Day 10 & 11: Cesky Krumlov

So Cesky Krumlov (in the Czech Republic) was probably one of my favorite places we've been to this trip. The town sits in the bends of the Dunabe River (I think), and its absolutely adorable. I would not mind buying a little cottage and living there.

The main focal point of the city is the Palace.. and the tower. Built on a hill overlooking the city and the river, it gives some of the most beautiful views I have ever seen...you'll have to bear with me, I took a ton of pictures of just the view from the Palace. But they're so worth it. 

The Palace tower

View of Cesky Krumlov from the palace

ITS SO PRETTY

LIKE REALLY REALLY PRETTY

I CANT GET OVER HOW PRETTY IT IS

While walking up to the Palace, you see the entry way in front of you, and the tower to your left. As you walk through the entrance, you are on a bridge above a small moat. Turns out, underneath you, is a family of bears! REAL BEARS! Wikipedia says that the Royal Family used to be related to the family Orsini, which is derived from Orsa- 'Bear' in Italian. So it became a tradition that a family of bears would live in the Palace. They had their own moat of course, where they currently live, as well as their own personal attendant. Every year on Christmas and the bears' birthdays, the town holds a festival in honor of them.




As you walk up the cobblestone and wooden entryway, you enter into this small courtyard surrounded by high painted walls, with windows and gates poking out randomly. It was such an odd contrast, seeing all the details painted on, but the iron and glass very austere compared to the paint job. Actually, almost the entire palace was like this- the details of the walls painted on, while the windows and such just poke out.

The courtyard with the painted walls

You eventually cross another walkway, which seems just like any other walkway on the ground. You have an amazing view of the town, and its not until you're back at sea level do you realize how high you actually were...or what you were on!

The walkway is on the top of the grey portion. It seems as if the grey cement part was built first, then the blue-ish part was built later...and they just stuck it on the top without bothering to blend it in!!

Street signs around the Palace

Once across the aqueduct walkway, the path opens up, and eventually leads to the Palace Gardens...which are just magnificent!

Entrance to the Palace Gardens

The main pathway down the gardens from the entrance

As you can probably tell, I loved the pedestal carvings

Uploading these pictures, I'm surprised I don't have more pictures of the rest of the gardens...they extend for acres and acres, more than you would think. Behind that fountain were tall hedges that enclosed smaller courtyards of flowers, perfect for reading in the shade. Behind that was almost a forest- tall trees that had tons of shade, and grass that went forever.

There is also the Revolving Auditorium- an outdoor stage and seating for plays. However, the audience seating is built on a revolving disc- so it swivels, depending on the scene of the play. There's an entire set built, with speakers at every angle so the audience can hear, no matter which way their chairs are turned. 

Away from the Place and into the city!! The town is completely paved with cobblestone- no asphalt or cement anywhere! And bridges everywhere, as the city sits in the bends of the river.

On a bridge overlooking the river

A different part of the river! With the palace in the background!

Over the course of 2 days, we saw:

A random brass band play in the middle of the square:

Some creepy store-front windows:

Yes, this is a Harry Potter wax figure

              


For some reason, CK is really big on puppets, like 12+ inch tall marionettes. Like the ones in Sound of Music. They even have a museum dedicated to them, which Leanne said was suuuperr creepy.  

Lots of people living in apartments, watching the world from their open windows, and watching the people below: (there's a dude in the first window in the middle)

And some awesome chairs that Leanne and I simply had to experience:

We also ate at some AMAZING cafes. Their hot chocolates are so rich and creamy! And the view isn't bad either!

We also went river rafting on the Danube- it took us about 2.5 hours, and we went about 6 miles, if i had to guess. I don't have any pictures, since bringing a camera on a raft probably wouldn't have been too smart. But we did have one lady bring hers, so when they're on Facebook, I'll definitely stick them up!

Day 8 & 9: Prague, Czech Republic

Day 8 stated with a bus ride to Prague, in the Czech Republic. I wasn't too impressed at first, as there was graffiti everywhere (its everywhere anyways in Europe, but this was more so), and a bit dirty. It just didn't feel like the magical city everyone spoke of. 

The first view of Prague

After dropping off our bags at the hotel, we took tram #22 to the city, the top of the hill where the castle was. Everything looked grimy, and I wasn't too excited. It wasn't until we turned a corner and saw the sparkling water of the river, and beautiful hillside, that I realized how gorgeous the city was.

