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Published: January 17th 2008
Yep, today's Daron's birthday. 25 years old. Crazy, huh? He's a very old man (handsome, according to Daron, who's now looking over my shoulder). He's terribly excited, 'cause now he can rent a car. Who could ask for more in life...? haha!
Anyway, back to our travel details:
It's been a long time since we updated you all; we've been to a lot of places and seen a lot of cool stuff. When we left off, we had just arrived in Prague. Prague was great (I've been there 3 times, now), but it was a bit tainted for Daron's first visit since he had a cold the whole time. The city was as beautiful as ever, but even better in the winter with fewer tourists and snow-covered buildings and streets. Additionally, Europe is great about keeping Christmas decorations up into January so there was still a cheerful holiday atmosphere present throughout the city. (January's depressing enough as it is...why take down the Christmas decorations? Americans could learn a lot.)
Highlights of Prague include: The Prague Castle, the narrow, curvy streets of the Old Town, Charles Bridge, and Cabbage Soup. Believe us, it's excellent. (Daron's thoughts: "The Soup Nazi would be proud.")
We then traveled to the lesser-visited Czech town of Plzen, 1 1/2 hours hours from Prague via train. All our guidebooks did not write extensively about the town, saying it was the Czech Republic's "industrial capital." We were expecting Detroit-quality, but Daron was curious to go to the famous brewery, Pilsner Urquell. We were happily surprised. The old center had a wonderful Middle Ages feel with a very open town square. Even if you don't like Pilsner Urquell, I think we both would strongly recommend Plzen for it's old town feel, yet authentic Czech culture. It was lots of fun.
We continued on to Munich, Germany. Sadly, now I was sick, so Munich wasn't as much fun as it could have been. Nonetheless, we still enjoyed walking around the city center, checking out the surfers in the Englischer Garten, viewing the new Munich soccer arena (built for the 2006 World Cup), learing about technology at the Deutsches Museum, and drinking great Munich Weiss Bier and eating large chunks of meat. My stomach still hurts...
Tuesday, we left Munich, taking the train to Prague. From Prague, we then took the night train to Krakow, Poland, where we've now been for 2 days. Our hostel is wonderful! Comfortable beds, clean facilities, extremely friendly staff, and fantastic location (we walk out the front door, directly onto the main square). If you ever visit Krakow, stay at the Crakow Hostel. Excellent!
Krakow, itself, is great, too. More of a Plzen-like town; less comparable to Prague than either of us were expecting. But, we both like it, too. It sounds fake, but we haven't been disappointed in any of the towns we've explored, yet. I guess Central Europe is just perfect (haha! j/k).
Today, we walked around much of the Old Center, saw some of John Paul II's famous locations, explored the Castle, and poked around the old Jewish Quarter. For lunch, we ate at a Milk Bar: a remaining part of Poland's communist past. There, we ate more delicious soup; this time, Beet Soup. (And again, absolutely delicious. Can you believe it? Beets.) We've had perogies twice now, with plans to go out for more good Polish cuisine tonight to celebrate the big B-Day.
Ok, I've rambled long enough. Hopefully I've caught you back up on our travels. Again, hopefully we'll add pictures soon. (We've been having troubles finding USB ports.)
We'll be in Krakow until Sunday, when we will journey down to Eger, Hungary: a small town to be full of great wine and a relaxing spa (as promised by Rick Steves). Since Daron likes baths this will be like a huge bathtub as a birthday present (he made me write that...).
Hope everyone is well!
-Kirstin
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Leland
non-member comment
Happy Birthday
Happy birthday Daron, happy travels and don't drown in your big bathtub. Pilzen was in one of the articles I read about off the beaten path places in Czech Republic, glad you enjoyed it. Hope both of you get healthy at the same time.