Prague, Czech Republic

Fantastic! Utter brilliance. Prague made it through the World Wars without many of its beautiful buildings getting destroyed. Nicely done, Praha; you managed to save one of the most picturesque cities in Europe. The architecture is once again outstanding, as is the river location, which is eerily similar to the layout of Budapest: a river in the center (in Prague's case it's the Vlatava) and a hilltop castle on the western shore providing stupendous views of the entire city and surrounding landscape. I think it's a pretty good format to structure a city; I'll probably model my own after this one.

Me with the Vlatava River. There are many bridges joining the two halves of the city.

The oldest most famous bridge is called the Charles Bridge. Charles Bridge is like Las Ramblas on a bridge. No kidding. There are tons of artisans selling their art, there are musicians playing, and street performers dancing, not to mention the fabulous statues of saints of religious figures adorning all sides of the structure and the outrageously cool views of the Prague Castle up on the hill and the unique designs of the entrances to the bridge on both ends. It's a party smashed onto a bridge. Sound like a good idea to you? Maybe not, but it works.

Here is one of those gateways to the bridge that I'm standing in front of. The color and style of buildings like this one (there are more like it in Prague) is something that I had never seen before. It may appear a little strange at first, but I really think that these structures are special in a good way.

We took advantage of another opportunity to climb the highest thing in the city to get some cool aerial shots. Not only are we on top of the highest hill, we're on top of a mini-version of the Eiffel Tower on top of the highest hill. They told us that it was near the exact height above sea level that the actual Eiffel Tower was at (since it has the advantage of being on a hill). Anyways, this is a photo of the Prague Castle. The castle district contains a palace-museum, a large church, an old old neighborhood of shops, dungeons, towers, and fortress walls.

Nearby our hostel was a rock-out restaurant-tavern called Jama. They served Czech food along with lots of other stuff too, but I just had to try to "Czech Feast". I actually didn't finish this one, so those who know me know how big it must have been. The "Feast" included pork, steak, chicken, red-apple kraut, roasted potatoes, and some biggy dumplings. Yes, there was gravy; yes, there was Czech beer.

The inside of the Prague Basilica which stands within the walls of the great castle. An immense Gothic style church, it dwarfs everything else inside the castle district.

The Prague Basilica from the outside. It was a nice day that day, wasn't it?

From the hilltop castle district we had some nice views of the city. Compliments to my photographess.

Oh, here's a good one. Some statue near the castle of a young boy. Some of these statues you see around are lucky to touch, for some reason or another. The lucky part to touch on this boy just happened to be his penis (you can tell because the dark bronze gets really shiny from everyone touching it). These Japanese guys thought they were pretty funny. And so did we.

One of me standing on a different bridge. That's the more famous Charles Bridge straight behind me and the boat. The Old Centre of the city is to my left.

I am standing in the Old Centre of Prague right here. I couldn't help but grab a Czech beer while we walked around and marveled at all of the wonderful buildings within this old square. The big black structure behind me is the Town Hall. We didn't get the chance to go inside, but that's all the more reason to return someday.


Ab is doin her thang in the Old Centre square, Town Hall to her right, and the tower with big cool clock to her left. I think that I could spend more time in that square than just about anywhere else we visited.