Prague (take three)

After four days in Austria we continued on toward Prague. Jeremi and I had crossed the border between the Czech Republic and Germany four times previous to this, and we were used to them collecting all our passports, scanning them individually, stamping them upon exit and entry of each country, checking the insurance papers for the car, and generally asking some questions. We were prepared for the same sort of procedure at the Czech/Austrian border, but found ourselves basically waved through. The Austrian border guard did glance at the passports of Jeremi and me, but just handed them back, unopened. He didn't even ask how many people were in the car. Perhaps it was because they knew the border was going to be unguarded from December 21st, and they'd lost their motivation. (This didn't affect the German or Czech border guards upon our reentry to Germany, mind you. This may have to do with the difference between German and Austrian attitudes in general...)

The drive to Prague was well marked and fairly uneventful. The highlight would have to be this open truck filled with hunters, complete with hunting dogs. Much of the route was on small two-lane highways, through towns, and not as fast as we were used to. The distance between Vienna and Prague isn't great though, and we arrived in Prague in mid-afternoon. After finding the hotel surprisingly quickly (as we'd forgotten our map of Prague) and dropping off the luggage, Jeremi and I left to take the car out to one of the park and ride stations that we'd passed on the way in (again, without a map). Of course it makes sense, but the park and ride exit is only marked when you're approaching the city, and not when you're leaving it. Of course you're supposed to be taking the subway on the way out, when you go pick up your car again. Needless to say, we drove around the suburbs for a while before we figured out where we were supposed to be going. Then of course we had to get some cash, break the bills so we could use the automated ticketing machines, and find our way to the metro. Still, we made it back close to the meeting time we'd suggested to mom and dad and baba.

In the meantime they'd gone on a short walk through downtown, admiring the buildings, including this one nicknamed "Fred and Ginger":

They'd also found an old beerhall mentioned in the guidebook, which served it's own dark beer, brewed on premisis. This was our first stop, and the first of many pictures of baba posing with her beer. There was a great old accordion player there, and mom and baba were having fun singing along to old standards. He came by our table and asked where we were from, and when he heard Canada he played us "Home on the Range", which of course we all sang along to. Mom thought this was quite funny, as it's not exactly a "Canadian" song, but it's close enough.
The beer and food was a bit pricy there, so we headed on to another restaurant for supper. There they also offered litre-sized beers, like at Oktoberfest, which Jeremi loved.

And then so did Baba...
The next morning we had breakfast at the restaurant next to the hotel, as it was included. We were down in the basement of the restaurant, and the decor was pretty fun and rustic.
Check out the furs lining all the benches...
After breakfast we headed out towards the old Jewish Cemetary, passing by a display case filled with stacking dolls that mom just loved.
Around St. Charles' Bridge there was a girl promoting Durex condoms, who was walking around dressed as a sperm. We didn't take any pictures at the Jewish Cemetery, as was requested by signs there, but it was incredibly interesting. If you're interested, you can read a better description than we'd provide here.

From there we headed to the old town square, which happened to be holding a Christmas market.


We stopped for some nice Czech pastries......which can be seen cooking here, dough tubes wrapped around rotating heated rods. We also sampled the mead.

The next stop was the tower at the old city hall, which looked out over the square. There's an elevator to the top, which made it easier for Baba, but I had energy to burn, and ran up the ramps lining the outer walls. Mom and Dad and Baba enjoying the view over the city...
...and over the Christmas market.Below is one of the panels of one of the exterior doors to the old city hall, where the tower is located. The poor man is stuck right inside the lions jaws.

After coming down from the tower we rested for a bit in one of the ornate chambers of the building...
...which let us see the carved door from the other side too.

At this point it was approaching the hour, which meant that it was time to see the famous astronomical clock put on its show. It begins with chimes from the skeleton, at which point mom yelled "it's the skeleton" amidst the hushed crowd. Too funny!
And a view of the whole thing (again!).
The Christmas market was not as impressive as those we've seen in Germany and Austria, and not as good as a market we stumbled across on another trip to Prague in October, but it did have the usual array of puppets. Central/Eastern Europeans sure do love their marionnettes.
But they did have a whole smoked pig roasting over open flame.
Mom and dad and Jeremi are seen here with their portions. (Jeremi isn't smiling as much as one might expect, because he just figured out how much he paid for it. By the time he converted from Czech crowns per hundred grams, it was too late...)

The next stop was the Famous St. Charles Bridge. We were entertained by the Bridge Band, as ever, and Jeremi even picked up their CD. We should have at least one souvenir of Prague by this point, we figured.
The next obvious place to visit was the palace, up on the hill on the west side of the river. However it's quite a hike up, and baba had already walked a lot that day. Since Jeremi and I had already been there before, we decided to hang out with her at a restaurant having a few beer (and some really fabulous food) while mom and dad walked up to have a look around.

It was threatening rain as we parted ways, and unfortunately mom and dad got really dumped on on their way up the hill. They did get a nice view of the angry clouds from the top though.
Mom would know this better than me, but I think that they weren't sure if this guy was real or not at first. He is, but he wasn't moving.
One of the things they really wanted to visit while up there was the gothic cathedral. When we were there with Chris and Karen and Owen it had just closed for a private function, and we were denied entrance. This time, it closed at 4:00, and even though mom's watch said 3:57, the guards weren't budging. I'm wondering if they ever let anyone in! (And if you're wondering, in this and some other pictures, the black smudge in one corner is from the outer shutter on mom and dad's camera, which doesn't always open all the way.)

They did get a chance to see the rest of the fortified palace area though, at least from the outside, and it does really give a nice perspective over the city.

They also walked back along a nice street, with many ornate embassies. Here's the entrance to the Italian emabassy.

There was also some strange story about one of the streets, about how no street numbers were assigned, and instead each building had a symbol, either relating to the profession of the inhabitants or an animal representing the family name or coat of arms. Here you can see the entrance of a former luthier.That night we were all pretty worn out, so we opted for a quiet supper at the seafood restaurant across the street from the hotel. Dad was quite impressed with his fish (trout, I think?), which was served on a large wooden tray.


But really Jeremi's needle of pork took the prize when it came to presentation. (The presence of the Moosehead cooler bag is too complicated to explain here - suffice it to say that he wanted to include this piece of New Brunswick in pictures taken around Europe.)
Mom was impressed with the wild sea scape painted on the walls of the restaurant, and asked Jeremi and I to pose as though we were fearful of the storm, or had been shipwrecked.
Luckily we were rescued just in time...The next day, on the way to Dresden, we stopped in Terezin, or Theresienstadt, a fortified city that was turned into a Jewish ghetto by the Nazis during the Second World War. Jeremi and I had been there back in July, and I really didn't think I could handle it again. Mom and Dad and Baba went to see the museum and the old barracks while Jeremi and I found some food and beer. They came to meet us afterward at this nice little restaurant which is run by Diakonie, a social services network run by the Protestant church in Germany and the Czech Republic. It was a training centre for adults with mental and/or physical handicaps, to give them workplace experience. We had some really fantastic food there, especially the spinach and cheese crepe that Baba had, and the cheapest beer we've found yet, at 12 Czech crowns for half a litre. (That's about 45 euro cents, or 64 Canadian cents, for a 1/2 litre of delicious Czech beer at a restaurant, no less.) Alas, we had to continue on our way to Dresden, so we could only enjoy a couple (one in the case of Jeremi, our nearly tireless driver).