Prague, Czech Republic

Otherwise known as Praha, in Czech.

Prague turned out to be my (& Jason's) favorite city. How do you not love a city that looks like this? From the pictures I've included below, I think you'll see just why we loved it so much.

After conquering our jet lag with 15 hours of sleep, (impressive, I know), we boarded a train to Prague.

This train was made up of compartments. 6 seats to a compartment, each compartment closed off by a sliding glass door and a hallway about 2 feet wide runs the length of the train past all the compartments.

We had been advised to make reservations for any long distance trains; we were so thankful we took that advice!

When you make a reservation on a train, you're assigned to a specific car and specific seats in a specific compartment on that car.

We didn't know that. 

This train was filled beyond capacity. The people who had reservations found their seats. Those without reservations filled in the empty seats. And then the rest of us, who weren't exactly on the ball with either making reservations or not knowing how the system worked, were stuck in the aisle, crawling over each other, squeezing past each other, trying desperately to find empty seats. 

Did I mention everyone had their luggage with them? 

Ours were the smallest bags on the train (or so it seemed). We learned that a lot of people on trains don't travel light. They bring huge, hard-sided suitcases that in themselves can take up the entire aisle.

Jason eventually figured out what our reservations meant and so we traveled nearly the entire length of the train in this crawling, squeezing manner, because we had boarded the last car and our reservations were for one of the very first cars, and then kicked two people out of our seats who had taken up residence.

It was quite the ordeal. 

Once we got into the Prague train station, we made train reservations to leave in a couple of days (we now knew the value of reservations!), got some Czech currency (crowns) and figured out how to take the subway to our hotel. It was in Prague that we first learned how to take the subway, read the maps and stand on an escalator. 

In most European subway stations, but especially in Prague, you stand on the right hand side of the escalator and leave the left side open for people who want to scurry past you. Also, the escalators in Prague were some of the steepest and longest I've ever seen. We were a long, long way underground! 

Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures of the area our hotel was in, but the neighborhood we stayed in was probably one of the reasons I liked Prague so much. We got off the subway to find ourselves in a non-touristy part of town. There were locals hanging out at bars along the street, sitting at cafes on the sidewalk, shopping in the mall and grocery store that was right next to our hotel. It was such a fun and refreshing atmosphere, especially coming from Berlin. 

We really only had one day to spend in the city, and we made the most of it. 

We went to the Vysehrad, which is a big compound of ancient Czech buildings, including a church and cemetery where some of the more famous Czech people are buried. 

We also got a stellar view of  the city.

We visited the Old Town Square, saw LOTS of tourists and left pretty quickly to find Charles Bridge, which was equally packed with tourists. I guess that's what happens when you visit a popular tourist destination in the summer, on a weekend! 

This is the Old Town Square....

  And this is the beginning of the Charles Bridge...

 And this is one of many groups of statutes on the bridge...

After crossing the bridge, we hiked up a hill to Prague Castle. A BIG hill. A big STEEP hill. 

And we got this view...

 Gorgeous city, right? I would not have guessed that this city was under Communist rule for decades. It's so completely different from Berlin! 

This is the church that's part of the Prague Castle compound...

And this is one of the gargoyle guys that was guarding the top of the church. 

Cute, right? 

Then we climbed yet another hill, but thankfully, it was much shorter and not as steep, and got this view of Prague Castle and the church in the above pictures.

It doesn't get better than that!

Except, it does get better when you can cap off the evening with some chocolate chip cookies purchased at the Tesco (grocery store) located conveniently next door to the hotel.