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).

Vienna

Our first stop in Vienna was the Schönbrunn Palace since we were passing by it on the way in. This is, of course, a museum and served as a summer palace for the Austrian monarchs. A small Christmas market was set up in front of the main building, which we walked through after having learned all about Sisi and her hair.

A previous empress of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Maria Theresa, had a favourite colour that was this shade of ochre (yellow-brown) you can see on most of the buildings at Schönbrunn. She made the colour so popular that even today there are many buildings, not just governmental, painted with it. Some Schönbrunn scenes: Quite grandiose, but it doesn't stop there. In front of it all are still more statues in a big square. Here Julia is being a she-lioness like the statue behind her, part woman, part lioness; all woman.
(look at the statue's paws).

The gate to the gardens,
which is probably incredibly beautiful in the non-winter times of the year.
What's any German-speaking place without pretzel girls in a pretzel booth filled with pretzels? A sausage fest, that's what.

After that we found our hotel, and a funny night concierge who tried to outwit Julia. When Julia gave her name and informed him (in German) that we had reservations, he said:

- that's too bad you've already paid the deposit.
- No I mean we reserved rooms.
- Yes, well the reservation is for the 30th.
- Really? gasped a cool but concerned Julia.

For a moment we thought all was lost. Had we gotten the dates wrong? Where could we find another hotel that could accommodate 5 people that very night while the Christmas markets where in full swing? But, after a moment of thought, Julia said in a calm voice:

- Today is the 30th.
- ...
- ...
- Touché. Here are the keys please enjoy your stay.

This dialog may have been embellished but what do I know, I was in the car getting the luggage. What's important is that he tried and lost, although it was a close one. Julia 1, Concierge 0. (Julia was quite impressed with herself, that someone actually thought her German was good enough to joke with her, though it might just be that Austrian sense of humour again.)

Although obviously not Julia's intellectual equal, he did tell us where to go to see the best Christmas markets. Which brings us to our first Viennese X-mas market.


This one situated right downtown in front of the City hall (or Rathaus, seen above and below with Bill, Joy and Julia)
Pretty. About half way up the Rathaus was a floor on which you could see that all the windows facing the front square where the X-mas market was were numbered like an advent calender with the 24th centered on the clock tower. Everything was nicely decorated and the market was huge.
The front side shot of this pastry may not show it but these are log rolls the size of my arm. And not my forearm. My upper arm, the part from my elbow to my shoulder where the large humerus bone resides. The pastry shell itself is rather thin and, of course, chocolate coated. The true beauty of it lies inside. Does that look like whipped cream filling? Guess again! Marshmallow fluff.
One of many long alleys lined with booths...

Posing with Mozart and his famous balls.

The next day we went sightseeing. First stop the Stephansdom (St. Stephen's Cathedral)



Gothic and big. With a very interesting tile pattern on the roof.

Also interesting is how they cover the outside parts that are being renovated with printed drapes of the affected area (above left side and in the picture above that right side).

The inside is also very nice with all its gothic craziness and carvings such as:

this carving of the carver


and these very important people at the time (I'm sure) that look a bit like caricatures of themselves.

There was also a crypt and catacombs. We had a guided tour but we were not allowed to take pictures. It was also the final resting place of some of the Habsburgs. In the hallway leading to their place of entombment are shelves lined with copper pots that were sealed shut. These are used to keep the organs of the mummified Royalty. During the wars, the crypt also served as a bomb shelter. Since it was very popular (and lucrative) to be buried near the church (closer to church, closer to god), space in the crypt became an issue. To be able to accommodate the much deserving (wealthy) nobility at the time space was made by constructing Bone Houses. The old and forgotten dead removed from their mass graves, cleaned (the bones that is) by prisoners and stacked like firewood (again, the remaining bones not bodies). This made lots of room for the new dead and everyone was happy.

Unfortunately, because of all the old stairs and rough terrain, Baba stayed behind and enjoyed the architecture inside the cathedral. The tour exited outside the Cathedral and me and Julia had to get back in line to get in and get Baba. When we finally got through a service was about to start and people were being turned away unless they were there for the service. We explained that we were just going to get Julia's 88 year-old grandmother whom we had earlier left to fend for herself. When we left again with Baba and her walker in tow the guy asked "Did you find your Oma(German for grandmother)?" Funny Austrians. They really are.

Next we went to see the Anker Clock. At noon, a bunch of mechanical figures parade by. These figures represent many important historical Austrians. Each of these figures has a number above there heads, representing the hour, and they slide across throughout the hour pointing at the minute above.
The street on the way from the Stephansdom to the Anker Clock was overhung with giant red spheres. Hanging there so massive and imposing, they remind us how freely Mozart went around peddling his balls.

After that we went to Griechenbeisl or the Greeks' Tavern situated adjacent to the Greek orthodox church which we also visited. This establishment has been around since 1447 and still looks pretty good. We had a beer, a soup and a rest there before continuing on to...
The Hofburg.


This is the palace in the center of town. It's big and now houses a ridiculous number of museums. We didn't go to any of them. But we did see most of the outside. Here are some crazy statues from all around the complex.







Look Chris (Marshall)! Guys clubbing stuff.
In front of one of the entrances to the palace was archaeological dig showing old roads and structures dating from Roman times through to the 19th century. Julia, Baba and I are standing in front of this archaeological hole in the ground.

What time is it now? Viennese coffee break time. So from the dig site we went looking for Vienna's poshest Cafe, Café Central. On the way there we found and took a pic outside the renowned Demel pastry shop (and a quick tour inside).

The snowflakes-on-a-string behind us are made of meringue and the stars are decoratively iced cookies. Above you can also see the sugar "snow" at the bottom of the display.

When we got to the beautifully and quietly ornate Café Central the place was packed. So we wandered around looking for another Viennese Café. We finally found Café Griensteidl.


Also very nice and also packed but with a shorter line. Guess where it was located? That's right, across from the dig site. But it wasn't that long of a walk and we were there to see stuff anyways.


Here we are having cakes and coffee at Café Griensteidl.

After that we went to yet another Xmas market on Spittelbergerstraße. Good smoked cheese and beautifully decorated gingerbread cookies. Also got some finger puppets there and a spinny candle ornament for Grammy.


This is a friend Joy made at this market. I'm not sure what she was trying to buy but she ended up getting 2 or 3 shots of schnapps (liquor) on the house.


Then came supper time. We found a relaxed little Italian place close to our hotel and had some delicious wood oven baked pizzas.