Praha: Day 1

Earlier this month we took a few days and drove over to Prague. It's only a couple hours from us and we had heard nothing but great things about it. We loved it. Prague is an old city and unlike a lot of Germany, most of Prague wasn't destroyed during WWII, so a lot of the buildings are "originals" and haven't had to be reconstructed. 

The first day, once we figured out where we were going, we found a little hole in the wall Czech restaurant to eat at. The menu was all in Czech and the waiter spoke a teeny bit of English but, not enough for us to really get a feel for the menu. Well, Brad asked him about a particular item on the menu and he told us it was a sweet dish ... we thought it was an actual meal. Yeah ... he came back out with this: 

DUMPLINGS!

Not exactly lunch quality but they were still delicious and definitely sweet! They are like a potato roll with jam inside of them served with ice cream. That's one of the most challenging things about Europe life -- you never know what you're gonna order! 

After getting checked into our hotel, we hopped on the tram and went downtown. We ended up at Old Town Square when I think we originally wanted Wenceslas Sqaure ... it took us a little while to understand that town, it was confusing and having everything in Czech didn't exactly help!

This is one of the original gateways to the city: 

So, this made me laugh ... I remember reading somewhere that Prague is notorious for potholes in their roads. As we were walking, we saw this ... quite the pothole! 

This is the Old Town Hall Tower, in Old Town Square. 

On the back side of this tower is the Astronomical Clock. It was originally built in 1410 and it's the oldest Astronomical Clock in the world that is still working. Every hour, on the hour, the clock goes off. The Apostles peak through the windows up top and the gold rooster crows. We stood and watched the clock go off with every other tourist in Prague. It was probably one of Kason's favorite parts of the whole trip, he kept asking if we could watch it again. 

The Tyn Church was one of the coolest building we saw. It was built back in the 1400's! 

The Jan Hus Memorial is also in Old Town Square. Jan Hus was a religious philosopher back in the 1400's who spoke up for the rights of the Catholic's. That didn't go over so well with the Vatican in Rome and they burned him at the stake in 1415.

After Old Town we found Wenceslas Square. It is a more modern part of Prague and has lots of modern shopping and restaurants. Apparently, "fish pedicures" are a common practice in Prague. I guess the fish eat off the infected parts of the skin? Gross. It's widely practiced all over Europe and Asia but, apparently most of America has banned it, because it's unsanitary. I don't blame them. Kinda interesting. 

Do you see what they give me to work with? It looks like they're in a musical ... ha! They make me laugh. 

This is the Saint Wenceslas Statue at the top end of the square.  (It's also a very common red light area ... welcome to Europe!) 

This is the National Museum. We didn't go in, so I have no idea what's in there, but, it's a pretty cool building. It sits at the very top of the hill at Wenceslas Square. 

Turn around and this is the view ... 

After day one, I was in love with Prague and we had hardly seen any of the city! Two more days to go!