MALA STRANA

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We both slept very hard, didn’t wake up until the alarm went off at 7. Breakfast is included in the price of our room here so we took advantage of that. I want to explain what breakfast means in Europe for those that may not know or for those of you that are not on my e-mail list and might just be reading this for hints about travel. When breakfast is included in the price of the room, do not expect pancakes, oatmeal, omelets or bacon and eggs; those are American breakfast items. What you get varies from hotel to hotel and country to country, but the basics are pretty much the same: Bread, pastries, yogurt, granola or some cold cereal, coffee (usually Nescafe), juice and cheese. On occasion you may get soft boiled or hard boiled eggs, ham or other cold meats and rarely scrambled eggs or other hot items. Today’s, was the basics, plus some Vienna sausage and a breakfast pasta (didn’t try) with Vienna sausage.

While we ate breakfast we planned the day and compared what we wanted to see to what was available on the Prague Card, most everything we wanted to see was part of the card at free or big discount prices. We had a pretty full agenda slated for the day a walking tour of the Mala Strana area below castle hill and then the Prague Castle area. We left the hotel for the Metro about 10 am. The weather looked pretty iffy and it rained during the night.

The Charles Bridge

We came out of the metro stop about 4 blocks above the Charles Bridge, which is the most famous bridge in Prague; it is a pedestrian only bridge with statutes of catholic saints across the entire span and towers at either end. The bridge is filled with artists offering to draw your portrait, musicians playing their music and trying to sell their CD’s, you get the picture. It is pretty crowded but we leisurely strolled across the bridge enjoying the view of the Vltava River and Mala Strana on the other side. I have never seen so many swans in one place. The river was filled with them.

Lesser Town

After we crossed the bridge we went to find our restaurant for tomorrow night, this stroll took us by several foreign embassies. The first walk by was V. Láznich that in the day (1800’s) was a pub and baths. At one time a French writer Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand stayed there. Ok, I have no idea who he is other than I do know that it was his chef who created, yes big surprise, Chateaubriand (the thick steak usually made for two). The restaurant we will be at for our last night is about 4 blocks from this place.

The next site was a walk by of the Church of Our Lady Victorious. It contains the Bambino di Praga (The baby Jesus of Prague) actually it is from Italy but the interesting thing is it was formerly owned by the Lobkowicz family (more on that later). The first actual stop was the Vrtba Palace (discounted entrance with Prague Card). The palace was created in 1632 when the Sezima of Vrtba (don’t ask me what a Sezima is I can’t find a definition, but I think it is like an earl) seized (I think that means confiscated or stole) two Renaissance houses and connected them to make the palace. What is interesting here are the terraced gardens (Vtbosvská zahrada). We spent about 30 minutes here enjoying the gardens, view and taking several pictures.

Next was the Kostel sv. Mikuláše (Church of St. Nicholas), we just did a walk by as we got pictures from the previous stop. From there we boarded the number 22 tram and headed up the hill to Prague Castle, the main site for the day. The tram ride was nice for the view of the hill and to watch the locals but mostly the other tourists.

Pražský Brad (Prague Castle)

Once we got to the top of the hill we got off the Tram (so much better than the very hard walk) and into the castle complex. You walk over a bridge to the main gates and are greeted by the guards, these guards take their jobs a bit more serious than the Hungarians did but not as serious as the Brits. Our first stop was St. Vitus Cathedral (St. Vitus is the Patron saint of Prague). Before I go on, it was crowded, not high season crowded but there were lots of people, guided tours and about 4 different field trips of school children, but even with that there was really no wait time for anything we wanted to see. However, what the booklet with our Prague card failed to tell us is that you need to go get a ticket first, you can’t just flash the card and get in. So back out we went. (Now you can do this without paying a dime, if you just want to walk in look take a quick shot and get out, but you really won’t see all of the elaborate parts of this Cathedral if you do it this way). After we got our ticket we went back in. There are so many things I could write about, but won’t other than to say it is one of the more interesting Cathedrals we have been in. That might be because this is the first one we actually went in on this trip.

