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Written by Fawn
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Sunday, 09 September 2007 |
We got to Prague (Czech Republic) late Sunday evening and what did we do first… walking tour. Too get to the walking tour we took the subway, which was very deep underground! We took a ghost tour because it coincided with our arrival. We learned about lots of dead people in the city whose ghost supposedly still haunt the city. We saw the famous Astronomical Clock...
Apparently when they found out that the builder was going to build one
for another city they blinded him so the builder broke the clock and it
was broke for centuries. We saw lots of churches and squares and then
went to dinner and had a traditional Czech meal with potatoes dumpling,
bread dumplings, rabbit, pork, duck and some other meat. It was
tasty.
Monday we went to Prague Castle and toured. We saw the changing of the guard, toured the Cathedral, and the Royal Palace. Then we wandered around the quaint city and ended at the National Museum. We had a wonderful dinner at Kampa Park with a gorgeous view of the Charles River. Prague had to be the most beautiful city. Last day we left Prague early and went to Ceský Sternberk, once one of Bohemia's most powerful fortifications, and took a tour in Czech. And no we don’t speak Czech. Click here to view the rest of the picture of Prague.
The first full day in Vienna was great. We walked around the shopping area and saw St. Stephansdom Cathedral. Wow. It was pretty magnificent and we took a tour of the tomb where the Habsburg family, the monarch of Austria til the end of WWI, is at rest. All of their entails are in these covered pots. One of which apparently was bubbling out and had to be removed last week when it created a smell. There are lots of arch bishops in iron coffins down there too and mass graves where you can see all the bones and skulls piled up from where the coffins disintegrated. There was another one from all the people that died during the plague. Apparently the smell got so bad people stopped attending the church and they had to remove all the bones and clean off the left over flesh and sanitize and put them back. There were just piles and piles of bones and skulls. Then we went to the Jewish Museum, which I think was a bit over both of our head. It sounded good on paper but had a lot of holograms and we just didn't get a lot of it. We did see an exhibit where they had all the deportation lists with all the Jewish people in Vienna and where they where being "resettled"; that is, what camp to which the train was going. They also had stuff from synagogues that were looted and then recovered on exhibit. Then we went to Cafe Demel. Ah... YUM! We had a truffletorte, which was delectable. It rained and rained. :( Then we took the U-Bahn to the Habsburg’s summer Palace, Schönbrunn Palace, and toured the grounds and garden. We saw the room where at the end of WWI the Allied forces required the last monarch of Austria to abdicate his political power. After that back to the room for more CNN, only channel we can understand. It is the same news stories again and again.
On Thursday, we went to Sigmund Freud's house where he saw his patients. Then we ate a Cafe Central (Yum, I could come back to Vienna just for the cafes) and went to the Museum complex and walked around. We went to a place where butterflies fly everywhere and then to Kunsthistorisches Museum (Museum of Fine Arts) a huge and magnificent art museum. I mean this was the most amazing art museum I have ever seen. Like wow. It is incredible crafted. It was commissioned by the Emperor in order to find a suitable shelter for the Habsburgs' art collection and took 19 years to build. We were there several hours. The art was pretty amazing too. After this we had pizza. It was nice to have some non-German food. We have had so much German, Austrian, and Czech food. Lamb, veal, sausage, rabbit, kangaroo (not german), quail, boiled beef, goulash, potato dumplings, bread dumplings, and, of course, sauerkraut. And then we walked down the shopping street, Kärntnerstrasse, and weaved our way back to the hotel. Click here to view the rest of the picture of Prague and Vienna.
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 09 September 2007 )
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