On to Prague

Continuing with my type-delayed recount of our spring travels.  From the eastern side of Germany, we left for Prague.  As we were making our plans, we felt we were too close (2 1/2 hours) to miss another country and a beautiful city.  To quote a famous line:  "Come on, it's Czechoslovakia. We zip in, we pick them up, and we zip right out again. We're not going to Moscow. It's Czechoslovakia, it's like going into Wisconsin."  Now it's the Czech Republic, but we had the same thoughts.

I was in Prague in 2004 while in Germany for business.  Spent a weekend there with a co-worker and enjoyed it.  I had been close to that area while in the Army and doing some time in Germany, but that was truly another time before The Wall was gone.  We talked with the kids a lot about how different things were then and how people on that side would rarely have the opportunity to visit the West and people in the West would rarely visit there.  Rod was mildly interested as we were heading behind what was the Iron Curtain.  As we passed the now unmanned, but pretty substantial border crossing, there was some questions about why these things were here, but no one manning them.  But most of this was met with a collective yawn that will hopefully someday be recognized as significant experience.  I'm not holding my breath....

The drive there told me one thing.  The only reason Europe has completely imploded economically is Germany.  My unofficial count of trucks heading out of Germany to the east was 1 bazillion.  The number heading back was significantly lower.  So the next time you feel sorry for the squeeze Angela Merkel is putting on the Greeks, Cypriots, Spanish, Portuguese, Italians, Irish, and whoever else is coming for a bailout, you will know why.  They are working their butts off in Germany, while they view the rest of Europe as trying to figure out how to keep from working.  Sorry for inserting political rhetoric into my personal blog, but I was personally impressed.

Grace was happy with this.

We pulled into Prague and found our accommodations for the night, but were way to early to check in.  So we dropped our bags at the hotel and started our journey.  Our hotel was about 5 minutes from the Charles Bridge, which connects the old and new parts of Prague.  It's a walking bridge, packed with tourists and artists and entrepreneurs.  As we headed into the Old City, we stopped by the Johannes Kepler Museum.  If you like mathematics, have 20 minutes to spare in Prague, and are travelling with kids that have mentioned his name before, it's worth the visiting.  Then, the familiar rumblings of a stomachs neglected began to rise, so we had to find a sausage.  Not a tall order in this town!

Our journey took us across the Charles Bridge and to the Old Town where we wandered through the attractions there.  Another beautiful Gothic church (St. Vitus).  J.J. refers to this as the "Evil Notre Dame".  Not exactly sure what that means other than he wasn't as impressed.  We then walked up and saw a great collection of armor (as in Knights in...).  This was in a collection of buildings they had restored in the old town.  All the doors were chin-busters for me.  The kids loved seeing all the shops and exhibits.

St. Vitus

My Knight in shining armor...

Medieval weapons...Mmmm.

The long walk up the hill to the radio tower.
Longer for some...

After seeing all this stuff, we had the familiar tourist desire to climb something, so we climbed up the hill to Prague's Eiffel Tower-inspired radio tower.  Not as big or as impressive, but it did have stairs to climb.  At the bottom, there was a Merkur toy room where kids could play with them.  What is Merkur?? Think Czech erector sets.  A history just about as long as the erector sets we know in the US, but add Communism, bankruptcy, nationalization, Capitalism, more bankruptcy and you get Merkur.  We had fun building with them, whatever their path.

View of Old and New Prague
from the radio tower

From there, we decided to hit the mirror maze.  It wasn't as big or "mazey" as some wanted, but it was getting late and it was time to move toward dinner.  After exiting the maze, we found ourselves in the dark and the walk through the deserted park in an unfamiliar city with phone batteries nearly dead was not met with smiles and pleasant chatter from some in our party.  But as I'm writing here, we survived to get to our next destination.  Dinner.....

Can you pick the real ones out?

Potential Christmas Card photo

Model trains meet alcohol...

I had read about a restaurant in Wenceslas Square that served drinks on a model train set.  Seemed like a good idea.  I knew of two adults in the party that needed a drink.  It was about 6 miles of walking that day (from what Google Maps tells me).  We were some tired kids and adults.  The drinks did indeed show up in a roofless train car being pulled along by an engine.  How it knew to stop at our table, I do not know?  But it did.  I had visions of some employee managing all this from a central train command centre.  There's something about being warned that the train will only stop at the your station for a few seconds and you must unload the drinks or they will head off down the track that made getting a good photo hard.  I know I was thirsty and didn't want that to happen.  Rod managed to get this shot, but it was a bit blurry.  You can put your empties in an empty car going down the track if  you want, but they don't return full without having a waiter come by.

Fresh off the train

We were leaving the next morning for our next exotic destination, so this ended our day in Prague.  The next morning, we were off, but not before a final stop to pick up that souvenir that every little girl wants....a white Russian military cap, complete with a Red Army brooch on the front.  Priceless!!!!

It is warm...