European Vacation: Days 6-8 - Prague

David and I were actually pretty disappointed with Prague. Maybe it was that we had built it up

so much in our minds over the years. But we found it entirely too touristy. I guess we prefer experiencing tastes of local culture when we travel, but Prague was littered with thousands of souvenir shops selling plastic junk and postcards (although some marionette shops were pretty cool - see above) and restaurants and pubs offering authentic American cuisine. Yet we made the most of it and saw as much as we could in the short time we were there.

Prague Castle was first on our list. It is the focal part of the city, centered on a hilltop that you can see from just about any neighborhood. To get there, you have to cross Charles Bridge, which is probably one of the most photographed sites in Prague. It is a long pedestrian bridge that crosses the river and is decorated with a variety of statues, mostly of saints and Jesus. It's difficult to admire the statues during the day, however, with all the tourists and street vendors. But we still enjoyed strolling across it and people-watching.

Outside the castle gates, which were guarded by statues of giants fighting, we stopped to listen to a small group of musicians who were featured in our guidebook. Vitus Cathedral, located on the castle grounds, was definitely the highlight of the tour. It offered your standard cathedral fair, but one stained glass window was designed by Czech artist Alfons Mucha and depicted historical scenes of the Czech Republic. Mucha is one of the most renowned Art Nouveau artists, and the three of us love his work. We probably bought more Mucha prints during our stay than any other type of souvenir.

Also in the cathedral is a very, very tall bell tower. We were warned - a sign at the bottom of the staircase said there were 289 steps. What we didn't expect was that it would be so narrow - and two-way. Claustrophobes, beware. But it was well worth it. At the top was an open-air balcony overlooking the city and offering plenty of scenic views. Plus we got a great photo of the angel Alexia (and some dude).

Prague castle itself was not all that exciting. Very minimalist, and if you're interested in knowing more about it than that I'll loan you our guidebook. St. George Basilica, located next to the castle, was sad to see just because it looked like it used to have beautiful murals on its ceilings but they were not well-preserved over the years. However, it did have an impressive (and unlabeled) shrine to someone, whose bones I suppose were the ones displayed in the glass case.

Lastly was Golden Lane - a narrow street of very small, overpriced souvenir shops that had apparently been built when humans only grew to be about 4 feet tall. We poked our heads into a few stores but then made our way to a tower where prisoners were regularly tortured. A lot of interesting devices were on display, so of course David and I were fascinated. Alexia refused to venture inside, however, stating that she "did not like torture."

The next day was Museum Day. We of course made our way first to the Mucha Museum. It was small but very nice as well as informative. The gift shop was disappointingly sparse, but fortunately a ton of souvenir shops carried copies of his prints. Afterward we enjoyed a coffee break at Cafe Emporio - a very eclectic little cafe with broken egg shells decorating one wall.

Next was the museum of Communism. The Czech Republic was under Communist rule until only about 20 years ago when the Velvet Revolution took place, and it was interesting to learn what life was like. Propaganda portrayed Americans as evil oppressors.

We wrapped up our museum tour in the Jewish Quarter, which featured several synagogues and a cemetery. In the cemetery, people were buried on top of one another because of limited space, which is why the headstones were so crammed together. It was a very solemn and impressive area. Here and there we came across walls where people left tiny scraps of paper with prayers written on them in the nooks and crannies.

Our last full day in Prague was spent just wandering. We had exhausted all the tourist traps and now just wanted an agenda-free day. We decided to explore the Little Quarter, where we had spent the least amount of our time. We found a Royal Garden that was really pretty. It boasted Greek-influenced statuary, a hedge maze, fountains, and free roaming peacocks (which, under no circumstances, can you walk on the grass to take pictures of, as the nice man in the photo was coming to tell me). A wall that bordered the garden was made up completely of stalactites and stalagmites, like you'd see in a cave. Next to the wall was a large penned-in section that housed several enormous owls. I had no idea they could get that big.

