prague

we woke up fairly early this morning (olive is still on bishkek time). our apartment is located right over nerudova street which is one of the oldest and most historic streets in prague. we can look out of our window down on the busy street below and watch as the tourist (an overwhelmingly amount of tourist) head up the hill to the castle or down the hill to the charles bridge.

a (vegan) breakfast is included each morning with our apartment so we started the day walking up the street a short distance to the castle steps restaurant. good breakfast of fruit, veggies, bagels and cereals.

our plan for the day was to walk into town and explore the old city. the streets are all cobble stone, narrow and full of historic buildings. the top floors seem to be mostly apartments and flats. the bottom floors are all cafes and shops.

we were a bit taken back by how touristy everything was. compared to vienna where we seem surrounded by locals - here the tourist crowded the sidewalks, spilled into the streets, and bumped into you where ever you went. it didnt' take away from the experience - it was just different that bratislava or vienna.

i am not surprised at how many tourist there are here. the town is amazing. like no place either one of us have ever been. it seems like in every direction you look... down every side street... there awaits something to be discovered. it feels so authentically european here. so much more so than vienna which by comparision seems sterile. that isn't to say we didn't like vienna... we did. it just is so different than here. the skyline is dominated by the spires of cathedrals, castle towers and ramparts.

we slowly made our way over charles bridge (it is amazing and as romantic as we imagined) and into the heart of the old town square which is dominated by two churches and the clock tower. the christmas market is still going on there and we ate (so much eating on this trip!), mingled around and shopped.

marionettes originate from the czech republic (we did not know that) and the are everywhere. old antique ones. crazy scary ones. small kid ones. we are shopping around and planning on buying one to go along with the one we bought while in india last spring.

after four or five hours we were all pretty exhausted and cold. we navigated our way back home using the tube. i cooked dinner (we have a shared kitchen with another apartment). miso soup and grilled salami (from vienna) and cheese.