Sufferings from the after effects of partying too late... I wore glasses for the entire day, and was well... not so "into it" as usual... but hey, still managed to get a bit of sightseeing done in... So we met up with Phil and Delaney in the afternoon to visit Vysehrad.

Vyšehrad is a castle located in the Czech Republic, built in the tenth century, on a hill over the Vltava River. Situated within the castle is the Basilica of St Peter and St Paul, as well as the Vyšehrad cemetery, containing the remains of many famous people from Czech history, among them Antonín Dvořák, Bedřich Smetana and Karel Čapek.

View over the river

People playing classical music on the castle grounds...

The basilica from the outside...


The cemetery..



Baby grave: so sweet and sad at the same time...


After a tea-lunch, we took a walk along the river to the Charles Bridge... along the way, we saw an interesting building... and I remember, yes there is a famous architectural building here called the Dancing house! It was designed by Yugoslavian-born Czech architect Vlado Milunić in co-operation with Canadian architect Frank Gehry on a vacant riverfront plot. The building was designed in 1992 and completed in 1996. Originally named Fred and Ginger (after Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers - the house vaguely resembles a pair of dancers). Others have nicknamed it "Drunk House".


I spy charles bridge and the castle in the distance!


Toooooo many tourists....



Ok, i vaguely remember the explanation for this during my free tour. If you rub one side, you will become pregnant, if you rub the other, you'll get married... can't remember which side is for what, but I think left was for marriage and right was for pregnancy... but i may be wrong...



Quick walk through Mala Strana... old town quarter... (medieval side). I wanted to see St Nicholas church, but we had to pay to get in... so i wasn't too keen on it...


So that was prague... pretty sad when we had to leave, because I really loved the city... plus was not looking forward to the 7 hour train ride back :P.... If I have the time, would definitely come back again, but in a time period when there are not too many tourists....

Well, I have Keitha to thank for my wonderful time in Prague.... It was really awesome! She brought us to the coolest places to eat and we had a kiwi night party at her place! It so happened that the weekend the James, Phil, Delaney and I were in Prague (Fellow kiwis), some old hostel mates from O Rorke were in Prague as well on their European trip, so Keitha had a party at her place and it was really nice meeting fellow New Zealanders overseas and chatting about what we missed most about New Zealand, North Islanders outnumbering the South Islanders (yoo hoo!) and finally having someone appreciate pineapple lumps as well :) But first, I got to take a peek at the english school where Keitha works at (have I mentioned that she's head teacher there? :)) It's soooooo nice....... Their classrooms are in the school itself, and it's all glass.... so everyone can hear what's going on... and they have that cool glassboard where you can write on the glass.... coolio!!!! Their office even has a social night every month and there are games in the school for students to play etc etc...


Food: my favourite topic to write about. Sorry there aren't too many pictures of food this trip, but that's because I was too busy eating and only remember my camera after my dish was empty haha..... one thing about prague is that it has very good beer. Every meal we had was always accompanied by a glass of beer. One significant point about Czech cuisine is that they use alot of pickled cabbage... every czech dish that I had was accompanied by mash potatoes and/or pickled cabbage, but more often the later. It was a little similar to the polish bigos which i tried in Krakow... and is something that I do not find in Hungary at all, despite the close proximity of the country. However, having said that, there are some similar foods, like the Czech have their langos, fozelek here as well. Though maybe done a little different, the name of the foods are the same.





Kiwi party at Keitha's apartment!

hehe! I snapped you first!

pineapple lumps!!!



Dancing at the club.... I have a lot more pictures than this, but most of them are quite scandalous, so since I try to maintain a pg-18 rating for this blog entry, only the "nice" ones are up.....

James and his gf arrived a day after I did. The three of us camped out at Keitha's apartment (more about that later), but on my second day, we walked from Keitha's aparment over the Prague castle which is one of the biggest castle complexes in the whole. To me, the most beautiful building in the compound was the gothic cathedral. It is comprised of many chapels and contains the tombs of many Bohemian kings. But first... we stopped for breakfast, and though I had already eaten before coming (guess who overslept :P), I tried a new cake! It's the honey cake... seems to be Prague thing (or so keitha told me).

The entrance: doesn't it remind you of Buckingham palace?



Prague Eiffel tower in the distance.


St Vitus Cathedral




The area where all Czech bishops are burried today.




The tomb in the middle reminded me a lot of the tombs I saw in Westminster abbey. They're all very grand structures just scattered around the church with no layout or organization. But somehow, they all manage to fit...












View of Prague from the castle. I should probably mention that it wasn't till a couple of years ago that the Prague castle started being lit up at night. Keitha told me that it was because R.E.M performed in Prague a few years back and suggested that it should be lit up. They even paid to install the lights and everything... but how true... I'm not sure...


Portraits of the Habsburg rulers, which serve as a reminder that Czech Republic was part of the Habsburg empire for a decent part of their history. This is my explanation why perhaps the castle does not seem as "meaningful" as compared to the imperial castles in Vienna. This is because, the Prague castle has never been properly lived in by the royal family, and while well preserved as never really had a purpose for it. You look inside, but there's nothing much to tell you of what happened in the past.... history is written all over the exterior, but not much on the interior. But if there's one thing that Prague is superb for, it's its architecture and I have yet to see a city which rivals it closely..

St George's Basillica


Examples of Bohemian art in the castle gallery



Walking along the golden mile... i couldn't stop laughing at this funny name of a restaurant. This area was mainly for tourist, selling trinklets of all kinds, chess sets/medieval trinklets etc


Taking a look in the medieval torture chamber. Did I mention that there is only one narrow staircase leading into this chamber? So imagine 50 tourists trying to come out and go down at the same time. And tourists being tourists, never give way. Once I noticed that the line had changed to going up, I quickly followed the crowd. But James and gf got trapped inside, and witnessed two french men nearly coming to blows and swearing at each other in French... BOOO... wish I had been there! :P... but then again... maybe not...


The dark hole... where they kept prisoners.


Streets of Hradcany...full of cobbled streets.... the area just outside the castle...


Watching folk dance in old town square...


So... if one ever makes it Prague (and I hope you do if you haven't) and you visit the castle, do plan to give yourself a full day there, especially if you're hiring the audio guide like you did. The castle is huge and there's much too see, but there's twice as much tourists (especially americans and french) swarming the castle as well, so it does get cramped sometimes..... But still go... just because... definitely recommend St Vitus cathedral as a must see...