Alexia had the brilliant idea next to get ice cream. It was a perfect day for it - sunny and warm. Nearby the ice cream shop we discovered a little bookstore, where I picked up a book of Czech fairy tales for a friend and a novel about the Golem legend. We wound our way back to the neighborhood near our hotel and stopped to view the Lennon wall - a graffitied wall dedicated to John Lennon. Our tour book said the government used to paint over it repeatedly when it first appeared but eventually gave up when they realized people were not going to stop decorating it.

We ate lunch on a patio of a nearby restaurant, where we sat next to a fat kid playing a handheld video game. Glad to see he was enjoying his cultural experience. David and I each ordered a personal pizza - which ended up being way too much food. David, being the good guy he is, decided to give our leftovers to a young homeless man with a dog and very shaky hands. He showed no reluctance to accept it.

It was time for a beer by then, so we found an outdoor bar on Wenceslas Square (site of the Velvet Revolution). Entertainment here was provided by a young group of British men apparently "on the stag." This is a sort of tradition in Britain - a party weekend in Prague similar to a bachelor party. The star of this group was a rather unattractive gentleman wearing nothing but Mr. Fantastic underwear. He was either very comfortable or very drunk because he did not seem at all ill at ease.

For our last dinner in town, David made reservations at a very cool vegetarian restaurant called Clear Head. The tables were decorated with glass beads and illuminated with a blue light. We had a bottle of Moravian wine, which was delicious. I enjoyed a dish made of potatoes au gratin covered in spinach and goat cheese. Alexia had some kind of veggie burrito, and David got a mushroom pasta. It was all very, very good.

During our visit we ate at two other restaurants worthy of note: Klub Architecture and Original Needle House. Klub Architecture (where the cool picture at left of Alexia was taken) I'd definitely recommend as a must if you go to Prague. But get a reservation. We did not have one, yet they were still able to seat us because we arrived early in the evening. But we were only allowed 45 minutes to eat and then get out. The ambiance was awesome - like eating in a very chic wine cellar. The food was even better. Thanks to Mike Gruss for recommending! Original Needle House we came across by accident while looking for a good place to eat. Their specialty was very generous shishkabobs (below). It didn't take us long to learn about a cultural phenomenon in regards to Czech dining. The wait staff does not take it upon themselves to check on you to see if you need anything - a napkin, a drink refill, your check, etc. You pretty much have to flag them down or get up and ask them for whatever it is you may need. We toyed with the idea of never hailing a waiter at Original Needle House, just to see if they'd turn off the lights and go home without ever bringing us our bill.

That, my friends, was Prague. One entry left - our last day in Paris.

European Vacation: Day 5 - Evil Czech Cops

We were a little nervous about the train journey to Prague - our itinerary called for us to switch trains about five or six times, and sometimes we were only going to have a minute or two to get on board. Turned out to not be as bad as we expected. In most cases, our connecting train was right next to the one we had just gotten off of, and all the other passengers were also getting on that same train. We only had to run at one station, and we did cut it pretty close.

The most interesting part of the trip was on one train in the Czech Republic. The three of us were just sitting, reading quietly, not expecting to get off the train for another hour. An old man seated near us made a whistling noise to get our attention, then gestured for us to get off. The train stopped, and everyone got off and started walking down a gravel road that ran parallel to the tracks. This was it, we thought. We're going to die. Instead, we all got onto a bus, which drove through a nearby town. The whole ride we couldn't help but wonder 1) why were we suddenly forced to get off the train and onto a bus, 2) where were we going? 3) were we still on our way to Prague? and 4) if we were not, how the heck were we going to get there now? Communicating with whistling and gestures can only get you so far in a foreign country where we couldn't speak or understand a word of the language. Even when we tried to say the word for "thank you" we were getting funny looks, like maybe our slang book, written circa 1972 (ie in the middle of the Czech Communist era), was actually telling us to say something like "thanks, Commie!" Eventually, however, we pulled up at another train station, followed our fellow passengers to another train, and got on. We never knew the reason for this odd little detour.

