Prague

Still Easter Sunday, April 4 – Got to Prague just in time for dinner! We walked across the street to a traditional Czech restaurant and had the local beer and some sort of beef in a potato pancake, very interesting, it was like nothing I’ve ever tasted before. But the best part was that it was all so cheap!! A lovely change from over-priced Cyprus (apparently Cyprus is the most expensive country in the EU, at least for staple things like milk, bread, etc…awesome).

Monday, April 5 – Prague or Praha. We took the tram/trolley up to the historical quarters and began our 4 hour walking tour of the city! One of the most unique things about Prague is that Hitler wanted to retreat here after WWII, so he never bombed it. It is one of the only cities in Europe not to be destroyed, so everything is original! We walked to an old monastery (that brews its own beer to make money) and then to the edge of the hill/mountain to overlook the city – to was beautiful!! Peter, our guide, walked us by a house that had painted windows (right), apparently a couple hundred years ago they did tax breaks (or something like that) by the number of windows you had, so they painted extra windows on their house to get around it! Then we made it to the Prague Castle (entrance bottom left) – the largest ancient castle in the world! It was huge, and it even had a cathedral (St. George’s Cathedral) inside the castle area (bottom right).

We walked down what used to be the only street that connected the other side of Prague with the Charles Bridge and the Castle (above). It was an old, little cobblestone road with beautiful colorful houses. Most of the houses still had the old pictures above the door that used to be their address - an address would be Swan house on blah blah road, Prague. As we were walking down a road we ran into these men who whipped us with these straw stick things! Apparently it is a tradition in Slovakia and Czech that on Easter Sunday and Easter Monday, men carry these things around and hit the women on the back of their legs! It is supposed to give the women/girls good health for the next year. Our guide also said something about giving bourbon or whiskey or something to the men, but I didn’t catch all of it. Anyways, it was very strange…

Then we stopped at the Lennon wall – a wall that people filled with John Lennon-inspired graffiti speaking out against the communist rule. The government would paint over it all the time to cover it up and thwart the anti-communist ideas, but the next day it would be filled again. It was very interesting to see; it was completely covered with painting on top of paintings on top of writing. Right around the corner was a bridge that the railings were completely covered with pad-locks. It’s a recent tradition started in Russia or as far east as Korea where if two people think they will be together forever, they put a lock on the bridge railing to “lock-up” their relationship.

We finally made it to the Charles Bridge, the iconic, gothic-style bridge of Prague going over the Vltava River. It was very pretty and had tons of artists and musicians selling their work and playing for the visitors.

On the opposite side of the river we saw the astronomical clock that was built in 1410, but we had just missed the moving puppets and rooster call that goes on every hour on the hour. We walked through the Old Town Square that had a huge Easter market going on, through the Jewish Quarters, passed the Power Tower (where they used to store gun powder), and back to the Old Town Square to end our long tour. Then we were on our own.

Since we saw almost everything on our tour, we went and had some hot chocolate at a little café. But this wasn’t your typical hot chocolate…it was really rich and thick, I think I drank just straight up melted chocolate – delicious! Natalie and I then went to the other big square – Wenceslas Square (like the Christmas song? I was singing “Good King Wenceslas” the rest of the day). We tried a traditional Trdeo (or something like that) from the other Easter market; it was like churros, but in a hollow roll form with almond cinnamon sugar all over – nummy! Then we went into this huge, beautiful building at the end of the square, “Museum of Royal Bohemia” (right). We were so excited to learn about the history of the area and the people and see what it was all about and because we got in for free! Once we got in, we walked up the stairs…and there was a giant woolly mammoth head on the wall….then another one (I felt like I was back at home!)….then a giant stuffed tiger. What the heck was this? Later to find out it was a natural history museum, false advertising. So we made the best of it by posing by the mammoth head and the tiger.

