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Published: March 4th 2009
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Steph on Charles Bridge
With our apartment just over her shoulder :) It's official. We totally love Prague in Summer (and I'll throw most of the shoulder seasons into that!) Don't know whether it is the energy that comes from sun and green after so much cold and brown, or all the excitement of discovering we can drive to about 7 countries in the time it used to take us to Albury but we were feeing good! And while we did do a lot of travelling (see other blogs😊), day to day life in Prague made an awesome filler in between.
Between April and September we visited England, Denmark, France, Norway, Latvia and Croatia (including Slovenia and Bosnia). All of them individually fun in different ways, but mostly it was cool to experience so many different cultures and environments in a geographical area not too dissimilar to Australia. It was just after our road trip to Denmark in May that we wound up at the International Church of Prague Spring Retreat in the north of the Czech Republic. We'd been a couple of Sundays but were aware we wouldn't feel at home until we knew people. So when they advertised their annual weekend away, we committed before we had a chance to
Big Beer on the Vltava Outside Our House!
Don't know exactly why, but it's funny :) think it through! As scary as it was turning up when we didn't know a single person, it was the best move we had made since arriving in Prague since we met a lot of people that would become great friends. (Up until this point we knew a random group of people including Dickie Anth's boss, Mr Spicka the company driver and ---wait for it--- Mrs Bendova our landlady.) Beau & Kristi and Chris & Cathy were 2 couples our age that we met who worked at Riverside (an international school in Prague) and through them met a whole bunch of other people we loved from the same school.
So summer was off to a great start. And Prague, which previously was grey from street to sky, turned into blue and green. Gardens popped up everywhere and there were different festivals and activities to do every weekend, and nice beer gardens that overlook the river or the city. The only 2 negatives about summer in Prague is on the few days where it does get to the mid 30s there is no air conditioning anywhere and no beach to retreat to. One of our fav ways to overcome this
was to hire a row boat out on the river and float around with a beer (or Coke!).
One of the families we met at the ICP Spring retreat were the Damsons; a German couple Daniel and Anke and their 4 year old son Noah and 2 year old daughter Anna (just 2 weeks younger than our niece Chloe). We spent a lot of fun time with them, but probably the best was a canoeing trip we did just outside of Prague at Týnec nad Sázavou. You start at the canoeing company office and catch a train 15kms downstream where they have the canoes waiting for you to canoe back downstream. It was so much fun minus 2 little problems... One, the water level was quite low which meant a few times we had to get out and push the boat, then quickly jump back in before the rapids took hold! Secondly, a girl from the English Camp Steph was on also came but we had only booked a 2 person canoe. So since Steph was the smallest she ended up on the floor as our official water bailer! 😊
We also had our first visitor, Nick, who
Anthony worked with in Australia and so we did the touristy thing for a weekend (something I'm sure we'll get sick of when the Praha honeymoon is over!), including another trip to Cesky Krumlov in South Bohemia. Totally worth it though since it was even more beautiful in Summer than our last visit in Spring. Towards the end of summer (possibly technically Autumn) were really excited to hear that Steph's brother (also Nick) had to go to England for work, and was going to stop in for a week - our first family member to visit! He was staying the same week as Adrian, a friend from church in Sydney.
In Sydney we used to hang out with Nick and his fiancée Alli a lot, so it was one of the best weeks of the year to be able to do that again (although we did miss you Alli!). I spoke to Nick afterwards and his lasting memory of Prague was 'Steph's crazy driving on the cobble stones'. 😊 As well as finally making it to Prague Castle (Prasky Hrad in Czech) we discovered 2 really cool towns about an hour out of Prague; Karlstejn and Kutna Hora.
Karlstejn is a small town centred on the beautiful Karlstejn Castle built in 1348 - over time it has been the home of the Roman Empire's Coronation jewels, the residence of Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand and famous recently for featuring in the new James Bond movie Casino Royale. It's a cool trip because you can catch the train out, have lunch, take the 30 minute walk uphill to the top of the castle, have a beer on the way down, then catch the train home in just half a day. The trip up can be a bit much on a hot day, and Chris, Cathy and their baby Cole were with us so we would take turns pushing up the stroller!
Kutna Hora is on the opposite side of Prague and Steph drive out with the boys one day when Anth was at work. It's a medieval town mostly famous for the imposing gothic cathedral St Barbara and the 'stinky bone church'. The 'stinky bone church' is also known as Sedlec Ossuary and is essentially a church built out of human bones... and totally gross. Legend has it the church was built on a grave yard full of plague
The Bone Church
At Kutna Hora. All real bones. Totally gross... victims and in the 1500's a half blind monk was given the task of exuming the bones. They then sat in the building till the 1870s when someone was commissioned to assemble them. As a result there are chandeliers (containing every bone from the human body), coats of arms, an alter and other ornaments all made out of the human remains. While somewhat novel, it stinks soooo bad so you don't want to stay in there too long!
The final thing about summer is that it ends very quickly... by the end of August you're in jackets. So we're looking forward to going home to Australia very soon for Nick and Alli's wedding and some sun!
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