Finally, we arrived in Prague. But our excitement was short-lived. At the train station, we struggled to understand how to buy tickets for the subway. We took our best guess at what type of tickets we needed, then headed toward the entrance. We found no turnstiles like you would in ordinary subway stations. There was a small, unobtrusive machine on a wall near the entrance. Alexia asked if we thought that's what we used to validate our tickets. I foolishly said it couldn't possibly be - that there must be a turnstile up ahead. There wasn't. We got on the subway, thinking maybe we turned in our tickets when we exited. Wrong. As soon as we got off at our destination, David and I were stopped by a man in uniform. Alexia, with her experience of constantly being approached by peddlers within the Metro in Paris, casually kept on walking, thinking this man simply wanted to sell us a watch. Instead, the man told us we should have validated our tickets in the mystery machine near the entrance. He showed us instructions printed on the wall of the subway, and I thought, what a nice man. Giving us a lesson on how to use this system. Then he said we needed to pay him 1,000 koruna. What?!?! Fortunately, we had just withdrawn some cash, which probably saved us from going to jail, but unfortunately we had NO CLUE how much 1,000 koruna was in dollars. Were we to hand over to this man all of our spending money for the next week?

I had remembered reading something in our guidebook about being approached by men on the street demanding that we pay some ridiculous fine. Remembering that, I suddenly wasn't so sure that this guy was actually a cop. I mean, who in the world would fine a foreign tourist who had literally just arrived in town for failing to comprehend a ludicrously complicated subway system? So I took the advice of the guide book and stopped a passerby to ask if this truly was a fine-able offense. He said yes, and a quite common one. I then ordered the "cop" to show me his badge. He did, and it matched up with one pictured along with the instructions on the wall. Well fine, I told him I'd pay the fine, but that I was not about to pull out my money while within his sight. I told him I was going to go stand behind a nearby pillar to retrieve my cash. I was taking a great risk that this man would haul my husband off to some dark Czech prison while I wasn't looking, but hey, I still wasn't convinced he wasn't a scam artist who would tell his buddies outside where to find my cash-laden wallet. Finding David still standing there when I returned, I grudgingly handed over my cash, demanded a signed receipt so that we wouldn't get fined by the next "cop" we ran into, and we were free to go. Poor Alexia! During the whole ordeal, she was standing alone and confused at the top of the escalator, wondering whether her friends were lost or simply too stupid to not buy a watch from a street peddler.

We later learned that 1,000 koruna equals about $40, so it wasn't as expensive as we'd thought. Had we been a native, the fine would have been double. Still, a cab would have been cheaper - and more pleasant.

A note about the photo above: It's the only picture we took of that dreadful subway station. Pretty, but deceiving.

Reunited, the three of us found our way out of the evil subway station and stumbled our way around until we eventually found our hotel. Our first impression of Prague was not pretty, and the rest of the day we tried our best to ignore the sour mood our subway experience left us in.

European Vacation: Day 4 - Sightseeing in Bamberg

The hotel owner brought us breakfast in bed - rolls, jelly, ham and cheese. Energized, we hit the streets of Bamberg. Our guidebook provided a rather odd piece of advice: Go to the tourist information office and ask for the key to the tower. This tower allegedly offered the best view of the city. So we did just that and - Badadada! (insert sound effect from Legend of Zelda) we found a small key! It was a long, aged skeleton key, and we felt a bit strange being handed it unquestioningly (and without a tour guide attached).

We followed a path to an empty courtyard nearby. Inside we found the door to the tower labeled only with a no-smoking sign. We ascended until we reached a large open room with windows that looked out over Bamberg. The book was correct that this was an incredible view. We took lots of photos, then realized we were not actually at the top. So we continued up another flight, which led to a much smaller room but an even better view. It was also very obvious by then why the door and every few feet were marked with a no-smoking sign. This wooden tower was undoubtedly incredibly flammable.

After returning the key, we walked along a canal to view another feature in our guidebook - Castle Somethingorother. I would take the time to look it up but it wasn't really much to look at. It stood on the other side of the canal, so we couldn't even get very close to it, but it was an interesting mesh of modern and Medieval architecture.