For dinner we went back to the Old Town Square because our guide said that Wenceslas Square is one of the sketchiest places in all of Europe after dark because of prostitutes, drug deals, etc.). We had some mulled wine, traditional Czech goulash with dumplings, and a pancake with cream cheese, strawberries, kiwi, ice cream, and whipped cream!!! I love Prague more and more! :) We walked back to the hotel (our guide said never to take a taxi because they usually rip off foreigners hundreds of dollars!) and stopped by the river to see the Charles Bridge and the Prague Castle lit up at night – it was BEAUTIFUL!

I loved Prague!! The historical quarter, the old buildings, the river, the big squares – ahh I wish we could have stayed there longer! But no time for that, back on the bus in the morning!

Bratislava

Sunday, April 4 – Happy Easter! This was a first for me to celebrate Easter in 3 different countries! We left Austria and had a short bus drive to Bratislava, Slovakia. We had a short bus tour around the city and up on the hill overlooking the city. This was the most expensive place to live in Bratislava – from 1-7 million Euros! But the homes were not very nice; it was very surprising. We drove up to the castle (basically the center of what Bratislava has to offer) and overlooked the old part of the city and the Danube River. The castle was under construction, so we couldn’t go inside. On our walking tour, we went through the old part of the city. It was very small and slow paced with cute little squares and statues that all have stories behind them - the most famous is a man coming out of a manhole (below left). We passed the Old City Hall that had a cannon ball still stuck in the side of it from the Napoleonic Wars (below right)!

After our tour we went to the Easter market (below) and looked around at all of the food and the traditional Slovak Easter eggs – they are in every color and are decorated, very pretty. We had a quick lunch, although the customer service was terrible, and got back on the bus again…

Bratislava wasn’t on the top of my list, but it may have been because I had already seen so many amazing cities. It just really didn't have a lot to offer. Everything our tour guide said was about famous people who had visited there for a couple days. “This is a dedication to Mozart because he visited Bratislava for 13 days when he was 9!” and “This is a statue of Andy Warhol because he may have spoken a dialect of Slovak because his parents were Slovaks, but he never actually visited here.” I think I would have liked it a lot more if we had visited here first. It was a very nice quaint little city though.

Vienna

Saturday, April 3 – Vienna (or Wien)! We started with a 3 hour bus and walking tour of the city. We went through the 1st district with the opera house, museum quarters, parliament buildings, and lots of cool buildings, squares, and fountains (it kind of reminded me of Rome). Our tour guide told lots of funny anecdotes – there was a statue that the Russians put up after WWII, but “in typical Austrian fashion, we put a big fountain in front of it to hide it.” We also saw one of the big art universities in Vienna – it was where Hitler was rejected admission 3(?) times, then decided to join the army…the rest is history. Then we drove to area that was designed by Friedensreich Hundertwasser. His philosophy was that there are no straight lines or right angles in nature, so we shouldn’t create them. These apartments and stores that he designed were very colorful and nothing was straight or flat, stairs, floors, walls, nothing! It was very interesting.

Once our tour was over, we went to the Prater (an amusement park area) and to the famous Riesenrad – the giant Ferris wheel which was the focal point of the classic Orson Wells film “The 3rd Man.” It was destroyed in WWII and rebuilt as a symbol of revival for the city, but now it only has 15 cars instead of 30. We went for a ride on it – it was really nice, with a good view of the city. The cars were huge; we had about 8 people in ours with plenty of room to spare.

Then we went back to the first district and went to Hotel Sacher to have the famous (and original) Sacher Torte! A rich chocolate cake and apricot jam mixed in with a harder chocolate frosting coating – num!! it was very unique. After our “lunch” we walked to one of the gardens/parks of the Schonbrunn Palace – it was beautiful! I could have sat there all day in the grass with the fountain, blooming trees, and people playing guitar :) but much more to see!

We walked though the museum quarters, past the parliament building, and to the town hall (below) – which looked like an old church or palace/castle! I mean, it looked pretty much like the Ramsey Town Hall in MN. We walked back on a mission to find Stadtpark…but ended up getting lost for a while.

