sure why we needed to be at the airport by 4:00 for a 6:30 flight, I think it may be a ploy by the airports to get you there early so you have nothing to do while you’re waiting, so you spend money. Well, all they got out of me was $4.50 for a water – which, of course, while juggling my bags to get on the plane, I forgot. UGH.

Since all of the other passengers heeded the two hour early warning, our British Airways flight took off twenty-five minutes early. How cool was that! They passed out the best pretzels – these tiny sour cream and onion ones – I wish I had snapped a picture of them so I could get them again. Hopefully they’ll have the same ones on the return flight.

Yeah, I'm the world's worst selfie taker

The flight wasn’t full, so I moved over two seats, and my mom, who was sitting with two other people moved over by me. If I was a little smarter, and a little more selfish, I would have snagged a whole row like some of the other folks did, this way I would have been able to lay down and maybe get more than the 17 minutes of sleep I got.

Yummy & he knows how to plate a dish!

I did get to watch Burnt – the Bradley Cooper movie where he’s a chef. It was rather enjoyable, and had several parts where I caught myself laughing out loud and quickly covered my mouth to muffle the sound so I wouldn’t wake the folks who were actually sleeping.

Heathrow

We had a nice tail wind, and got to London early, a little too early, because Heathrow won’t allow planes to land before 6:00 am, so we had to circle a while before we could land. Now, not for nothing, but Heathrow is a fairly major international hub. Wouldn’t you think A) the place would be a little nicer, and B) their baggage inspection area would run a lot more efficiently? The airport, or at least terminal 3 – which was nowhere near where we landed - is a maze of drab corridors – picture a 1950s insane asylum, yeah, that bad. The inspection area had maybe six people manning it, and when each and every container containing liquid, paste or gel – even containers at or under the allowable size – are inspected, and you have multiple planes dumping out at the same time, sixty inspectors would have a hard time keeping up, let alone six. 

It was a bit of a cluster, and there were countless people complaining because they missed their connecting flights because of the inspection delays. I felt bad because mom and I were the 5^th and 6^th bags to be inspected, and we had a 4 hour layover. If I had known when we got in line, I would have let the people with an earlier flight to go ahead of me. Wouldn’t you think there would be an express lane or something specifically for travelers who have a small window between flights?

Waiting for the bus at the
Vienna Airport

The new flights don’t post which gates you are at until an hour before (of course our was the only one which posted only twenty minutes before), so mom and I went to the most central area we could find to sit and wait. I grabbed a much needed cappuccino, and a tea for my mom - $8! Sheesh! When our flight finally posted, I came into my first incompetent British Airways employees – the ones at the desk checking in the passengers. Mom and I are the second ones to the desk – there is NO ONE else there, and the witchy blonde chick makes us drag our bags through the cue. At this point, I had been awake for over 24 hours, and let’s just say I wasn’t in the mood for inanity, though I did manage to restrain myself from making a scene, she knew she was not my favorite person at the moment.

We get on our flight for Vienne (Wein), and mom promptly falls asleep – good for her, but I’m a bit envious. At this point, my back had just about enough of sitting, and bless the flight attendants hearts, they fully understood, and allowed me to stand in the back of the plane with them. Sarah & Rebecca were positively delightful, and made the two hour flight go by in a flash.

So far, from what I’ve seen of Wein, I’m not all that impressed. I’m hoping the area we see from the ship will be much improved over the dirty, grimy, industrial area around the airport.

The bathroom on the bus - Let's
just say that was an adventure
and leave it at that.

We did not have passage booked from Wein to Prague because our travel agent said it was much cheaper to do it on site, so after a bit of confusion, we were able to, for 22 Euro, get on a bus, but the bus only took us part of the way. We had to get off in some town and wait for the actual bus that was going all the way to Prague.

Hoping the rain doesn't really
come. It's chilly enough with-
out it!

Here’s where my first encounter with some drama occurred – the bus was about to leave, and mom is nowhere to be found. She was cold, so she said she was going to wait inside the door. Fine, no big deal. I should have known better, because the door she was “waiting” in led to a mall. The bus was closing its doors, I screamed for it to stop, screamed for my mom to hurry up when I finally saw her coming – and we were able to catch the bus. Thank God, because if we had missed it, the next bus wasn’t coming for a few hours and we would have had to purchase new tickets.

I know it's hard to see, but I'm
pretty sure this is a nuclear
power plant. YIKES!

This was around 4:00 pm – the 36 hour mark of being awake. Yeah, I’m twitching at this point. On the bus, we have wifi, but not until we hit the Czech Republic. The moment wifi kicks on, I go in search of an address for our hotel, because nowhere in the paperwork sent by our travel agent is there an actual physical address for our hotel – and, of course, everyone we ask has never heard of Hotel Orien – probably because I was saying Oh-rye-on and over here they pronounce it Or-ree-on.

The “cruise director” on the bus (I don’t know what else to call her – flight attendant, maybe – she helped the travelers, made them drinks, handed out headphones), Lucy, plopped down in the seat next to me, and helped me search for the hotel. Then when she finally found an address (we had to check several sites, and finally the address was listed on a review site), she screen printed everything from her phone and emailed it to me.

The view from one of the many windows
in our hotel room.

Initially, upon arrival in Prague, we were going to make our way via the metro, to the train station to purchase our tickets for our Sunday transfer to Budapest, then take the metro two more stations, get off and walk the few blocks to our hotel, but by the time we arrived, WE WERE DONE. There was no way either of us were walking more than a few feet dragging our luggage.

Our kitchen

So, we opted for a cab. I had heard horror stories about the cabs in Prague – thankfully I do not have one to add to them. The price was 300 Korun (pronounced Crown) – roughly $12.50. The driver, Alexi, was great. He pointed out good restaurants – ones the locals like, told us about several tourist traps to avoid (hopefully some of his tips penetrated my sleep deprived brain), and didn’t drive like the maniac all the trip advisor sites claimed all Czech taxi drivers did. God must have known I wouldn’t have been able to handle any more stress, so he put Alexi in our path. THANK YOU!

That little hobbit bed in the corner
is mine.

We arrive at our fully booked hotel. Our room only has one bed, but the staff scrambled and found another bed to put in the room – it’s about as comfortable as you’d expect a rollaway to be, but at that point I really didn’t care. Mom and I dropped off our bags, then went to Vini Vidi Vici, one of the restaurants Alexi recommended, had some pumpkin soup and bread for dinner, then came back and went to sleep.

Not sure what’s on the agenda for today, but I’ll be sure to let you know all about it tomorrow morning.

Until then, have a WONDERFUL day & happy writing.