Next we wandered over to St. Stephen's Cathedral. We were hesitant to enter because we could hear organ music coming from within and thought there may have been a service going on. But we took a peek and found it empty save for the organist and an elderly man reading a newspaper. We think the organist was practicing for an organ festival we'd seen signs for around town. This church was really impressive - an all white interior and lots of interesting statuary. A local artist had an exhibit on display there. His work portrayed people, carved in simple but elegant forms out of smooth wood. These were admirable until I came across the statue of Scary Baby Jesus. The orb in his lap represents his power in the world. His expression represents the horrors he would witness throughout his life. The gigantic hand is his own as an adult. Unsure why Adult Jesus Hand is strangling Baby Jesus. Guess that's up for interpretation.

It rained the rest of the day, but we had umbrellas and were in good spirits so we still enjoyed the sights. We saw the Imperial Cathedral, which stands out in the city because of its four spires. What made this cathedral unique was not its ornate decorations (you can see that in most cathedrals) but the cool lighting effects. One altar was lit up in bright yellow and red, and white light illuminated strips of white material hanging in the main chapel. The cathedral also contained a sarcophagus of an emperor and his wife with relieves on the side portraying scenes from their life and death. Above them stood a statue of a man on a horse, known only as the Bamberg rider. No one knows exactly who he was - they think maybe a king, but I guess no one ever bothered to write it down. There also were no signs (in German or otherwise) in the basement where you could view a series of dramatically lit tombs and some saint's knuckle bone, on display in a pretty little box.

We ate lunch in a very authentically German tavern. I ordered a Hellerbier and it came in a clay mug with lots of foam on top. It made me very happy, as you can probably tell by the photo. David ordered another kind of beer that wasn't quite as good. Poor David.


With all the highlights of the walking tour visited, we stopped at a cafe after lunch for coffee and pastries. We then window shopped for awhile before heading to the Spezial Brewery, which makes a different kind of smoked beer. The three of us agreed it was not as good as the beer we had had the night before (and which we eventually bought bottles of to take home to friends). It reminded me of Killian's and didn't have much of a smoky taste at all. Still, we stayed several hours and played cards.


We ate dinner at a nearby restaurant, where Alexia and I shared a German dish that resembles pizza. David ordered what we thought would be fish but ended up being white asparagus wrapped in a crepe and topped with a Bearnaise sauce and ham. He was in heaven. For dessert we had apple strudel and fruit. We drank our last smoked beer (the good kind) as we enjoyed a leisurely three-hour meal. Before bed we packed our bags and paid the hotel owner in preparation for our train ride to Prague the next day.

I almost forgot - Badadada! While in Bamberg, we also found The Big Key!

European Vacation: Day 3 - Germany!

Thanks for your patience, y'all (look I'm turning Southern!). Time to get back to chronicling our European adventure. On day three, we departed for Bamberg, Germany, our favorite part of the trip!

We got up early, fueled up on croissants and espresso, and boarded an eastbound train. As soon as we crossed the border between France and Germany, things started to get surreal. We suddenly were in a country where we couldn't understand a word that came over the loudspeaker. Alexia studied German a bit in high school, but she was also pretty much at a loss. We had to do a lot of pointing and nodding when ordering sandwiches in the dining car. And in case you're wondering, yes, a large group of children hyped up on candy and screaming in German is every bit as annoying as sugar-high children yelling in English, as we experienced when we found ourselves sharing a car with a school group returning from a field trip. We spent much of that leg of the trip playing cards in the dining car (and wondering if the children were eating any of the butter cookies I'd left out on my seat. I think they might have).

Our first stop was Frankfurt, where we discovered we had arrived late and that our connecting train had already left. Not off to a great start, but we didn't panic. We found a train station worker who spoke better English than we did German, and he printed us an alternative itinerary that would get us back on track (uh, literally, I guess). We had a little time to kill then, so Alexia grabbed a warm pretzel and we headed out to experience some of the sights Frankfurt had to offer.

