Prague's Castle Quarter

June 18th--We took the tram up to the Castle Quarters of Prague today. Before heading into the Castle Quarters we visited Strahov Monastery and ate lunch at Klasterni Pivovar (Monastery Brewery). Mike says he had the best meal so far. He got beer flavored cheese served on toasted black-yeast bread and pork tenderloin with potato pancakes in a beer and ginger sauce. I ordered baked chicken in a dark beer sauce with czech dumplings. Again, a very good Czech meal. We then proceeded down the hill toward the Castle Quarter. Along the way, we stopped for wonderful panoramic views of the city and a visit to the Loreta Church. In the courtyard of Loreta Church is the "Holy House" which is considered by some pilgrims to be part of Mary's home in Nazareth. For many, this is the holiest spot in the country. From here we entered through the passageway and into the courtyard of the Castle Quarter. Our first stop was St. Vitus Cathedral. This Roman Catholic church is one of the most important church's in the Czech Repbulic, containing the tombs and relics of the most important saints and kings. Our next stop was at the Old Royal Palace. Starting in the 12th century, this was the seat of the Bohemian princes. We then went into the Basilica of St. George. We loved the outside of this church because of it's bright color and then the inside walls are made of limestone. Those two things make this a very unique church. By the time we exited the church, everyone needed a snack break before entering into the Golden Lane. So, we sat down for some ice cream and then entered the gate to the Golden Lane. This is a street of cute, old buildings and lined with shops. At the very end of this street and down the hill was the Toy and Barbie Museum. Well, we really couldn't pass up seeing old toys and tons of Barbies. We saw 19th century model train sets, teddy bears, dolls, and an unbelievable Barbie collection. Abby just wanted to know where all the "High School Musical" Barbies were at. My answer was "they'll probably be here in about 20 years or so". By the time we finished up at the museum, it was getting late and about dinner time. So, we decided to head back to the apartment, but stopped off at a bakery and picked up some stuff for a light dinner. After we put the kids to bed, we finally watched "Slumdog Millionnaire". That was a great movie and we now understand how it won Best Movie.

Old Town Prague

June 17th--Today was slow day for us overall. The apartment we are staying in is on the top floor of the apartment building. It is an "attic" style apartment so the ceiling slopes towards the outer walls. This means the windows are effectively in the ceilings. Since the sun starts to come up close to 4am (and there are no "blackout shades"), it makes it hard to sleep in. We taped a large beach towel over the window in the kids room, but Austin was still up a little after 6am. We knew immediately that he would need a nap today. We left the apartment and walked to the Old Town square. Immediately we were so impressed with the beautiful buildings in this square. We've seen a lot of squares, but this is probably the most beautiful one so far. The buildings in the square seem to cover every architectural style: Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and Art Nouveau. We visited the Tourist Information office, walked through Tyn Church and then watched the astronomical clock on the Town Hall building strike noon. Since it was noon, that only meant one thing for us....lunch time. We wanted a quick, no nonsense meal so we settled on going to the Hard Rock Cafe in Male Namesti. This Hard Rock is very new having only opened in April. It is also the biggest Hard Rock we've encountered so far with 4 stories and a big crystal guitar hanging in the middle. It was our lucky day too at the Hard Rock because the kids meals were free. We don't know why, but we don't question when something is free these days. After lunch, we headed back to the apartment, but on our way we basically walked onto a film set on one of the small squares. We stood for a while watching the filming, but didn't recognize any of the actors/actresses. We arrived back at the apartment and put Austin down for a much needed nap. We finally woke him up a little after 4:00 and all went to a local bakery for a snack. We then walked back to Old Town Square to go up the Old Town Hall tower. The boys decided to walk up it while the girls took the easy way via an elevator. We got some excellent views of Prague from high above. We all walked back down the tower though. Then, we walked the shop lined street of Celetna. By the time we reached the end of the street, we realized it was already after 7:00 and needed to decide on dinner. On our way to the restaurant, we walked down the street where we had run into the filming earlier in the day, and they were still filming. This time we actually stood around longer watching several scenes being filmed. Mike finally asked someone what they were filming because we thought it would be so neat to watch the movie someday. Well, to our surprise, it was a commercial for Migros (grocery store). We laughed at how we'd been all into this and now we'll be lucky to ever see the commercial. It was cool to see nonetheless. We continued walking to our restaurant of choice for the evening, Pleznska Restauruce u Dvou Kocek ("By the Two Cats"). It was yet again another wonderful Czech meal. Mike ordered the Goulash a la Two Cats. I was seriously hoping that was just from the name of the restaurant and that there wasn't actually cat in it. :-) I wasn't that hungry so I just enjoyed a wonderful bowl of Old Czech potato soup. All very good and we again went back to the apartment with our bellies full. I think I'm beginning to see a pattern here in Prague.

