Prague

Oh Prague (or Praha as the Czechs call it). What a perfect weekend! Great weather, good food, and lots of field tripping.


We started our journey Thursday night. And I use the word journey because it is always one just to get to the airport. (I will never take Hartsfield for granted again. It is like the Four Seasons of airports) We figured out a better way to get to the Bergamo airport than going through Milan and it worked out just about perfectly. Oh, I guess I failed to mention our flight was Friday morning. Yes, you read correctly, we left Thursday night. It wasn't going to be possible to get to the airport Friday morning in time for our flight, so we decided to rough it and spend the night in the Bergamo airport. (There is a reason I didn't tell you about this until after, parentals) We got to the airport about 12:30. After a closed McDonalds, I had to eat my fourth meal and found a great kebob stand. So, we snuggled in (all 11 of us) and got our 3 hours of sleep until the kind men at the airport went around to wake everyone up at 3:30. I do not know exactly why this time, but I feel like they wake everyone up 2 hours before the first flight. And the guards are not very nice. If I had been in Atlanta and a police woke me up, I would kindly tell him, "No Way" and go back to sleep. However, this is Italia, and I didn't feel like breaking out my Italian this early in the AM. We went down to our check-in counter and waited out the next few hours until our plane took off.
When we arrived in Prague, it was sunny! This is such a big thing for us. After not seeing the sun in Munich, Salzburg, or Amsterdam, we have determined that good weather can make for a much more enjoyable experience. When we came up from the underground metro, I think we all fell in love with Prague almost immediately. We were in one of the centers of town and there were outdoor markets and tons of people out enjoying the beautiful weather. After going around in a few circles, we found our hostel. We couldn't check in, so we threw our bags in the luggage room, freshened up after our night at hotel Bergamo, and headed out to explore the town. After getting 100% scammed at lunch, we headed for the Jewish Ghetto. Since it would be closed on Saturday, we needed to check it out that day. It was interesting and I was happy that we were finally able to do something other than Churches for the sake of our two Jewish travel buddies. After the Jewish ghetto and exploring Prague, we needed a quick power nap if any of us were going to make it out that night. We caught a snooze and got ready to check out the night life. We found a cantina and had some much appreciated margarittas and mojitos before heading to the club. All in all...successful first day/night in Prague. I knew I was already loving this place. Sidenote: Thank you Athens for outlawing smoking in bars. I can handle the occasional cig in Generals, but waking up smelling like an ash tray is not something I particularly enjoy doing.

Saturday morning we wanted to do a walking tour of Prague. Our tour guide was a little boring, too soft spoken, but all-in-all I'm glad I saw the sights and heard the stories of Prague. We went to the Old Town, the New Town, the most well preserved castle in Europe, and the St. Charles Bridge. I loved St. Charles bridge. It had been a little cold and windy up on the hill where the castle was, but when we got down to the bridge, the sun decided to come out! Burak, Jonathan, and I were the only ones to last the entire 4 hours of the tour. And afterwards, we weren't done doing the field tripping. We went to the top of the astrological clock for a birdseye view of Prague. The astrological clock is one of a kind. And back in the day when it was first made, the ruler of Prague knew this, too. So, in order to make sure he was the only one with a clock like this, he sent his people to kill the maker of the clock. They were unsuccessful and only managed to blind him, however. So, the clock maker plotted his revenge. Right before he was going to die, he went to the clock and managed to break it. Since no one knew how to fix it, it stayed broken until just a couple of years ago. Atop the clock tower, we had a beautiful view of Prague. In the Old Town Square that is seen from above, there was Prague's Easter festival going on. This could be seen all over Prague with ribbons and eggs in just about every store window. With the sunny weather, Burak, Jonathan and I just strolled around the open markets. I got a delicious pretzel thing and thoroughly enjoyed every minute being in the square. Sorry Paris, move over, Prague has the potential to be my favorite city thus far.


Saturday night, we made reservations at the Beer Factory. Here is where you pour your own beer at the table from one of four taps. We shared some giggles and talked about how much we all had enjoyed our time in Prague. The next part is where we got most of the laughs we had today on our travels home. Jonathan had heard about this black light theatre that was doing a Beatles show. We thought, 'Cool. A light show to Beatles music. This will be a perfect ending to a perfect weekend. Wrong. We get there just in time to discover this is not a bar with a light show and some Beatles music. It is a full-on theatrical theatre. We sat through the first half until intermission when we decided to bail. We all ragged on Jonathan for finding this bust of a place, but it was all in good fun. We went to have (a much needed after that experience) beer at a bar close to our (awesome) hostel before calling it a night.

Sunday morning. Or should I say late Saturday night. Did you know the clocks change in Europe. Thankfully we knew this, otherwise we would have been an hour late to our flight. We had to take a cab to the airport because public transportation was not running at this hour. It was 3:45 in the morning, but because of the time change, it felt like 2:45. Sean Feeney specials run in Europe too, and we boarded our 6 AM flight. It was nice to get back to Verona today to enjoy the gorgeous spring weather we've been having. All in all, I had one of the best weekends in Prague. Wish you all could have seen it with me, but after taking a picture hiatus in Amsterdam, I return to Verona with TONS of pictures of Prague. There are tons more on my facebook, but here is little taste of Praha.