Prague – Day 2

On our second day in Prague we explored both sides of the river a few times, from New Town to Old Town to the Little Quarter and Castle Quarter across the bridges.  The well-preserved architecture and details from a variety of eras is remarkable in Prague.  We really just had a great day spending time together, walking the streets, taking lots of photographs of golden spires and Art Nouveau facades, exploring churches, getting lost (especially in the Jewish Quarter), enjoying some street food and a yummy lunch, and basically just having not much of a schedule.  The weather was quite a bit chillier than Berlin—and I admit I wasn’t really packed for that cold—and we had some rain early in the day before it cleared up to a beautiful, sunny evening.  We did spend most of the entire day outside, though—there’s just so much to see in Prague, and all in walking distance. 

Early in the day we crossed Charles Bridge with the masses and headed up to Prague Castle.  Apparently, the day we were they were celebrating the 700th birthday of the Father of the Czech nation, Charles IV, at Prague Castle which drew a huge crowd.  We couldn’t even really get close to the castle but enjoyed the view of the city from on top of the hill.  After lunch (and a special excursion you’ll see in the next post) we decided to avoid the crowds a little bit and explore quieter parts of Prague.  We walked along Kampa Island and actually got some of our prettiest views of Castle Quarter and Old Town.  I think this relaxed time with Jonathan, strolling along the Vltava River at dusk is the time I’ll treasure the most in Prague.

The next day we took a train back to Berlin (a train we nearly missed—we fortunately figured out in time that we were at the wrong train station and were able to hop on the metro to the other train station, which was obviously different than the one at which we had arrived to Prague) and had one more half a day to enjoy Berlin.  It was a quiet Monday in Berlin due to the holiday Whit Monday so we nearly enjoyed the streets to ourselves.  We took a metro out to the largest piece of the Berlin Wall still intact, and now an art gallery, explored our favorite parts of Berlin again, tried currywurst, and then had a lovely vegetarian meal in an old chapel (couldn’t eat another sausage…).  Any images from that time ended up on Instagram.  Mid-May was just a lovely time of year to visit this part of Europe and it was wonderful to explore two cities I’d never had the opportunity to see in all of my previous European travels.         

{art nouveau facades, czech details, powder tower, and prague meridian used to tell time from 1652 to 1918.}

{old town square and tyn church.}

{old town square and waiting for a roasted trdelnik (not our favorite type of donut).}

{view of prague castle and charles bridge.}

{statues on charles bridge, a watch tower, and ornate buildings on the other side of the bridge in the little quarter.}

{church of st. nicholas in little quarter.}

{ornate details of little quarter and castle quarter and the view from the top of the hill at the prague castle.}

{views from charles bridge of old town prague.}

{back at old town square with the astronomical clock and tyn church.}

{the variety of the details and colors of the buidlings blew me away.}

{close to wenceslas square—art nouveau buildings, budweiser (the stolen name), sculpture of wenceslas riding an upside-down horse by artist David Černý.}

{dancing house (nicknamed “fred and ginger”) by architect frank gehry (of guggenheim fame) and lovely views from a quieter prague a few bridges up from the charles bridge.}

{our lovely late afternoon stroll along kampa island brought ust o some beautiful views of old town.}

{and back over the charles bridge one last time.}