Prague

The drive up to Prague was slower than I hoped it would be...sigh. Stupid rental car we had to trade in for was slower than the Peugeot (Opel Astra, 1.2 liters of FURY!)

Regensburg was rather idyllic, fancy old buildings on a nice town square overlooking the Danube. Ariel and I walked out onto an island in the middle of the Danube to find a good place for our packed lunch. I think it was a lot more symbolic for her, for me, it was nice to just hear water moving again. We moved on from Regensburg, Ariel napped in the car again, I caffeinated and we made it to Prague in the early evening. We parked the car close to the hostel we were staying at...only after I broke a lot of usual driving laws from the US, which...well, was required for survival in Prague I feel. drivers are crazy, and you need to match them or get nowhere.

The hostel was pretty nice, but we had to go find a place to park the car for free...so we drove to the outskirts of Prague, trying to find a free parking spot near a metro stop. it worked out eventually, and we got back in to the city and went to dinner at an Afghan place a couple blocks from the hostel. Pretty good, and relatively cheap compared to Stockholm still :)

The next morning, we tried to get up and out as quickly as possible to make it over to the Castle...we walked over, across the Charles Bridge, complete with fancy statues, incomplete without the overabundance of people hawking cheap tourist stuff...not that I lament their absence, definitely made it nicer! Prague Castle was pretty impressive, the cathedral is huge, the tower gives you quite a view over all of Prague (good photo op). St. George's Chapel is much smaller, but pretty cool in its own right. it had one of the coolest crucifixes ever, if they can be described so...some artist carved one out of a straight length of tree (so, arms not out, up instead). alas, no pics allowed.

We saw where Franz Kafka lived for a while, went into the dungeon tower, and then ran down the castle steps...people thought we were a little crazy. We decided to walk around the Mala Strana, taking in the sights and wandering towards a lunch destination. The place had a decent lunch special...quarter chicken, potatoes and some sort of bacon pie w/ drink for $6. sweeeet. and yes, I said bacon pie.

It was threatening rain, so we curtailed the afternoon walk and cruised back towards the hostel, pausing for shopping and such along the way. Heading out, we decided to cruise Wencelas Square to find a place for dinner...I really enjoyed my venison and Ariel was slightly disappointed by the fried cheese that once got an "ooh" out of her while reading the lonely planet guide...oh, the beer was supercheap. yay! $1.50 for a half liter of urquell.

We found a place that was rumored to have a pretty good Wednesday night scene, theoretically a lot of college kids, got there around 11. but it was dead and a half...so we had a drink and moved on. I really wanted to go out and find someplace fun in Prague so I convinced Ariel to go out again, walked to a huge club that was definitely alive. We didn't stay too late...I had to drive to Berlin the following day and Ariel was already tired, I thought it was pretty cool though. We did make one more stop in the Czech Republic though. We went to Melnik and went to the chateau there of some formerly powerful, still ridiculously wealthy, czech family. Very fancy, quite impressive and a perfect "off the beaten path" experience that I love to look for.