Author Archives: Barbara

Prague-kutná hora 7-28-13 Sunday

Time is flying by. It is hard to keep track of what the date is let alone the day. Apparently this is common because people we talk to who have been traveling for several weeks have the same problem. Today we traveled about an hour outside if Prague to see kutná hora – the town where the bone church is. It is really creepy – you will see why when you look at the pics. Apparently so many people died during the plague they did not have enough graves for all of them – so they gathered the bones and put them in this church. The chandelier is made of every bone in the human body. As I said creepy but in a way beautiful.

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We then went to St Katherine’s church. It was really hot here today so we did not walk for miles. Getting heat stroke is not in the itinerary. We then missed the bus to the next church in town so we took a cab. The church we had to see was St. Barbara- guess why we had to see it. My church is very nice!

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I have my more pics on my camera. We then walked to the bus station so we could get the train back to Prague. The bus was hot, but the train was a furnace. Everyone looked beat. We were all sweating and there was very little air flow. When we got to Prague we got some cold drinks and sat in the train station to cool off. Then we decided to find the vegetarian restaurant we wanted to eat at last night. Well, we walked around Old town and couldn’t find it. For all we know it may have gone out of business. We opted for an Indian restaurant. Yes, I know -Indian food in Prague! I had chicken in creamy spinach and Marsha had mushroom and pea curry. Of course the food was great and spicy but delicious. We heard the couple at the next table mention Rick Steve’s ate at this restaurant. So I asked them how they knew about this. They told us Rick Steves was here last week filming for his show. The couple lives in Miami and are originally from London. They have also been traveling for several weeks and get cities confused.

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We left the restaurant and headed for the hotel. As we turned the final corner walking to our hotel there was a fireworks display over the Old City. Since the hotel is high on a hill we had a great view.
Thanks for all the comments. Again we love hearing from everyone. It is impossible to answer everyone individually since again it is 11pm when I am writing this and we are usually very tired and I don’t always have access to WIFI. I hope you all are enjoying the trip with us. Oops, I almost forgot – get out your maps – tomorrow we are headed to Bratislava.

Prague – Day 2 Saturday 7-27-13

Today we took the subway to Prague Castle. It is a large compound with a palace, several churches, museums and historical houses. After we purchased our tickets we went outside to plan how we would see everything. Just by luck we were just in time to see the changing of the guard.

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We spent the entire day there and still did not see everything. In some areas we we not allowed to take pics, but I took a lot of pics with my camera when I was allowed to. It was very hot here today. We thought we were in Florida in July. I still think Prague is a most beautiful city. The castle was great and our appreciation of this place could not be diminished by the heat.
When we were walking down the hill (mountain) from the castle we stumbled upon the Oldest Medieval Bar in Prague. We stopped in for a cold beer- we were hot and thirsty- and ordered a cheese plate appetizer. You can see from the pic how much cheese there was on the plate plus pickles and hot peppers and a loaf of bread. We couldn’t even finish the cheese. We met three young men from Australia who are also touring Europe. It is fun and informative to get their impressions of places we haven’t been yet.

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We continued down the hill into the Old City. Our plan was to have dinner at an Indian vegetarian restaurant, but neither of us was very hungry. We were just hot and thirsty. We watched the astronomical clock strike on the hour and headed to the subway. On our way we stopped into a Cuban restaurant/bar for a cold drink. I think water with ice was the most expensive item on the menu. See pic of Marsha drinking again. Also our hotel is not air conditioned. We continued to the subway and I took a pic of one of the escalators so you can see how long they are. We have to take three if these from the Old Town to get to our hotel because our hotel is up in the hills. It is only 11pm but we have another busy day tomorrow.

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Forgot to add pic of cheese plate.

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Prague

I took a picture of the departing train schedule in Krakow. We had to figure out which train was ours and what track. We already figured it was not the arrival schedule.

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We had a lower bunk on the train and both of us slept like babies. We arrived in Prague (Praha) about 8am. We went to an ATM to get Krona so we could buy subway tickets. We accomplished that and got to our hotel. They were kind enough to let us check in that early and let us eat breakfast there. The had mixed veggies -peas, corn and carrots on the breakfast buffet. We took our luggage to our room and headed for town. We did not know how far the Old City was so we walked-big mistake. It was at least 4-5 km and it was hot. It is supposed to be near 100 degrees tomorrow. At least our walk was all down hill. I have a pic from our hotel at night that us not very clear but should give the general idea of how large Prague is. Prague is also very beautiful-every building is pretty and of course there is a river running thru town. The whole town is just gorgeous. I took a lot of pics on the camera. We attended an organ concert at St Katherine’s church that was excellent. After the concert we walked around some more. There are pics of the Old Town and Astronomical Clock. We think we really have walked across Europe.