Rookie mistake

June 16th - Today was a travel day as we made our way to Prague. We left the apartment a little after 9:30am for the train station. We had a short walk to the metro station and then an easy transfer via the metro to the train station. We got to the train station about 40 minutes before our train left, so plenty of time to buy our tickets, get some cash, and mail some post cards. Right as we entered the train station, Amy found the post office to mail her cards. I was looking at the departure board to determine what track our train left from, but couldn't find it on the board. I thought maybe it wasn't listed yet. As we were walking towards the ticket office, I found the departure schedule that lists all the trains that depart from this station and again, our train was not on it. At this point it hit me that there are multiple stations in Vienna and we were probably at the wrong one. I was still hopeful as I approached the ticket office, but that was quickly dashed as the attendant confirmed that our train departed from the south station and we were at the west station. After 100+ days of train travel, we know to always check the station, but for some reason, didn't pay attention here. Our train left at 10:58 and it was now 10:30. He indicated that the tram between the 2 stations would take about 25 minutes but that we could probably get there faster via taxi. I went ahead and purchased the tickets and we ran out the door looking for a taxi. We found one and off we went for the south station. Luckily, there was not much traffic so we made it to the station in about 15 minutes. We kept trying to stay focused so that we didn't make a bad situation worse by forgetting a backpack or kid or something. We know by this point that when you get flustered, you often make more mistakes. So we paid the driver, double checked that we had all our belongings and made our way towards our train. Luckily we made it to the train with about 5 minutes to spare. The train ride was a 4 hour train ride, so we were hoping for a compartment train again where we could spread out. However, this train was all "row" seating, but we found a car with 4 seats that face each other (2 and 2) and only one other person in the entire car...and off we went. After a while we came to the first stop of the train and realized we were somehow 50 minutes behind schedule. Not sure how this happened since we left on time, but it did. So our 4 hour ride had just become 5 hours. We also began to notice it was really hot on board. I finally got up and walked to the next car and it was about 20 degrees cooler in that car. We realized the air conditioner was not working in our car, so we moved all our stuff. This greatly increased our comfort for the remainder of the non-eventful ride. We arrived in Prague just before 4pm and were greeted at the track by Alexander, the apartment owner. He loaded us up in his mini-van and drove us the 5 minutes or so to the apartment. We dropped off our stuff and made our way to the local grocery store. We picked up our usual essentials and brought them back to the apartment. We then headed out for dinner. We had been provided some restaurant recommendations from Anne-Marie and one of them turned out to be a block from our apartment. We enjoyed an awesome, Czech dinner. Amy had the "chef's surprise" with potato pancakes, pork, camembert, and cabbage. I had the bohemian platter with pork, sausage, bread/potato dumplings, and cabbage. And of course we had a couple of local brewed beers. It was all delicious! We are definitely looking forward to the Prague dining.

Schonbrunn Palace

June 15th - After a fun-filled day yesterday, we had a slow start today. We took care of some travel arrangements this morning and then left the apartment a little before 11:00. We had to go by a local electronics store to get a new converter because we left ours in the apartment in Salzburg. We then walked a few blocks and ate lunch at Zanoni & Zanoni. It's really an Italian gelateria, but we had a couple of small sandwiches first to justify our major dessert order. The kids both ordered ice cream dishes that were made into Pinocchio's head and we had a banana split and sacher cake. It was very good!! Luckily, we had a little walking to do in the afternoon to burn off some of the ice cream. We took the metro out to Schonburnn Palace. The was the summer residence of the Habsburgs and it is huge, with over 1400 rooms. They say that only Versailles rivals this palace. We decided to take the scaled down tour of the Royal Apartments and only saw 22 rooms of the Palace. However, this was plenty to give us a feel of the sweet life the Habsburgs lived. We then took a train ride around the massive gardens and grounds. They commented that the grounds of Schonburnn are about the size of the entire country of Monacco. After touring the gardens, we ended back up near the metro stop to return to the apartment. We stopped off at the playground near our apartment to let the kids burn off any remaining energy. We then came back to the apartment to pack up and get ready for our trip to Prague tomorrow.