After that we could have taken the 287 steps to the top of the south cathedral tower, but we opted out of the climb. Our ticket would have also given us access to the old royal palace and state apartments, but it was closed for May for technical difficulties. I am not really sure of what kind of technically difficulties a gothic palace might be having, but none the less we didn’t get to go in. This is unfortunate because 1/3 third of the things we wanted to see where in this building. Instead we head for lunch at Vikárka, which is next to St. Vitus. It is interesting that while it is only about 20 feet to the main entrance to the Cathedral it was not very busy and the street was pretty quite. Since it is in the Prague Castle area of course it was over priced but it did serve traditional Czech food. We both had a ham plate with horseradish and a nice salad, with a healthy bread of fresh bread, including rye.

After lunch we headed for the next stop, St. George’s Basilica. This was originally a convent but and the abbesses here had pretty broad power. Later on the Golden Lane, I read how they were actually given the power to shut down pubs if they thought they were doing shameful things in the establishment. Now they didn’t go in to detail about what was shameful, but it appeared just being a bit loud and drinking beer could qualify. The basilica dates back to the 10^th century. And there are several faint original paintings still on the wall.

After the Basilica we were off to Zlatá Uliĕka and Daliborka Tower. This translates to Golden Lane and Dalibor Tower (I actually have a friend and client named Dalibor who was born here). Golden lane (named after the goldsmiths that lived here) was in fact the street where the shop keepers of the Castle lived. They were very small houses with not a lot of space and very short doors, they must have been short in those days. At first, you think you have been hood winked as the first few stores are in fact tourist shops, but once you get by those they turn in to replicas of what would have actually been there. The pub and the fortune teller’s house were the most interesting. The fortune teller must not have been too good, as she spent her days waiting for her son to return form WWI, but he died in a battle, I think she should have known. She unfortunately met a horrible death at the hands of the Nazi’s because she was predicting an early end to WWII and the defeat of the Nazi’s, so they tortured her to death.

At the end of the land is the tower, or should I say prison. It is named after one of the prisoners who learned to play the violin while he was imprisoned and all of the villagers would sit at the base of the tower and listen to him play. There were several displays of implements of torture.

The last stop, and it wasn’t really planed was Lobkowicz Palace. This is a private collection of art, music and furniture of the Lobkowicz family. This is a long line of princes that were pretty central to Czech history as well as the promotion of the arts. It is still owned by members of the family. The family lost this palace and numerous others twice, once to the Nazi’s and once to the Communists. But they finally had it returned in the 1990’s after the fall of communism. They have spent a lot of energy restoring the art and preserving their history and the history of the Czech Republic. Some might think it a lot of self promotion and arrogance of aristocracy, but I think they are doing a great service in preserving history. And the history of the family is immense. It goes back several centuries and the blood line cross several nationalities. Perhaps the most interesting part for me was the original composition of Beethoven’s 5^th Symphony, in his hand writing and Mozart’s re-orchestration of Handel’s Messiah (again in his own hand writing).

The audio guide which comes with the admission (40%!d(MISSING)iscount with the Prague Card) is narrated by Martin Lobkowicz the current heir to the family fortune. You also hear the voice of his father who was 10 years old when they fled the country before the Nazi’s invaded and the voice of his mother (clearly from the south). Towards the end of the tour you are listening to the father tell of his memories growing up in a 250 room castle north of Prague, riding his bike in the halls and feeling the disapproval of centuries of his ancestors. You then hear of how he had to flee and the emotional reunion when he finally got to return home. It was very moving.

From there we headed back to the Tram 22 stop and to our hotel. The 22 took us within about 7 blocks of our hotel, so we got to see a lot of the city, without walking. Trams from a tourist perspective e are much nicer than the metro since you can actually see the city. When we got back to the hotel (not without a stop for Jerry to purchase cigarettes for $4 a pack) we purchased two bottles of wine for wine thirty and blogging. I have been drinking a lot of white, sine it has been warm. I rediscovered a varietal I have not had in many years as it is not that popular in the United States, Müller Thurgau, it is a very nice dry white wine. When I occasionally poured for my friends at Shafer Vineyards I always referred to it as the beer drinkers wine because it can have a subtle flavor of beer. This one that I am drinking is Czech of course from the major wine growing region of Morava. Jerry has a bottle of red and went to the garden to unwind have some wine and smoke.

