Central Europe trip, Post 11: Prague again

The final 2 nights of our Europe trip - from Monday, January 6th, to Wednesday, January 8th, we spent back in Prague, where we had started our road trip 3.5 weeks earlier.

En route between Vienna and Prague on Monday, we spent a few hours in Brno, the second largest city in the Czech Republic. We ate kebabs for lunch, treated ourselves to some truffles from a chocolate shop, and wandered through a small fruit and veggie market. We also witnessed some kind of nativity parade! It was a fun little interlude.

Back in Prague, we checked in to the excellent Hotel 16 (note the mention in the link of where afternoon tea is served!). We'd chosen this hotel due to its walkable distance from Charles Bridge and its very high TripAdvisor rating accompanied by rave reviews citing superior customer service. We wanted somewhere a bit nice since the next day was my 30th birthday!

The rating (and raving) turned out to be well deserved, as it was certainly the most impressive service we've ever encountered in a hotel. It was only a small hotel too (at a guess, less than two dozen rooms). An example of the exemplary service is that, on our last day, we needed to leave extremely early for our flight... so they set up the breakfast buffet just for us at 3:30am!

On Tuesday, my birthday, we wandered through the streets and along the Vltava River until we reached Charles Bridge. This historic 15th century pedestrian bridge, adorned with gothic statues, is one of Prague's most famous attractions, but we had not seen it on our previous visits to Prague. It was time to rectify that situation with a leisurely stroll across the bridge, checking out the artists, buskers, vendors, statues, and city views as we went!

Charles Bridge

"Sailors" advertising river boat cruises

Entrance to the bridge

Buskers

Prague, as seen from Charles Bridge

Busker

The street at the far side of the bridge

Once we reached the other side, we wandered the cobbled streets for a while before choosing a restaurant for a mid-afternoon birthday lunch. Then we re-crossed the bridge and walked back to our hotel, where the task of packing for our early morning departure awaited us.

I'll leave you there, dear reader, with thoughts of picturesque cobbled bridges rather than tales of stressful airport rushes and 10 hour flights with a baby. :) It's now about 4 months since we got home, so I'm very glad to have finally finished blogging this! Thanks for joining us on our trip!

Central Europe trip, Post 10: Vienna

From Friday, January 3rd, to Monday, January 6th, we spent 3 nights in Vienna, the capital of Austria. Despite having been to Austria on a couple of previous trips, as well as earlier in this trip, this was our first time ever in Vienna!

The first night, we walked from our hotel to a well-reviewed restaurant a few blocks away. I'm sure the food was nice, but all I can remember about it now is that Finley was overtired, and the smoking of our fellow restaurant patrons (even though we were in a non-smoking room) was very off-putting! It's hard to believe this was the norm everywhere not so long ago... how times have changed!

Our hotel was a short tram ride from the city centre. On Saturday, we took the tram downtown and set out on foot to see some of the sights along the Ringstrasse (Ring Road). There were certainly some impressive buildings... but it was a chilly day, so a long stop in a café was soon in order!

Tram window sticker beside an accessible seat

The only building we seem to have taken photos of!

In order to escape from the cold - and do more than just look at big buildings - in the afternoon we decided to visit the Kunsthistorisches Museum. We spent the last couple of hours before closing time exploring two excellent and very extensive collections: the Collection of Arms and Armour, and the Collection of Historic Musical Instruments.

We had audio commentary via headphones - including recordings of some of the instruments playing - and learnt a lot about old instruments and suits of armour... although I've forgotten most of it already!

On our walk back to the tram, Ben took some gorgeous shots of a misty winter's evening in Vienna...

The museum

The next day, Sunday, we went to the local meeting, and afterwards were invited to lunch back at the home of one of the couples there, Ann and Andi. Unfortunately we didn't take any photos, but we had a really nice time getting to know them. We actually had quite a few friends in common, as they have spent a lot of time in North America!

The only other thing of note that we did in Vienna was a quick drive-by of a famous building I'd read about: the Hundertwasserhaus, a unique apartment building designed by artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser. We didn't take any photos... but trust me, you really need to click on this link and check it out!

On Monday, it was time to drive back to Prague for the final 2 nights of our trip. It was nice to have finally visited Vienna, but it's another place we couldn't come close to doing justice to in a single day of sightseeing... a return trip will be needed someday!

To be continued...