From mass to amusement park

June 14th--We left the apartment early this morning in order to make the 9:15 mass at Hofmusikkapelle where the Vienna Boys' Choir sing. The opportunity was great because we didn't have to pay and we actually got to see them. The boys sing from a high balcony at the back of the chapel where they are heard, but not seen. That is if you are in a pew. We opted to not pay for a ticket and just stood in the narthex. We could still hear the boys and see the Mass on a TV monitor which meant we could see the boys as well. After the mass we went for a short coffee/hot chocolate break at Starbucks. It was the closest cafe with outdoor seating. We didn't want to go far because the next mass we were attending was right across the plaza from Hofmuikkapelle. After our snack, we walked to the Augustinian Church. The church's mass is a hit for music lovers. Although we couldn't understand a word of the mass, we were able to enjoy a "concert" by the orchestra accompanying the choir. It was beautiful music from famous hometown composers Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. After the service, we headed back to the apartment to change from church clothes to play clothes and we were off to the Wiener Prater. This is known as Vienna's Playground, but to us it was like the State Fair of Texas. The first thing we saw and rode was the Ferris wheel (Riesenrad). This wheel was built in 1897, is 64.75 meters tall, weighs 430 t and turns very slowly at 2.7 km/h. It didn't matter how fast or slow it moved, we got a great view of the amusement park and of Vienna. Upon exiting the Ferris wheel, the kids just went crazy with excitement...literally kids in a candy store! We rode several rides while making our way to Schweizerhaus. This is Vienna's most famous beer garden. We got a perfect table right next to the playground so the kids played while Mike and I worked our way through an all German menu. All and all though we did an excellent job. We had a knuckle of pork, cucumber salad, french fries and weisswurst...and of course a couple of Budvar's, the original Budweiser beer. It was all very good. After lunch, we rode a few more rides before enjoying some cotton candy. We finished up the day with a small train ride. The funny thing about the train ride is Austin not seeing it as a "ride". He asked "Where are we going? Where's our suitcases?" Our kids are learning so much from this adventure. This was a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon!

Vienna City Walk

June 13th--Our first day in Vienna was fun-filled. It started off with us walking from the apartment across the Danube canal to the post office. We had to make a quick stop at the post office to mail back the key from the Salzburg apartment. About halfway through our train ride to Vienna, Mike reached into his pocket only to realize that we didn't leave our key at the apartment. Oh well, much worse could happen and the key is in the mail. From here, we walked to Stephansplatz where St. Stephan's Cathedral is located. (Make note that we've added # of churches we have visited in the Fun to Know section of the blog) It was closed at the time for noon mass so we decided to eat lunch at an outdoor cafe. It was a beautiful day and so very enjoyable to eat outside. By the time we finished up lunch, the church was opened back up. So, we toured the church. Around the church are some buildings that feature centuries of architectural styles. We stopped to look at some. Then, started Rick Steves' self-guided walk of the city by heading down Graben. We made many stops along the way. St. Peter's Church was the first stop. We went inside and were told that a wedding was about to start so Abby was so excited to see a "wedding". Well, it wasn't exactly what we had pictured. It was a small wedding for an older couple who were dressed in church attire. Abby couldn't understand why there wasn't the big white dress and all. We then made our way down Kohlmarkt. This street is known for its unaffordable shops, but at the end is Hofburg Palace. This is the complex where the Habsburg's lived and ruled for over 600 years. It was here that we toured the Imperial Apartments, Sisi Museum and a porcelain and silver collection. From here, we wandered to the Opera House, but did not get inside. Mike and Abby would like to make it back for a production one night. From the Opera House, we wandered off the beaten path to the Haus der Musik. It was here that we finished up the day. It had a lot to offer with interactive touch screen computers and headphones to explore the physics of sound. We enjoyed hearing the modernized music of Beethoven and Mozart. We all made an attempt to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra with a virtual baton. Over 2 hours later, we a exited the Haus der Musik totally energized and unaware that it was past dinner time. It was a blast! We headed back to the apartment for a quick dinner and to bed.

So Long, Farewell…Salzburg!

June 12th—We got up and moving this morning. We had some more sights to see, but needed to get our stuff packed up first. We left the apartment about 9:00 this morning to do a self-guided walk of Old Town. During our walk, we saw the statue of Mozart in Mozartplatz, Salzburg Cathedral, a horse bath, a waterwheel, St. Peter’s Cemetery (While the cemetery where the von Trapp family hid out in The Sound of Music was a Hollywood set, it was inspired by this one.), and St. Peter’s Church. After this, we walked back to the apartment to gather up our luggage. We said goodbye to Ingrid at noon and headed to the train station. Our train left Salzburg at 1:00. We were lucky enough again to get our own compartment so we had another uneventful train ride. The ride was a little over 2 1/2 hours so we arrived in Vienna at 3:40. Upon arriving, we had a short walk to get on the metro. We had to change metros once during a trip to the apartment. It took us about 20 minutes to get to the apartment where we were welcomed by Axel, the apartment owner. He was very friendly and provided us with a lot of information on Vienna. After he left, we got our stuff organized and headed to the grocery store. On the way to the store, we were talking about our plans for dinner. We had originally planned on eating out until we found taco stuff at the store. I believe we all need a little taste of home tonight. We got back from the store and immediately started making dinner. The tacos were really good and a nice change. The kids took a bath and watched a movie before bedtime. Tonight was laundry night so that took up the rest of the evening.