Praha, Czech Republic

My first, like, hour of being in Prague was stressful and made me want to leave before we even made it to the hotel. We arrived in the train station without any Czech Koruna. Czech Republic is part of the EU, but does not use the Euro. This is kind of annoying to us travelers but it is nice because the Koruna is not as strong as the Euro, so our USD goes a lot further there. Our first task was to find an ATM before we headed out because we needed to take a taxi to the hotel. We find an ATM and I put my card in first. Since we were so used to Euros, we got a little confused on the conversion and I ended up taking out the equivalent of 450 USD. Now, we were planning to be there for 3 full days, but when a beer costs $1.50, $450 is a little excessive. We decided that between the 3 of us, we would split the amount that I had taken out. Needless to say, I was a little annoyed that I had just taken out so much money. Oh well, now was time to head to our hotel.  We leave the train station and we find a taxi driver. I show him the address of our hotel and he mumbled and grumbled, pulled out his phone to show us a map and told us to walk. Now, let me preface with: when I looked it up, the walk was going to be about 20 minutes and we all had all of our luggage. So, with some admitted attitude, I asked if he was refusing to take us and he said yes, that we could walk. So, now, Im floored. I'm like, I have 10,000 koruna burning a whole in my pocket, can you just f*cking take us to our hotel?! In hindsight, once we got to our hotel, I understood why the driver wouldn't take us. our hotel was in a sort of pedestrian only area and the hotel was really not that far from the train station.  We finally made it to our hotel, checked in, dropped off our stuff and headed to the Old Town Square to check out the Astronomical Clock. We got there at the top of the hour so we were able to see it chime. To be honest, the clock is not as big as I had expected.  We then went to a rooftop bar for drinks and a cheese plate and we read up on how to actually read the clock. Everything made sense, except for the time. Based on the clock, the time was one hour off - which is when we realized that the clock doesn't take into consideration: daylight savings. Which also accounted for why there were a bunch of clocks that had the correct time all around the square. Ha! It was pretty funny. We had scheduled a spa treatment so we headed to the appointment and stopped along the way for a trdelnik - which is basically a churro and it is delicious and totally worth all of the things.   

Now for our Spa Treatment. It was hilarious and totally one of the highlights of my trip. I actually found a Beer Spa while I was perusing pinterest and trip planning. It looked hilarious and the girls were in, so we booked it. It was hilarious. We arrive, change out of our clothes and into robes and then we hopped into tubs of water, bubbles and hops and enjoyed some fresh beer from the taps. We soaked for about 45 minutes - mostly laughed the entire time - and then got some back massages. It was glorious. If you are traveling to Prague, I definitely recommend checking this out. We were sent home with a certificate - don't ask me - some more beer and a commemorative photo, that I won't be sharing. Ha! 

Our first full day in Prague we spent it walking for 5 hours while eating all of the yummy Czech specific food. We started our food tour at a cute little bakery with some cookies, because who doesn't want to start their days off with treats? And then we moved on to an assortment of open faced sandwiches and butcher shop meats. Oh.My.God. Everything was so good. Then we had a sauerkraut soup that was to.die.for, a pork belly spread with a hard cider and we ended the day with the traditional beef, bread dumplings and gravy with a glass of wine. Everything was delicious. We did the tour through Eating Prague Food Tours. We had an awesome guide who was very knowledgable about the history of Prague and he was able to tell us stories and point out famous areas of interest and give suggestions about what else to do. I would definitely suggest the tour, it was delicious and informative!

After our food tour, we walked across the Vltava into Mala Strana in search for the John Lennon Wall. I loved seeing all of the brightly painted and colorful houses throughout the entire trip, and Prague was no exception. The weather was perfect for a stroll, especially after all of that eating. 

We found the John Lennon Wall and spent a bit of time reading all of the quotes and looking at all of the artwork.

This was my favorite quote that really resonated with me: 

"I don't know what the future holds. I know who holds the future."

After checking out the Wall, we walked back into Old Town via the Charles Bridge. This bridge is famous for all street vendors and performers. They were selling anything and everything from postcards to jewelry to performing music with string instruments.  

Jess had to head back to the hotel to do some work, so Caitlin and I decided to find some beer and food. We headed over to U Kunstatu which had an advertisement on our city map and a couple from our food tour had recommended it. Unfortunately, they were closed for a private party, so we found another spot nearby to grab a drink so we could head back over there to meet Jess once they reopened.

We obviously went big here. We ordered 2 different tasters with all different beers so we could try everything. We sat at the bar, the keeper was friendly and the other patrons of the bar were really nice and fun to chat with. Jess met us there to help us finish the beers and food we ordered and then we headed home and to bed. Jess had an early morning since her flight left out of Prague at 6am.

The next day, Caitlin and I headed over to St. Nicholas Church in Mala Strana and then for a self guided walking tour of the Prague Palace. The St. Nicholas church is very understated from the outside and breathtakingly beautiful on the inside. I would say that this was, hands down, my favorite church in all of the cities we visited. 