And here you go. After finding little more to look at other than sex shops targeted toward Americans, we decided to just hang out in the train station for the rest of our stay in this fair city.

We got on our next train and had just gotten comfortable when the ticket collector came by. Unlike the man we'd met at the train station, this guy knew no English. But he saw that our tickets didn't match with the train we were on. We tried to show him our new itinerary and make gestures showing that we knew what we were doing and were okay, but he wouldn't let up. So we spent the next 5 to 10 awkward minutes flipping through the German dictionary looking for a word or phrase that would keep us on this train. I can't remember what we came up with - I think I found the word for "late," but it suddenly appeased him, and he nodded and walked off. Close one.

The countryside between Frankfurt and Bamberg altered from lush countryside and concrete architecture of post World War II Germany to one with more old European charm. Before we knew it we had arrived at our destination, a town that was a little off the road to Prague but that we had chosen for its famed smoked beer. It was so off the beaten path that we had been unable to find a guidebook in the States, so as soon as we debarked we headed toward a little shop in the train station. Trying to look as non-touristy as possible, we scoured the guidebooks and maps until we found one that seemed informative yet somewhat inconspicuous. Now we just had to figure out where the heck we were going.

The woman behind the counter spoke English and started to give us very complex directions to our hotel (which sounded like it was 200 miles away as we stood there with our big ol' backpacks) when a man started talking to her in German. He then turned to us and said he'd show us the way. Gratefully, we followed him. Once outside, we expected him to point in a specific direction, but instead he told us to follow him to his car. I got a nervous and suspicious feeling in my belly - no one is that nice. But it was about to rain, we didn't know where we were going, my bag was getting heavier, and David was already climbing into the passenger seat. As the man opened the door for me and Alexia I did a quick scan of the door to make sure there were door handles on the inside, and seeing that there were, I also got in. Turned out to be a nice clean luxury car, so I started to relax a bit.

The man's name was Check, or maybe Czech, like the name of the neighboring country. As he drove he told us he often visits the Czech Republic to buy antique pocket watch stands. Apparently he's a collector of these unusual knick knacks, and he showed us some photographs of a few. The route to our hotel was full of twists and turns, and the rain did start while we were on our way. He dropped us off and pointed to a building across the street - that's where we could sample the world's best smoked beer, he said. The restaurant across the street, he added, was one of the best German restaurants in town. I'd scored on my random hotel selection. Anyway, we thanked him, and as he drove off I noticed his bumper sticker, which read: I love tourists. I'm glad I didn't see that before. I would have interpreted it in a to-serve-man kind of way.

We again found ourselves lucky to have run into Check/Czech when we entered the hotel. The manager also runs a LaCoste clothing store, which she was about to close before going home for the evening. She didn't speak any English at all and it would have been great fun calling the after-hours phone number she had posted on the door and trying to explain we were her guests and that we needed to get in.

By then it was dinnertime, so we made a b-line for the brewery. It was very crowded with locals and reminded me of a Rotary Hall on a Friday night (for my Southern friends that's the night up north of the weekly fish fry). We ordered three smoked beers, hoping after all the hype that they would be worth it. And oh, were they ever. David had read one review before we left home describing the brew as tasting like water used to put out a house fire. I would say that was way off. It was more like a Guinness with a bit of hickory flavoring. It was delicious, and the best beer in the world at that moment.

While at the bar, Alexia's cell phone rang. We looked at each other astounded, and she answered it. It was her brother's friend who lived in Bamberg. Laurent had been trying to contact this friend for days to let him know his baby sister and friends would be in town. The friend told Alexia he'd love to show us around but that he was in Poland that week. He gave us some useless tips, like don't do the riverboat tour (duh). We just thought it funny - what are the odds that we'd actually know someone in Bamberg, Germany, and that he'd happen to be out of town that same week we visited. Oh well. We probably did better without him.

We crossed the street to the restaurant and ordered more of that wonderful smoked beer. Dinner was incredible. We couldn't read the menu, and no one there spoke English. Alexia ordered something called a Jagersohnitzel, which turned out to be a creamy veal and mushroom dish. David got wiener schnitzel, which he described as good but unremarkable. I ordered something with the word for bratwurst in it, and it was the best meal of the three. That dinner was probably one of the most enjoyable of the whole trip because it was so rewarding after a rather confusing day.