We finally found it, walked through it quickly, then back to the opera house to wait in line for tickets to a ballet! We got standing room tickets for only 4 euro to “Ein Sommernachtstraum.” The opera house was beautiful, and we made our way to the front of the standing room section – dead center, level with the stage, and nobody in front of us! We felt very cultured and classy…well until intermission when our feet were on fire and our legs were like jello from walking around all day, so we left and had schnitzel for dinner!

Vienna was very overwhelming at first because it was so big and there was so much to see and do - there are over 120 museums alone, much less everything else to see! But after our tour and exploring on our own, it became much more manageable and I loved it! It had a nice mix of big city with cool old buildings, cultural and historical places, and beautiful parks where everyone went to enjoy the day :)

Salzburg

Still Thursday, April 1 – We watched the Sound of Music on the bus to get us out of our depressed moods/ready for Salzburg! Our hotel was on the sketchy outskirts of the city (as usual), so we walked a found a little restaurant by our hotel to have some traditional Austrian food! I had Stiegl, a Salzburg beer, a salad, dumplings, and apple strudel. Man I love this food! I even used some of my German skills that I have picked up from Jill (and Aunt Kristi, and my mom) and the tape that Jill had when she went to Germany for the first time way back when – I still remember the alphabet from that tape :) Well if you consider telling the waiter how many of us there were and thank you and good night “German skills,” then I’m a pro!

Friday, April 2 – Salzburg! I was with my friend Alli all day, so I showed her around some of the main sites (I remembered where everything was!) – Maribel Gardens, Do-Re-Me steps and the running statue guys. Then we wandered down a little side street - so nice to get away from all of the tourist stuff. We wondered around and walked up this hill to overlook the city a bit. Then we crossed the river to tourist central!

Saw Mozart’s house, the street with all of the rod iron signs, a dog that looked like it had a bear’s head, and a guy playing wine glasses like on Miss Congeniality – it was amazing! I took a video of it, but I don’t know how to upload videos onto this blog, sorry. We went into another cathedral – Dom zu Salzburg which was SO pretty! Then we walked up towards the castle/fortress and took a detour to the red abbey steeple from the Sound of Music. It was a perfect day, so we stood up and overlooked the bright green valley and the snow capped mountains for a while – gorgeous! We went into the abbey – I think it was the same abbey that was in the beginning when they sing “How do you solve a problem like Maria?” although, that might have just been tapped in a studio somewhere.

Then we walked up to the fortress and did an audio tour through the different rooms and up to the top for a beautiful view of the entire city and the countryside. We also went through the museum attached to it and though the cemetery at the bottom of the fortress where the Von Trapp family hid. All of the headstones had bouquets of fresh flowers.

 The whole day was perfect with gorgeous weather! Trip #2 to Salzburg was just as beautiful as the first!

Back on the bus, took a pit stop at the Melk Abbey. It was like a palace with a cathedral inside. The abbey was unbelievable! It was an amazing baroque church (below). It had gold and gaudy decorations everywhere – very impressive!

At a pit stop on our way to Vienna, we were waiting for some other from our group and a Chinese tourist bus pulls up next to us (I have seen Chinese tourists in EVERY city that we’ve been to, and every time they take a picture they all give the peace sign…EVERY TIME!!!). Anyways, we see this one guy get out and start stretching; ok normal, they’ve been on the bus for a while. But then he continues stretching every part of his body in all sorts of way for the next 10 min!!! He started by moving his hips around in a circle like he was doing an exaggerated Macarena dance, then marching in place for a while (low marches and high marches), straight leg marches forward and to the side, arm circles, then swinging his arms across his body, then his neck followed by his wrists…then he started jumping in place! He did all of these for a good 3 min each! It was quite entertaining.

Dachau

Thursday, April 1 – Back on the bus, this time headed to Dachau – the first Nazi concentration camp to open. Even though I’ve been there already, I was still taken aback by it. We had audio guides, so we could hear interesting facts or stories or hear testimonies from survivors – very heart wrenching. I went through the museum, barrack, Jewish memorial, and crematories. One of the most eerie things is to be in a room and realize that that was where they slept or ate or, by far the most frightening was being in the room where they piled the bodies before they were burned and then in cremation room. I also saw the wooden shoes they wore and the faded blue stripped uniforms. It was very stunning.

