This is the second leg of our journey...
Thursday, June 22
We flew from Copenhagen to Prague, and for this flight we
were in economy, and we ended up having an older gentleman sit between us (you
may recall that we almost always sit aisle/window, and sometimes we luck out
with an empty seat between us and other times we don't!). He was very nice and we chatted about travel
and what to see in Prague (he was heading home), which made the already short
flight zip by. It's amazing to me how
travel is a universal topic of conversation and it is always great to get
advice from a local!
We landed just before dinner time, and C had arranged a car
service to take us from the airport to our hotel. I mentioned in my last post that, in general, we
are not fancy people. So it was fun to
ride in a Mercedes because it definitely felt very fancy! And it only got better from there because our
hotel was AMAZINGLY fancy! It is located
about 30 steps from the American Embassy, and there was police check on the
road, at which point our driver explained that we were staying in the safest
part of Prague for this very reason – lots of security. The name of our hotel was The Alchymist and I
loved everything about it!
As we were checking in, we were given glasses of
champagne, which was delightful, and then our bags were delivered to our room
for us while we were given a tour of the hotel.
Let me say that it was the kind of place you would not want to leave –
it had a romantic, old castle feel to it and I was reminded just how lucky I am
that C plans all of our trips and I just get to go along for the ride! I am continually surprised and thrilled
everywhere we go! He is THE BEST!
Friday, June 23
We ate breakfast at the hotel and then walked to Prague
Castle. We spent a few hours there, and
it provided great views of the city, but if I'm being honest, I did not think
it was worthy of the title "castle" because it was more like a
fortress with a large, impressive church.
Still lovely to visit, but it didn't really have that royal feeling that
I love. We stayed to watch the changing
of the guard because walking back down into town for ice cream and lunch. One thing I will say that I loved so much about
Prague is that everywhere we went, there were so many options for potato-based
dishes, and as vegetarians, it was awesome.
After having such a hard time finding food to eat in Tokyo, it was so nice
to be in Europe and to have lots of choices in every restaurant! Also, random share…at one restaurant, the
bill came to us in a little treasure box!
So cute!
After lunch, we walked over to take a funicular ride up to
get some additional views of the city. And there were beautiful gardens at the
top. I could have taken hundreds of
photos of those flowers! Instead of
taking the funicular back down, we decided to walk, which was actually a little
bit more of a hike, but the views made it worthwhile. We stopped at the hotel for a short rest, and
then walked across the Charles Bridge over to Mirror Chapel for a concert. It was a string quartet, organist, and opera
singer. Some of the performers are
members of the national orchestra, so as you might imagine, it was beyond
fantastic! And the best part of the whole
thing was that Mozart himself played on the organ that is in the chapel! I had chills!
We heard Vivaldi, Bach, Mozart, and several other pieces. My former orchestra & band member self
was in heaven!
We ended the evening with several hours of walking around
the city, dinner, and ice cream. I can't
explain it, but there were SO MANY ice creams places in Prague! Ice cream everywhere! So we ate a lot of ice cream during our
visit!
Saturday, June 24
Once again, we ate breakfast at the hotel because the food
was delicious and the atmosphere and service could not be beat! We then walked over to the nearest metro
station in an attempt to buy tickets. I
have not yet mentioned that language was a bit of an issue for us in
Prague. Some places had things in
English, but there were many times when we were struggling a little to figure
things out. Even in restaurants, there
was no guarantee that the menu would be available in English or that our server
would speak English. Thankfully,
everyone was extremely kind and patient with us! However, we had zero luck buying a metro
ticket from a machine, even though we thought we were following the directions
correctly. We finally gave up and
grabbed a taxi instead out of frustration with the entire process.
Our sour moods evaporated quickly when we arrived at our
destination. Remember how I mentioned
that C is the best travel planner? I had
no idea what was in store…all I knew was that we were going to a university
library. I was excited enough about
that, but when we got inside…OH.MY.WORD.
Every floor inside was rainbow colored.
It was the coolest library I have ever seen – and we've been to our
share of libraries! I took a ton a
photos of the different floors and honestly, I cannot describe just how much I
loved it. I enjoyed just about every
single thing we did and saw in Prague, but that just takes the cake!
After I spent a couple hours oohing and ahhing all around
the library, we walked to the nearest metro station and decided to try the
crazy ticket machine again because it just didn't seem like it should have been
as difficult as it was. Lo and behold,
we were able to purchase the tickets without incident, and came to the
conclusion that the machine we'd tried earlier in the day must have been
broken. We returned back to the downtown
area and wandered around the city. The buildings
are just so beautiful in Prague! We also
stopped by the public library, which, frankly, was nothing to write home about,
with one huge exception.
When you enter the library, there is what looks like a
sculpture. Upon closer inspection, you
realize that it is in fact made of countless books, strategically stacked, to
form a fascinating open column. And if
that weren't enough, when you look inside, you how mirrors have been cleverly
arranged to create the illusion that the column of books continues on forever and ever. I don't
know who created something so mesmerizing, but it was awesome!
We stopped for a late lunch, and it might be a good time to
share that we eat a lot of pizza when we travel. Not only do we love pizza, but it is an easy
item to get almost everywhere for vegetarians.
