europe

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An old city center unlike any other - Prague

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The previous post in this series is here..

After we said bye to our guide and group, we walked back to the Kafka statue and our hotel with a stop at the clock. There was not a big crowd as it was not on the hour.

We watched the Kafka head do a few turns and walked into the mall. There was an Indian food place in the second floor which had Chai and missi roti’s. So we sampled some stuff there and watched the shoppers.

Then we decided to go back to our room, wash and change and go back to see the clock and Prague by night. As soon as we got ready, we went for dinner at Masala, the Indian restaurant right next to the hotel.

The food was great but it was my mistake not to tell the guy “no sesame seeds”.. They brought me butter naan with sesame seeds. By the time we waited for the new Naan to arrive, things got cold as they got a flurry of customers within a 10 minute window! All said and done, the food was great. We were happy!

We were literally in a small backyard surrounded by high rise buildings.. it was beautiful.. this dinner was actually one of the nicest dinners we had in recent times!

Our walk back through the square. The memories of San twirling around like a little princess in this square are priceless.

There were a lot of captures on this walk. Here are the galleries

portrait format gallery..

a few pano shots of the clouds rolling in

We walked back to see the clock chime and there was hardly any room to stand in that crowd. We watched this “antique clock” do its thing and walked further out towards Charles bridge. The sunset was blurred by clouds and it was getting dark and ominous as there was rain in the forecast. We were both wearing chappals and once it started raining, we made a run back towards our hotel which was a good 20 minutes away.

Here is a tip. Don’t run with chappals on cobble stone streets!

We made it back to our hotel and got some well deserved rest.

A highlight video of this last part..

After this it was going to be a ride to the airport in the morning and fly out to our last destination on the grand tour! We did so much in those two and a half days that it will take me a long time to finish writing about.

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The magic of Charles bridge and the Vltava river

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The previous post in this series is here..

Good thing the photos and videos are bringing back memories.

After our visit to the castle complex, our guide walked us down the hundreds of steps to the Charles bridge that was built starting in 1347 AD!

It is a fantastic bridge as are the statues on it.

We walked down the steps and right before we got to the bridge we got some funnel cake. It is a local delicacy. We missed it in Budapest.. but got it here. It was close to a Churro..

After this walk across the bridge, we got to see the old Jewish Quarter, one of the oldest areas in Prague, followed by a lunch with local cuisine (which doesn’t have much in the way of Vegetarian options).. so we ate fried cheese and bread.. the rest of the group loved it. This was a restaurant in the basement of a 800 year old building. They had to put special wiring in to light the place with bulbs. It was interesting.

This was followed by more walking and finally a boat cruise on the river to see all the landmark buildings from the river. When the cruise was over, we said bye to our guide. He told us to walk back to the hotel through a gap! We went “duh”.. why did we Uber here in the morning. we could have just walked it!

a few photo galleries.. We walked past the place where they shot the first Mission Impossible movie and actually recognized it. Our guide was full of information on events that we could recognize from famous movies, famous artists who came to Prague and were inspired, there was a lot of talk of Duran Duran, etc. He was an “all things Prague” guy!

A lot of photos in the Portrait format gallery.. tall structures, small roads, go figure!

The clock tower in the old square was supposed to be a highlight and our guide said go there and don’t miss it. San and me decided to walk around a bit. We also got to spend time at the Kafka head which turns every few minutes. When we saw the head, we realized it was 300 feet from our hotel. So we decided to take a break go get changed and then get back to the square.

A video highlights reel of this part of the Prague tour..

The last part of our evening in another post..

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Old world charm that still exists today - Prague

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The previous post in this series is here..

We reached Prague by train late in the night. It was past 11PM. The train station area was desolate. We asked the group of students who were in our coach on where the Uber pickup point was and they said “you can just go to any side of the station and wait near the steps. It is safe!” . So we got an Uber and went to the Michelangelo grand hotel. It was dark and we did not get our bearings and I could not appreciate the place late at night. The two employees smoking right outside the doorway was not a welcome sight. Then we went in and breathed a sigh of relief. There was no smoke smell inside. The folks were nice and gave us water bottles to take to our room. It was time to go and crash.

We woke up in the morning and I realized San had booked an amazing place. It was a top class hotel. There was a desi restaurant right outside the hotel which was a bonus. Apparently we were very close to the Kafka’s head landmark (literally a few hundred feet). Our hotel used to be a TV broadcasting and famous radio station landmark at one point. The hotel itself had a rich history. The roads in this area are all paved with stones from hundreds of years ago. very few roads have car access. We walked to a main road to get an Uber as we had to get to a pickup point. I still don’t remember what we ate for breakfast that day or if we ate anything at all. One thing we did have everywhere was Wagh Bakri instant ginger Chai. I would wake up and make tea and that would keep us going!

We met the rest of the group for our group Viator tour of Prague. It was supposed to be an all day tour which ended in a boat ride. Prague was too beautiful and the day we spent there was magical. It was like being in a real life adult Disneyland ! Most of what we saw was built in the 1300-1400 AD time frame. I just went nuts clicking away. This day has so many photos and videos that everything will be broken into three parts.

Our guide who was an intense man with 30+ years experience as a tour guide and driver for the rich and famous in Prague, took his job very very seriously. He was a school principal and drill master rolled into one. We made friends with everyone in the group. Our morning was a drive in the van to see things while he took the mic and explained things. We got to take photos from the window.. It was a long history lesson.

Then we went to a hilly area to walk around behind the castle. There was an old church with a bell that had a fancy chime. So we stopped there for a few minutes and walked through this old town area. Eventually we cut across the moat that was built for the castle and walked into the castle complex. We got to see the magnificent church from all its sides, see the parliament area, the place where foreign dignitaries visit (he even showed us the steps on which Indira Gandhi walked down) and made our way out for a long walk to the Charles bridge.

We had spent a good 2 1/2 hours in this. The pictures and videos might not do justice to the experience.. so I am just posting them as galleries here.. San became good friends with this world traveler lady in our group.. she had just come from where were planning to go next and was full of tips!

There are more pictures.. lots of them.. for once I am mixing photos of buildings with photos of people. This was the best part of our trip so far. So feels not fair to keep it brief. The sights will stay in my head forever.. especially watching San be a kid again and spin around in her frock like a princess.. that makes me smile even now as I type this!

If you are thinking of a romantic place to go with your spouse for a 25th anniversary.. cut out everything else and just spend three or four days in Prague! Strongly recomended!

After exiting the castle area we were to walk to the Charles bridge.

A video highlight of the tour till this point..

That in the next post..

Copyright © 2012, Sundar Narayanan. All rights reserved.