Monday
-Woke up before the sun rose to go to the bus station in Munich. We found our bus that would take us to Prague. We were all pretty surprised at how nice it was, considering how cheap the ticket was. The ride took us past some of Munich's landmarks that we didn't have time to see like the 1972 Olympic Park, the BMW factory, and the Allianz Arena. The total trip lasted about 4 hours.
-We got to Prague around 12:30 that day. Throughout the day of travel, it seemed that one small thing would go wrong with our initial plans. Luckily the whole group remained very cool under pressure and no one freaked out. The first challenge was finding an ATM where we could withdraw Czech Korouna. This proved to be difficult since we didn't speak or read the language. We then had to catch a tram to the inner city. The ticket machine was out of order, so we had to wander a ways until we found someone selling tickets. We finally reached the address of our hostel, only to find out we had to walk to another hostel in another part of town to check in. Everything eventually worked out and we settled into our spacious studio apartment/hostel room that afternoon.
-We ate lunch/dinner at great Czech restaurant. Czech food was very similar to German food- lots of meat and potatoes and great beer. Aaron and I become beer snobs on this trip. If it doesn't come from Germany or the Czech Republic, I'm not going to drink it.
-After our meal we walked to the Petrin, a large hill in the middle of the city. We took our time and hiked to the top. We sat on some medieval battlements on the hill and watched the city lights for about three hours.
-We returned to the hostel afterwards and got ready to got to the Karlovy Lazne, Central Europe's biggest dance club. Karlovy is very unique because it has six floors, each with a different theme. The first floor is dedicated to pop music, the second to techno, the third to retro and disco, the fourth to hip-hop, and the fifth to chill music. Each dance floor was very unique and had a lot of space. We spent most of the night at the retro floor, dancing on a light up floor to disco and 80s hits. However, before we went dancing, we checkout Karlovy's basement floor, which is dedicated to an Ice Bar. We bought a ticket for a twenty-five minute time slot. We then filed into a room where we put on large jackets and gloves, and then were led into the bar. The entire room was made entirely of ice and the temperature was kept around 20 degrees. The bar was ice, the glasses ice, the chairs ice. We all loved the experience.
Tuesday
-We got up pretty early and headed to Prague's Old Town. From there we joined a free tour that led us through the major sites in the old city. Our tour guide, Chris, was very knowledgeable and we learned a ton. The best free tour I've ever been on. We learned about Prague's shaky religious history, the golden age of Charles IV, the important Jewish history, and the occupation by both Nazi and Soviet forces.
-After the tour was over we walked up and down Wenceslas Square, a large street filled with lots of stores. I bought a Czech hockey scarf. It looked pretty cool, but more importantly it was necessary. Prague was very cold both days.
-We walked across the famous Karlovy Bridge and entered the Prague Castle on the other side. The Prague Castle is the largest castle in the world. It doesn't really look like a castle. It's more of a collection of different palaces on a hill. We walked up the stairs and explored the Cathedral of St. Vitus. This was probably the coolest church I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot of cool churches on this trip. It was almost double the size of Notre Dame in Paris.
-We walked down from the castle and went to the John Lennon wall. The wall was started during the Communist occupation as a protest by students. Graffiti of John Lennon lined the wall and continues to this day. Lots of cool imagery of Lennon as well as some of his famous lyrics. I took a pen and added some of my own to the wall.
-We finished our last night at the Pilsner beer hall. Pilsner light beer was invented in the region, and Prague is famous for it. I ordered a big plate of barbecue ribs and was not disappointed.
Wednesday
-Woke up and slowly made our way to the Prague airport. We booked our flight through a very cheap airline, Smartwings, so we were nervous that something would go wrong. Luckily, everything went very smoothly, and we landed in Rome around 3:00.
-We checked into a hostel in Central Rome for the night. We settled in and then got some great Roman pizza before checking out the Trevi Fountain.
On Thursday we made it to our new apartments in Rome. They are very nice, a step up from the ones in Athens. The neighborhood we are in is great- lots of restaurants and little shops. I'll try to post a video of our apartment as well as the remaining videos from Greece.
Dan
Here's some pics from Prague:
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| The view over the river from our hostel |
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| Crossing the river |
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| Exploring Old Town |
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| In front of the Astronomical Clock |
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| On Wenceslas Square |
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| On the Karlovy Bridge |
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| Entering the castle |
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| The view from the castle |
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| Marveling at St. Vitus' Cathedral |
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| The John Lennon Wall |
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| One last great Czech meal |
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| At the Ice Bar at Karlovy Lazne |
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