Strasbourg

Still Tuesday, March 30 – Arrived in Strasbourg around 8 pm. We walked and ate at the first restaurant we could find, Indian food! I had the chicken curry – nummy! Walked back to the hotel, showered, finished the delicious Belgium chocolate we had left over! What a day!

Wednesday, March 31 - Strasbourg. Had another delicious French breakfast and then took the tram to the Council of Europe. Outside the building they had flags from the 47 countries that are in the Council of Europe – very cool to see (as you may have noticed, I have developed a liking for flags, weird I know). But the building was ugly! It looked like I was walking into a 1970s library at a subpar university in the states. We went into the debating chamber of the Parliamentary Assembly, then into a room painted in sorts of lovely shades of ‘70s green and listened to a really long and boring lecture about the Council of Europe – but I got some good daydreaming in. :) We went back to the hotel to change out of our nice clothes (gross, who wants to wear that all day?) and set off to explore the city!

We walked across the river and into La Petite France – the old part of Strasbourg. It was beautiful! It had a unique combination of French and German influence. The houses all looked like the traditional German style houses, flower boxes everywhere, little cobblestone roads, and cute little bridges over the river – it was like living in a postcard! We found the Cathedral Notre Dame de Strasbourg (right) – it was all iron/steel, reminded me of the church that we saw in Freiburg when we went to Germany a few years ago. The inside was different than most churches that we’ve been in, it had a whole diorama scene from the bible, a “tower of angles,” and an astronomical clock.

Then we walked down by the river (saw a giant “litter box” for dogs, haha!) and to a big square. It was such a nice day, so we just sat there for a while…then we noticed it looked kind of weird. There were a ton of people around and there were army guys there walking around the square and setting up speakers and blasting music – it just had a really different feeling. I thought for sure a flash-mob was going to break out right then a there (for those of you who don’t know, it’s when music starts playing and people start doing the choreographed dance to it, then more and more people join in doing the dance; it seems spontaneous to outsiders, but it is all planned) unfortunately nothing happened, so we left. We walked through a flea market and to another square/park area with flowers and blooming trees; it was gorgeous! Then, time for dinner at the Academy of Beer in Petite France. 3 of us split a salad, flambé torte, and au gratin potatoes!! SO good!! It’s the first time I’ve ever had real au gratin potatoes, not the nasty kind from the box with the yellow/orange “cheese.” And an apple tart for dessert! It was an awesome end to a perfect day!

Some of my friends did a boat cruise on the river, which sounded awesome! They learned all about the history of the town and interesting facts about each bridge (apparently they all have some meaning or historical story). I loved Strasbourg (especially Petite France); although there is not a lot to see, it is a very quaint and picturesque town!

Luxembourg

Still Tuesday, March 30 – 3 hour bus ride and a pit stop in Luxembourg. We were only there for about 1 ½ hours, but that was enough time. It was a very small, cute little city we were in – the capital/downtown of the country I think. The cobblestone had cool designs in it everywhere we went. We saw a big sign in a store that said “boo” and the very next store over said “Marie’s lingerie” haha, weird! We walked around and saw the Palais Grand-Ducal (I think it’s the royal palace). There was a bunch of postcards of the royal family that the shops sold – family pictures and portraits of all of the members of the family individually – hilarious!! We went to the Cathedral of Our Lady of Luxembourg and then saw the huge bridge connecting two sides of the city (it’s their famous bridge, on all of the postcards). It was really pretty going over a little stream and a big park area. Luxembourg was nice, very small and slow paced, but cool to see.

                                                                                                                                           

                            Palais Grand-Ducal

Then, back in the bus, 3 hour ride to the next country…on the way, the countryside was BEAUTIFUL! It was sunny with and bright blue sky and bright, lush green grass, the mountains in the background, and the occasional small village. The colors were so vibrant, it was very picturesque; I felt like I was in a painting, it was unbelievable!