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Then came time for the menu review and restaurant search. We of course wanted Czech food. My appetizer was “lard with lard cinders”. I had to see what it was and it was good. I had pork with potato and bread dumplings and white cabbage ( sauerkraut ). Marsha had potato pancakes, pickles and a salad with goat cheese. Of course it was way too much food. There are very few American tourists a here and all the Europeans eat all of the food on their plates. We don’t know how they do it. Again it is late and we definitely need our beauty sleep.

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Krakow -Day 2 -Thursday 7-25-13

We got up and had breakfast at the hotel. The breakfast is included with the room price and it is a great deal. I had Polish sausage and pickles – hey we’re in POLAND. They both are great! We booked a tour to go to the salt mine in Wieliczka. The tour picked us up at the hotel and took us to the mine. The salt mine is huge. The tour lasted 3 hours and even though we descended initially on wooden steps a lot is the stair cases in the mine are made of salt. I took pictures with my camera, but am not sure of the quality because of the lighting. I urge you to go to the website: www.kopalnia.pl to see some of the rooms in the mines. I went to that address and finally just googled polish salt mine. The Wikipedia page opens with a picture of the large chapel made entirely of salt, even the chandeliers. I only have one pic so far.

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We were dropped back at the hotel and are busy charging phones etc. in preparation for our overnight train trip tonight. We are also going to spend all of our Polish money since we will not be able to use it anywhere else. We don’t have much Polish money left, which is good. We decided to walk to the train station which is not that far. All was OK until we ran into construction so we crossed the street. Unfortunately the sidewalk was cobblestone – very picturesque but a nightmare when you are pulling a suitcase. Then the sidewalk ended at stairs (also dreaded). So we climbed
the stairs and to our joy it was the plaza with the train station. We checked our luggage in a locker (9 zlotsky – Polish money) and walked around looking for a place to get a decent meal for 73 zlotsky (approx 23 US dollars), we checked the menus at several restaurants and we finally decided on a Georgian one. No it was not collards and corn bread, but the Russian Georgia. We ordered – I remembered to take a pic of the bread and dipping sauces but forgot to take a pic of our meals until we had eaten most of them. See pics. I took a pic of the menu so you could get an idea of what we had. It was delicious! We had our dinners plus a pitcher of wine for 63 zlotsky. We left a 5 zlotsky tip which left us only 5 zlotsky. We headed to the grocery store to buy some iced teas and still have .02. Zlotsky left. This was worth less than one penny. We are now killing time until we board the overnight train to Prague.
I finally got WIFI at the train station so I can send this.

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Krakow – Wednesday 7-24-13

We arrived in Krakow at 6:30am. We needed to find our hotel and get some Czech money. We went to the tourist info booth and they gave us bus directions, but we needed local money to get a ticket. We found an exchange place and got some money then we headed to the bus stop to buy a ticket from an automated ticket booth. A man from Canada helped us and with tickets in hand we boarded the bus. While on the bus a woman told us we were going in the wrong direction so we got off and crossed the street to get the bus in the other direction. In Krakow you need to run thru traffic to catch a bus which makes this really interesting. We decided we had initially been going in the right direction so back across the street we went and got back on a bus going in the original direction. Finally we found our hotel and since it was early asked them to keep our luggage until we could get into our room and we headed on foot to the old city of Krakow. Krakow is a very pretty city and we headed across town to see the castle – see pics of and from castle-

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We toured the castle – no pics allowed of course- and then we walked the entire old city. We stopped at a chocolate shop and decided to take a break – see pics – a delicious break it was. Then we continued walking some more – as I said Krakow is very pretty and has nice city parks. We decided to have dinner before we returned to the hotel. We just walk along and read menus until we find a place we like. We saw a restaurant down an alley and liked the menu so we stayed for dinner. No one spoke English or any other language except Polish (there are many German tourists here). It seemed very much for locals. Marsha had pierogis and I had potato pancakes with au shroom sauce. It is late again and we have to be up early.

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