It ain't heavy, it's my bike

Thursday, August 30, 2018

Eastern European Adventure, Day 11: Prague and Kutna Hora

We got up and at them and took a confusing walk to the train station, and then had a pretty hard time figuring out how to get to our destination, Kutna Hora, because it wasn’t listed as an intermediate stop on any of the trains. Eventually figured it out and took a 1-hour train ride to Kutna Hora and a short walk to the Kostnice Ossuary Beinhaus, or Bone Church.

I am assuming that Glenn Danzig has been here.

We walked around the graveyard around the Bone Church, and then walked to the Cathedral down the street, St. Barbara's, which was quite interesting to walk around.

We had lunch at an awesome place in town; I had cream of chicken soup in a breadbowl and Molly had a schnitzel plate, and it’s dollar beer night every night (and all day).

We walked to Kutna Hora Centrum (town proper), and decided maybe there wasn’t enough to do there for a full afternoon, so we took an adorable 10-minute train ride on the smallest little train from the Kutna Hora Metso station to the Kutna Hora hl.n. station.

Photos of old abandoned train eqpt by the Kutna Hora Metso station

After our train trip back to Prague, we took the Metro subway to Holesovice, the hipster neighborhood just north of the Old Town across the Vistula. We went to the biergarten in Letna Park and had a beer while overlooking the Vistula from the bluffs above, then went to Burrito Loco, which is like Chipotle for Chipotle, and no one was mad.

We took the tram (which was very fast) back to our neighborhood, and we settled in for another evening of Netflix.

No jokes here, nope

Day 1: Brzeg

Day 2: Brzeg

Day 3: Brzeg

Day 4: Brzeg to Warsaw

Day 5: Warsaw to Krakow

Day 6: Krakow

Day 7: Krakow

Day 8: Krakow to Prague

Day 9: Prague

Day 10: Prague

Day 11: Prague and Kutna Hora

Day 12: Prague

Day 13: Prague

Wednesday, August 29, 2018

Eastern European Adventure, Day 10: Prague

We walked across the Charles Bridge and took the funicular up the hill to the Petrin Tower, which is a small version of the Eiffel Tower. It was 300 steps up to the top of the Tower, which was an awesome view but also very crowded.

We got some ice cream when we got to the bottom, and then we wandered down the switchbacks down the hill, which took some time. We wandered south through the neighborhood near the Staropramen brewery and then crossed the Vltava into the Nova Preste neighborhood. We stopped for some excellent kebab, and then wandered along the east bank of the river.

Molly bonks

It was really nice, but really hot, and there was a car show setting up which interfered with some of the normal businesses. We stopped for a refreshing drink at a bar on a boat, and then had another drink at a different bar on a boat while waiting for our 1-hour boat tour to begin. We took the boat tour, which was fine, but didn’t really go that far.

Boatin'

It was nice being on the water. We rode 1 ½ laps and hopped off the tour closer to the hotel than where we started, and then wandered around looking at menus for 20 minutes searching for vegetables. We ended up at sort of a ridiculous café, but there were vegetables. Then we stumbled upon a little grocery store, where got some snacks and Becherovka, and then we headed back to the room and watched Ghostbusters.

This is Day 10. Here's the full list of posts from this trip:

Day 1: Brzeg

Day 2: Brzeg

Day 3: Brzeg

Day 4: Brzeg to Warsaw

Day 5: Warsaw to Krakow

Day 6: Krakow

Day 7: Krakow

Day 8: Krakow to Prague

Day 9: Prague

Day 10: Prague

Day 11: Prague and Kutna Hora

Day 12: Prague

Day 13: Prague

Tuesday, August 28, 2018

Eastern European Adventure, Day 9: Prague

We took our time getting up and at them in the morning. Our plan was just to walk around the Old Town, and that’s pretty much what we did. We went to the Market on Havelska St. first – it was charming little stalls selling useless stuff. We just bought a few postcards.

Then we went to the Mucha Museum, which was great.

We went to the post office to buy stamps, then ate lunch at Banh Mi-Ba, which was like Chipotle except if it was for banh mi sandwiches. We briefly stepped into a little antiquarian bookstore, then went next to the Municipal House with the intention of seeing Mucha’s Slav Epic, but admission was steep. So, we walked around the basement and free areas of the building; the interior of the building was also designed by Mucha, so that was good. I apparently took zero pictures inside the Municipal House, so that was... not good.

We stumbled upon the stairway to the top of the Powder Tower. We stopped halfway up in a room of closed stained-glass windows, and we were complaining because we thought it was the end of the line and wondered why all the windows would be closed.

What I thought would be the best photo op from the Powder Tower - thru the stained glass

But then we realized that the stairs kept going up to a very nice viewing pavilion, so we felt dumb.

We stumbled upon another market and had a drink on a patio. Then we got snacks at a Billa supermarket and the old lady at the checkout yelled at us for not weighing our produce (there's a really good Steph Curry gif of him bowing his head and looking disappointed that I'll find and put here). We walked past the synagogue with the Golem of Prague in it. We walked down Parisian St. to the river, saw the Metronome, which was only going about 5 bpm. We walked along the river and went to Hemingway Bar. Our bartender, George, was very nice and informative, and we chatted him up. He gave us a list of recommendations, including Clear Head, a really good vegetarian place where we went to dinner.

We went back to our room and watched The Good Guys.

Some street arts

This is Day 9. Here's the full list of posts from this trip:

Day 1: Brzeg

Day 2: Brzeg

Day 3: Brzeg

Day 4: Brzeg to Warsaw

Day 5: Warsaw to Krakow

Day 6: Krakow

Day 7: Krakow

Day 8: Krakow to Prague

Day 9: Prague

Day 10: Prague

Day 11: Prague and Kutna Hora

Day 12: Prague

Day 13: Prague

Monday, August 27, 2018

Eastern European Adventure, Day 8: Krakow to Prague

Ah yes, a train selfie

We got up and had breakfast at Charlotte before walking to the train station to catch the train to Prague. It was a 7-hour ride, and there were all kinds of stops at every little town along the way, but it didn’t take much longer than it would have to travel to the airport for a flight, and we got to see some of the countryside between the cities. There were many unpronounceable stations along the way.

The train moved very slowly through Poland, and then once we crossed the Czech border, the pace picked up considerably.

Is Panther.

Random scenery-from-the-train shot

Arriving in Prague Central Station

We rolled into Prague and it was a little bit of culture shock. There were a lot more people than we were expecting, and dragging suitcases through packed cobblestone squares ain’t the best. On the other hand, there’s more than just white people here and the architecture really knocks your socks off.