Central Europe trip, Post 1: Prague

From December 15th to January 8th, we spent a wonderful 3.5 weeks in Europe. We did a road trip from Prague (Czech Republic) to Munich (Germany) to Buchkirchen (Austria) to Bled (Slovenia) to Zagreb (Croatia) to Budapest (Hungary) to Bratislava (Slovakia) to Vienna (Austria) and back to Prague. And although blogging time is pretty much non-existent for me these days, I really want to record a little of our European adventures as we'll soon be off on our NEXT holiday!!

On Sunday, December 15th, we took a taxi to Vancouver Airport and waited for our 1:50pm flight to Frankfurt (Germany). While waiting at the airport, we walked past a bored Santa and his helpers, who waved us over for a free photo shoot. :)

 

Cleaners waiting for our plane to arrive

Our first flight was 10 hours long. Finley waited as long as he possibly could before giving in to sleep, eventually falling asleep sitting upright on my lap! He only had 2 x 45 minutes naps on the entire flight, and spent the rest of the time climbing between us and the bulkhead bassinet, charming the people in the seats behind us, going for walks around the plane in our arms, and taking everything in. He's an excellent traveller!

We landed at Frankfurt at 9am Monday local time, and had a 4 hour stopover before flying another hour on to Prague.

Frankfurt Airport

Upon our arrival in Prague, we picked up our hire car (a black Skoda Fabia wagon) and headed to the Cloister Inn, our home for the next two days. While Ben drove, I was taking photos and exclaiming in rapture at the gorgeous buildings and the rush of being back in Europe. Finley was sleeping, and Ben was trying to avoid being run over by trams.

After finding our hotel and checking in, we all went to bed at 5:30pm. We had a wide awake and jetlagged little man doing some yelling and stair climbing in the middle of the night though!

The next morning, Tuesday, we had a delicious continental style buffet breakfast (breads, yoghurt, fruit, salad, cheese, ham, sausages, boiled eggs, baked beans, juice, coffee) at our hotel before heading out on foot to Wenceslas Square, home to one of Prague's main Christmas markets. On the way we stopped in at a couple of shops, saw some vendors selling wreaths in the street, and admired a few ornate doors.

We spent a while wandering around the Wenceslas Square Christmas Market, enjoying some gluhwein and trdelnik/trdlo, a hollow cylindrical pastry rolled in sugar and spices. We admired a huge carved wooden nativity scene, and listened to a busking panpipe band.

Daycare/preschool kids out for a walk (in the reflective vests)

Gluhwein samples

We also found a smaller market in a little square nearby, where we saw a man forging metal souvenirs such as bells and knives, and admired colourful displays of dried fruit and sausages.

On the walk back to our hotel around midday, we came across a toy store selling wooden toys, painted eggs, etc. We were amazed by the comparatively cheap prices and spent quite a while deciding on some toys to buy. We got a wooden truck and tractor with trailer, and a set of six wooden-headed finger puppets.

While buying the toys, Finley had the undivided attention of three middle-aged Czech shop ladies, none of whom could speak much English but all of whom could speak Baby. :)

After a couple of hours relaxing at our hotel, we set out on foot again to see Prague's other major Christmas market in Old Town Square. Our jetlagged little boy fell asleep as we were leaving the hotel, and didn't wake up again until we got back 5 hours later!

On our walk to Old Town Square, we stopped in at some more little shops, the most interesting of which was full of large wooden marionettes (puppets) - they had all sorts! We also passed a picturesque little square with a few market huts just before we reached Old Town Square.

Old Town Square in Prague is one of my favourite spots in Europe. I had remembered it from our visit to Prague 6 years ago (also when the Christmas markets were on), and the reality of it actually held up to the magical memory (which isn't always the case!). The ornate building façades, the cobbles, the market huts, the clock tower, the smell of roasting chestnuts, the huge Christmas tree, the gothic church, the horses and carriages... I love it all!

In the middle of the square is a raised platform that offers a charming view out across the red-roofed huts and milling market-goers.

After spending a while exploring the market, sampling some honey mead and buying a souvenir red tin cup for Finley, we headed down some nearby streets and found more souvenir markets.

We also found another fantastic wooden toy store, and spent a while deciding on some MORE toys to buy (finally we have an excuse to buy souvenirs!). We purchased a walking duck-on-a-stick and a pull-along caterpillar. Most of the toys we bought this day were intended as gifts for other babies, but we've ended up keeping all but the caterpillar because we like them too much to part with them!

On the way back to our hotel, we stopped for dinner in a restaurant where we were suddenly caused to remember that smoking in restaurants is still legal in some places in Europe. This felt so shocking and unpleasant to us when we aren't used to it, especially when we had a baby with us. We gobbled down our marinated beef rib with corn cob (mine) and goulash in bread (Ben's), and hightailed it out of there and back into the fresh air again.

Finley woke up just as we returned to our hotel at 7pm. At the front desk, the friendly clerk said to us "we've had some complaints about your baby, so we'd like to move you to a room that's further away from the other rooms". This ended up being a MUCH bigger room, with much more space for Finley to roam around... so apart from feeling a bit guilty about the previous night's loud jetlagged antics disturbing our fellow guests, we were pretty happy to have been complained about!

The next morning, Wednesday, we ate breakfast and checked out of the hotel by 10am, but left our car there for a couple more hours while we set out on foot to accomplish one more thing we'd planned to do while in Prague: climb the Old Town Hall Tower. This is the home of Prague's famous astronomical clock, the Prague orloj, which was first installed in 1410 (!) and is the oldest still-working astronomical clock in the world.

We had anticipated having to climb stairs all the way to the top, so you can imagine our delight when, after purchasing our tickets, we discovered we could take an elevator to the top! It felt a bit like cheating though!

A random awesome door in the tower

The elevator!

The view from the top was absolutely stunning. Prague is an incredibly beautiful city, with such ornate and colourful old buildings, and a majestic skyline. I highly recommend seeing the city from this angle if you're ever in Prague!

We made it back down to the bottom of the tower in time for the 11am marionette (puppet) show above the astronomical clock. There was a sizeable crowd waiting, cameras poised, for the hourly show to start. The show was briefer than I had expected, and really just consisted of figures of the twelve Apostles coming up to and pirouetting in the two windows above the clock. But at least we can say we've seen it now!

After enjoying a last sip of honey mead, we walked back to the hotel, collected our car, and set off on the 3 or 4 hour drive to Munich (Germany). To be continued...