The first view of the Prague Castle

Jess, our guide, took us on a short orientation walk from the Castle to the town square.

The castle was by far one of the most, if not the most beautiful, buildings I have ever seen. You never would have guessed that it was nestled in the back of this city.


In case you haven't figured it out, you can see the pictures better and bigger if you click on them! So the smaller pictures below, just click on them to see them better :)

Close up of gold grate on a window

From the back of the castle

Close up of the coloring on one of the walls

Close up of the top of the castle

I struggled to take this picture, but it was so worth it!

 You can tell I really loved it!! It was so stunning!! 

This is the view from the Castle hill...amazing!

We then walked to another castle, which looked like Buckingham Palace. I don't think we ever figured out what it was. But it looked cool, had cool statues, and had guards at the entrances, so we took pictures!!


 The Czech military look very snazzy in their light blue uniforms...

Statue with a bird on Charles'
Bridge

After that, we headed town the city, over Charles' Bridge, saw some statues, I bought some earrings, and we split up for dinner.

Lucy, Shari, Sue, and I think Helen and I headed towards the tram stop in hopes of finding a restaurant nearby. We ended up finding a place that has apparently been around since the 1400s.

The dinner was AMAZING. For about 15 dollars, I got 3 types of meat, red cabbage, white cabbage, bacon dumplings, potato dumplings, and white homemade bread. Plus a beer. I couldn't finish, there was so much food.

Outside of the restaurant

Our Beer!!!

Our food!!!

My beer!

Day 9 was a free day to explore Prague. So what did we do? We got lost. Twice. (Don't freak out Dad! We got back!)

First, of course, Leanne and I needed some local hot chocolate!

Effin mini Eiffle Tower

We went back up to Prague Castle, then decided we wanted to go see the Petrin tower, aka the mini Eiffel Tower. It seemed easy enough to get to, on our map...

Abandoned Stadium

Stupid mini Eiffel tower. Instead, we trekked for a solid half hour, and found this abandoned soccer stadium instead. It was quite creepy. We were so far gone, we asked a local to help us by pointing to our location on a map. But after looking confused for a moment, she pointed to a space off the paper... illustrating that we had walked so far that we were outside the scope of our map. Luckily we were able to figure out the bus numbers, and hopped on one to take us back to town.

Afterwards, I looked it up- turns out this sport stadium was built between the World Wars, and was abandoned shortly after. It was then used to hold communist rallies and such.

Its also been a venue for concerts, including the Rolling Stones, U2, and Bon Jovi. But the last one was in the early 2000s. Now it just sits empty, gathering graffiti. Some say that they're planning on revamping it, should the Czech Republic ever win an Olympics Bid. But now it just sits, hinting at the once-great past.

 After about 1.5 hours, we finally got back to the square, to eat lunch and watch the Astronomical clock ding.

Here you have the Astronomical clock- probably the first World Clock ever, based on the stars and such. The authorities who commissioned the clock didn't want the inventor to recreate it anywhere else (those controlling, jealous buttfaces) so they blinded the guy :( so this is the only one in existence!

After lunch, we headed to find John Lennon's wall.



But first, we saw the Locks of Love or whatever they're called these days...they're everywhere!

We also ran into a swarm of swan! Leanne said they're quite aggressive...but they were gaggling up a storm on the river bank! One guy was even feeding them! Although they were pecking at him quite a bit....

Finally, we got to John Lennon's Wall! A wall completely covered in graffiti, and its constantly changing, as people are constantly adding to it. We left our own little messages on the wall, of course!!

Thousands of notes and pictures...including ours!

Leaving the Charles Bridge, theres a tradition where if you touch the puppy and the woman on a statue, you will return to Prague. So, of course, I touched it. So many people have, the dog and woman have turned to gold.

Heading back was when we got lost a second time... I don't know how, but we just could not find our bus line. We ended up taking the underground train, the tram (cable cars, basically) and the bus- multiple times! Just to get back to our hotel for dinner. All of this on an expired ticket! It took us about an hour to get back, when it should have taken 10 minutes!

We got back safely, though, with 5 minutes to spare before dinner- just enough time to change, since it had been raining all day. Prague was definitely an adventure, to say the least, and we definitely got out of the touristy areas and main city...I don't know if I would recommend that again. But the city itself is stunning and definitely worth the visit.