I stayed in the room awhile blogging and dealing with the computer issues. I have not been able to connect to my office computer, because evidently while the Hotel offers free Wi-Fi they block your ability to remotely connect to other computers. Fortunately I was able to contact my IT guy back home and he found another way for me to access my computer. Yeah, now I can work more on vacation (that was sarcasm in case you missed it).

I later joined Jerry in the garden and we just chatted and enjoyed the late afternoon. The weather ended up being perfect cloudy most of the day but no rain, and the sun made an appearance late afternoon. It is much cooler here than everywhere else but we have worked our way north quite a bit. Jerry is getting ready for dinner and we will soon be leaving for another food orgy I am sure. Last night Jerry was so taken with the dumplings (and we have had a fair amount of dumplings since hitting Salzburg) that he said I should call my entire blog of our trip the Dumpling Tour. More after dinner.

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I started this yesterday before dinner and now it is Wednesday (the next day) after breakfast. When we got back from dinner last night, we were both so tired we were pretty much asleep before our heads hit the pillows.

We had dinner at a place called Lokál, we were about 30 minute late for our reservation because we got lost on our way there. When you come up out of the metro you are in a huge square with numerous ways to go and few street signs. In addition, several buildings were under construction so the street signs were hidden (Signs are always on the buildings). We headed the wrong direction and Jerry couldn’t figure out which way to go because of the lack of street signs and our map doesn’t have every street on it anyway. I just asked someone and they gave us directions, but it took Jerry asking the doorman at a Casino a second time to finally find the place.

The restaurant is on Dlouhá Street. This is an interesting street as it also has a Cuban, Japanese and Argentinean Restaurant on it. We chose this place because it had traditional Czech food and was an updated pub atmosphere. When we got there, the description in the book did not do it justice. They had cancelled our reservation because we were late, and it is obvious why, the place was packet, it was also huge it was long and narrow, at least the length of a football field. The entire menu was in English, and I don’t think they gave us an English menu I just think that is the only ones they give out. It also is not a tourist place, although everyone speaks English that works there, the customers were 80% young hipster like Czechs. As I said the place was huge, it was kind of like a Czech Montage, but brighter, bigger and better food.

The waitress sort of just made suggestions for us and we went with it. There was one thing we ordered that she didn’t think we would like, but she was wrong. It was a Beer Mixed Cheese. She described it as very smelly cheese and strong. It was actually really good. We don’t know what type of cheese it was but it was mixed with onions, garlic, paprika, and beer and rye bread was served with it. You just spread it on the bread and eat, it was pretty good. We also had a three sausage plate with whipped horseradish (could be stronger) and really good mustard. I don’t know the Czech name for anything we ate, since it was all in English.

For our main courses Jerry had Chicken Schnitzel with his new favorite onion mashed potatoes and I had Country style roast shoulder with potato dumplings and sauerkraut. I hate sauerkraut, but I ate every bit of this, I don’t know what they do, but it is not what you get at home. The place is run by the same people that run the best restaurant in Prague, which is right across the street. Quite a different in ambiance between the two places. I just looked at the receipt and now I do know all the Czech names for what we had (see Today’s food).

After dinner we made our way back to the hotel and a nightcap. When I took off my shoes and socks and looked at my feet, my left ankle had swollen to about times its normal size, which tells you how much walking we have been doing. I am also having some kind of reaction to the laundry detergent they used in Budapest as I have a strange rash where my socks gather on my ankles. As I said we fell asleep pretty quickly once we hit the bed. I think tomorrow (today) is going to be a pretty laid back and slow day, perhaps a massage or at least foot massage will be in order.

Today’s Food

Breakfast at the Hotel – Standard continental plus Vienna sausages

Lunch at Prague Castel – Ham and horseradish plate and green salad (pretty boring, good just kind of boring don’t you think)

Dinner at Lokál – Bottle of nice Czech Rose, (ok I lied the receipt abbreviated everything so I don’t know what it is called in Czech, so shared items: Beer mixed cheese (Sýr Pivní míchaný) selection of house sausage (Variace párků); Jerry: Chicken Schnitzel (Kuřecí řízek) and onion mashed potatoes; Chris: Country-style roast shoulder of pork with potato dumplings.

For dessert we had Vĕtrník basically a cream puff. It was alight pastry glazed with walnut sauce filled with walnut whipped cream (at least I think it was walnut it could have been hazelnut the nut flavor was very subtle).

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