We walked up to the Prague Palace just in time to see the changing of the guards. We were wondering why this ceremony existed because there isn't anyone living in the palace, so we figure that is just for tourists. We thoroughly enjoyed it, so no complaints here. The church within the Palace is massive and beautiful, but we didn't tour around it because it was so packed with tourists - it was a bit overwhelming. The Palace grounds were green and beautiful and provided unobstructed views of Prague. It was simply beautiful. 

We headed back into Old Town via the Charles Bridge where we bought our souvenirs and then headed over to U Fleku - Shannon's recommendation - for some beers and lunch before we headed over to see the Dancing House. The Dancing House was a bit underwhelming. It is an office building, or at least that's what it looks like, and you go in, take an elevator to the top but you can't go outside unless you buy a ridiculously expensive drink or a ticket. We decided against it, which was, in hindsight, a smart choice. 

We made our way back to U Kunstatu for the beer tasting and boy did it not disappoint. We sit down with another couple from Canada who had been traveling for 9 months around the world, and our host walks in already blasted. He was hilarious and was definitely a beer aficionado! We took a tour of the basement and the building, which is one of the 2nd oldest in Prague, and drank beer all night long. It was a blast. We ended up grabbing food with our Canadian friends and grabbing more drinks at our hotel with them. It was a blast! 

Prague really made up for being such an a*shole at the beginning. We had a blast and it turned out to be one of my favorite cities on the entire trip. 
Prague, I love you, I will most definitely return one day. 
Next stop: Berlin! 

Vien, Austria

We arrived in Vien (Vienna) and took a taxi to our hotel. Our driver wasn't the most kind, but that wasn't going to bring us down. We were in Vienna, for crying out loud! :-)
We dropped off our bags, grabbed a map of the city and started walking. Downtown Vienna is a very walkable city. We started at the Opera House. We weren't able to get in to take a tour, so we decided to walk over to the Hofburg Palace and took a tour of the Crown Jewels. Everything was absolutely stunning. After our tour through the museum, Jess went back to the hotel to work a bit and Caitlin and I went to see a show. We saw a Classical music/Ballet/Opera Concert (that was absolutely geared for tourists). The concert was in the Palais Auersperg which is a concert hall famous for being the first place Mozart performed. We felt so cultured and it was great to get a few different art forms in one show. We were definitely happy we went.

On our second day, we went back to the Hofburg Palace to the Spanish Riding School. This was extremely informative and really cool to watch. The trainers work with 4 or 5 different sets of Lippizan horses teaching them dressage. The horses are beautiful and so talented. 

After the training, we walked across the way to the Kaiser Apartments and took the tour of the Imperial Palace, the apartments and walked through the Empress Sisi exhibit. The entire tour was really interesting, very informative and totally cool! 

There is, what seems to be, a circle around the downtown area of Vienna that is very walkable and takes you near all of the major sites. After our tour of the Palace, we walked around the city center to see all of the rest of the sites all while stopping for souvenirs, pictures and to say prayers in all of the churches. 

Vienna was beautiful and full of lots of touring and site seeing. Next stop - Prague.

Salzburg, Austria

Let me first start by explaining the difference between "burg" and "berg"
Burg means fortress Berg means mountain
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We arrived in Salzburg by train from Munich and hopped into a taxi. We learned the above from our taxi driver because he saw that I had spelled Salzburg Salzberg. Amateur move, I know, but we learned something from it at least.
We got to our hotel, checked in and dropped off our bags and asked the front desk where we should go, since we only had the rest of the day in the cute, little city. She suggested that we take the Cable Car Up to the top of Untersbergbahn Mountain. It is the mountain that Maria (Sound of Music) is running through in the opening scene of the movie and it provides the most beautiful views of Salzburg.

We hiked around the top of the mountain, there were a ton of people up there. And then we found a table to join to have some beers and lunch. We sat with some local Austrians who turned into our friends and we ended up toasting a lot with them and they bought us a round of drinks. Everyone was so super nice and the Radlers (beer and lemonade) were so refreshing and delicious.

We took the Cable Car back down and the bus back to the main part of the city to Mirabellgarten. The grounds were beautiful and in full bloom.

We walked over the Salzach River and over to the Augustiner Braustubl. It is one of the largest beer gardens in Europe (if not the biggest) and the beer is brewed out of old wooden barrels and by monks! We walked into the building and it looked like an old church. There were a couple of large halls where you could sit inside, but if you walk through and down a few flights of stairs you end up outside where the tables and beer are. You order your beer from a man behind a register, pick up an unmarked stein, rinse it and then hand it to a monk and they poor the beer for you. It was awesome!

 We walked over to the main cathedral but the square was all set up for Oktoberfest celebrations, so we weren't able to check out the church. We found food for dinner and then went to bed. We left for Vienna the next day.