Prague

A group of 8 of us decided that we would make the most of our weekend and travel to the Prague in the Czech Republic. We hopped on the bus around 1pm and arrived in the city around 5pm. We had about 40 hours total in Prague so we really had to go non-stop if we wanted to make it worth our money. Dinner was a nice piece of pork with some bread dumplings and a couple liters of Czech Budweiser, which is really good surprisingly. After that, we made our way for a night on the town. On Sunday we set out to do two tours, a free walking tour as well as a castle tour. The first tour was great, Prague has so much history and it is a well maintained and preserved city. Dr. O told us that Prague was her favorite city out of the Prague, Vienna and Budapest trio. And I can see why she said that, the Old Town is beautiful and small, yet it is packed with so many people and good food and the astrological clock. We started off with the Astronomical clock which is really cool in that it has been around for so long, since 1410! At the top of each hour there is a little procession that goes on where some guys spin around and “death” sits there and rings a bell. They recently added a trumpet player at the top of the tower that plays a little toon while the whole thing is going on. All the while, there are literally hundreds, if not more people standing there watching this all happen. One thing that we learned about this from our tour guide was that in the Czech Republic your birthday is a day when you go out with your friends and you buy them all food and drinks and then it is your name day when they buy you food and drinks and bring you gifts. So nobody wants there friends to know their birthday because then they have to take everybody out, pretty funny stuff. After that we made our way down to the river and then into the Jewish Quarter. The Jewish Quarter is interesting because it was at a time considered one of the nicer living areas in Prague and it could have very well been demolished by Hitler in World War II, but I guess plans to make it a museum factored into the decision to leave it be. After this we went and grabbed some pork and then met up for our next tour, the castle tour. The Prague Castle is the largest castle I have ever seen, and the biggest castle in the world! It sits on top of a hill overlooking the Danube. It is over 1000 years old and is one of the main tourist attractions in Prague. After all this we were pretty tired and went and got some food and called it a day! We left the next morning on an 8am bus and were back in Vienna just in time for some lunch. Looking back on the places that I travelled to, Prague was easily top 3 places I have been and I will be back!