What we noticed repeatedly both in Prague and in Copenhagen was that
when we ordered pizza, it would be delivered to the table on two plates,
already cut in half. When it happened
once, we thought it was a bit a odd; the second time, we suspected it wasn't a
fluke, and by the third time, we realized that this was somehow the custom in
both countries (and perhaps elsewhere).
I guess they wanted to make sure we each got our fair share?
After lunch, we got some ice cream, and continued to explore
the city until it was time to return to the Mirror Chapel once again for
another concert. This time, it was a
pianist, two opera singers, and a violinist – the violinist and the female
opera singer had also performed during the concert the previous night – and the
concert was once again fabulous. There
is just something about sitting in an old historic chapel in the middle of an
old European city listening to amazing classical music that really filled my
heart up. It's hard to articulate how
deeply these two concerts moved me. I
played piano and French horn for a very long time and live instrumental music –
particularly classical music – stirs something very deep inside my soul.
So again, I have C to thank for finding these concerts…he
spends weeks and months researching most of our trips and the payoff is
amazing.
Sunday, June 25
We had our final breakfast at the hotel, and then walked
over to the Lennon Wall, which is a place where people use graffiti to keep the
spirit of John Lennon's message of peace and love alive. It was a beautiful tribute and it is clear it
is considered a place of importance because all of the visitors spoke in hushed
tones and I saw more than a few tears shed when reading the messages – my own
included.
This was our last day in Prague, so we wandered around to
soak up as much of the city as we could.
We saw what is referred to as the "Dancing House," lots of
stunning architecture, and a few unusual things – a seemingly random row of (I
think) plastic penguins, car boats, a old timey car that looked like it could have belonged to Cruella De Vil, and a large floating octopus, to name a
few. We stopped at an outdoor café along
the water to enjoy the beautiful afternoon weather, and then made two last
stops. First, we checked out the Lego
Museum, which was really cool, and then finally – you guessed it – we got ice
cream. The employees scoop the ice cream
into cones in such a way that it looks like flower petals, and then they top
the cone with a macaron. I made unwise
choices in my ice cream flavors because the color was not that different from
the cone itself, so I didn't really capture a great photo of it. Oh, well!
It still tasted amazing!
We ended the night back at the hotel and unfortunately, it
was time to pack up and get ready to head home in the morning.
Monday, June 26
We left the hotel at about 6:15 am, once again being spoiled in
a Mercedes thanks to the car service C had arranged for us. We grabbed some breakfast at the airport and
then took a flight from Prague to Stockholm.
We were in economy for that leg, but it was a short flight and we lucked
out and had an empty middle seat between us, so no complaints here! I took some photos as we approached
Stockholm.
We landed around noon and deplaned. Normally I would have nothing to share about
that process. However, after leaving the
jet way, we had to take an escalator up one floor to get to the gate area. We had been seated near the front of the
plane, so we among the first 40 or so people to get off the plane. We got on the escalator and realized there
was a crowd at the top. It turns out
that the doors that we were supposed to exit through were locked, so the
escalator just kept dumping more and more people into a very small area. It was kind of scary, to be honest. People moved out of the way the best they
could, and when there was no more room, people were shouting down to those at
the bottom not to get on the escalator because there was no room at the
top. Others were banging on the glass
doors to no avail, and some people had to turn around with all of their carry
on luggage and try to make their way back down the ascending escalator. While it only lasted less than ten minutes,
it was madness! Finally the doors opened
and we were released into the gate area, but what insanity!
We had a five-hour layover in Stockholm, which was not
really enough time to leave the airport and do anything, so we just found a
place for lunch and then camped out there for a few hours before heading to our
gate. As we were departing, I spotted a rainbow in the midst of the rain through the plane's window and figured that was a good omen for our trip home! The flight was a dream,
because we were in business class again, so I was able to sleep soundly for
several hours.
One of the things I love about Norwegian Air, other than its
amazingly reasonable fares, is that every plane we've been on has these awesome
colored lights in the ceiling and I get super excited when they put them on the
rainbow cycle (most of the time, from what we've seen, they are light blue or
light peach, depending on day or night flights). As you can see from the photos, I love them!
After landing at JFK, we breezed right through immigration
thanks to our participation in the Global Entry program (not having to wait in
line is the best!) and then since we didn't have anything of value to declare,
we cleared customs very quickly as well.
We picked up our luggage, hopped on the Air Train (and were gifted with a lovely sunset), and were back in our
car in a very short amount of time! We
didn't hit much in the way of traffic for the drive home (it was about 9 pm on
a Monday night), so we got home at about 2 am, tired, but so happy to see our
gals!
What a fabulous adventure!
According to my phone, we walked a total of 15 miles in Prague – less than
half of what we walked in Copenhagen – which reflects the relatively intimate
size of Prague. I'm not entirely sure I
would return to Copenhagen – I liked it very much, but there are so many places
I still want to see – but I would go back to Prague in a heartbeat! I loved everything about it!
I would be remiss if I didn't also thank my mom for watching
Maddy and Ginny for us for ELEVEN days!
We are so lucky to have her because we don't have to worry about them
for a single second, knowing she is watching them!
If you haven't already, be sure to read all about the first
part of this trip when we visited Copenhagen!
Happy Tails to you!