After eating we just wandered the streets of Bamberg for awhile. It was dark and quiet and also clean from the recent rain. All the shops were closed but we just enjoyed the architecture and the peace of the evening. Finally, we headed back to our room for a good night's rest. Tomorrow we would explore this town more.

European Vacation: Day 2

Alexia's the best. As I mentioned in my last post, David and I slept in until 2 p.m. the day after we arrived in Paris. When we woke up we discovered that our hostess (who had slept a normal 8 hours) had delivered us fresh pastries from a patisserie down the street. Our wonderful breakfast included pain au chocolat, which is SO much better in France than in the U.S. because the French know their pastries and don't overdo it by smothering the whole thing in chocolate. I know THAT sounds crazy - but trust me. It made me happy.

The only touristy thing I had any urge to do while we were in Paris was to see Monte Martre a>again. I had been there once before during a previous visit with Alexia and remember loving it. It feels like a small city inside of Paris but is actually just a really wealthy neighborhood on top of a hill in the center of the city. The area surrounding the hill, however, is inhabited by the starving artists who sell paintings of Sacre Coeur (the large cathedral which is the highlight of the area) and offer to draw your caricature. We lucked out and got beautiful weather despite the forecast for rain, rain, and more rain.

While on top of Monte Martre I had a chance to indulge in another French masterpiece - a sugar crepe. You walk up to a window as you might at an ice cream stand in the States and a man with a hot plate cooks a crepe right there before your eyes and adds whatever ingredients you desire. I like my crepes simple - but what could make a sugar crepe even tastier while maintaining such simplicity, you might ask? The answer is butter my friends. Mmm...

We then walked around and toured the dismembered statuary of the area (the one of the bishop holding his own head stood in the middle of a playground - and there was no plaque with his name or any sort of explanation as to why he was standing in the middle of a playground holding his head).

We wandered back down the hill, craving refreshment in the form of cold beer at a French cafe. The waitresses at the cafe we ultimately chose ignored us thoroughly for a good 20 minutes, so we left and wandered into a bar called The Lounge Lizard, which happened to be American-owned. There we experienced the best service on our entire trip from a California woman who didn't speak a lick of French.

Alexia then took us to a tea shop just down the street called Mariages Freres. If you like tea and are ever in Paris, GO THERE. Here's the trick: the store is divided into two store fronts directly across the street from one another. In the larger of the two you can buy all the tea you want but you can't smell any of it - you can only look at the names (which are in French). I believe there's also a cafe in that store where you can taste, but of course you'd have to pay for a whole cup. But at the smaller space across the street you are free to open any of the thousands of tins of tea and sniff out your favorites. Sure, you can also buy the tea from this store, but if their credit card machine is down as it was when we were there, then you can just write down your favorites and go back across the street.

We dined at an authentic French restaurant that was decorated much like a cheap U.S. diner but offered awesome food. Alexia and I enjoyed various parts of duck while David had tournedos. It was nearly 10 p.m. when we finished but there was still light in the sky. We walked back to Alexia's parents' home to use their computer to find a map of Bamberg, Germany - our destination the next day - and made an amazing discovery: French keyboards are messed up. The A is where the Q should be, and if you try to go to google.com you'll end up typing zzz.google.com (also, you have to do some fancy trickery like going to google.com.us or some silliness in order to get the English version over there). What's that? You want to end your sentence? Don't forget to hit the Shift button as you type in a period. Same goes for numbers. And no, hitting the Caps button doesn't save you that step. Typing an email message was just painful. And so, computers were thereby banished from the rest of our vacation. Shame about that.


Next up: Our crazy train schedule as we venture into a country where none of us knows how to speak the language (unless you want to tell someone there's a boy under the airplane or a dog under a table. The German language lessons David and I had listened to beforehand had well prepared us for those everyday scenarios).