The Eastern European Capitals Trip Part 3: The Final Goodbye in Prague

The picture above is the castle and church we visited in Prague.

And now for the exciting final chapter of this part of my life. I had a great time in Budapest and Bratislava, but Prague was the most beautiful city of the ones we visited. Prague is the capital of the Czech Republic, and supplier of many immigrants to the town were I was born...New Prague. I was looking forward to this city, and I must say that it did not disappoint in how awesome it was. The only down part was that I got a very nasty cold, which hit its worst the first day in Prague. Everyone had at some point succumbed to the illness in some form or another, which was all started by 1 or 2 people who were sick before we left on the trip. Since we shared rooms (about 3 to a room) exposure was guaranteed. Luckily it moved fast and I felt better the next day, but that first day was awful. We arrived around noon and checked into the hotel. Before going on the city tour we all had lunch at the hotel. I tried to eat but felt nauseous after the first course. I decided to skip the tour and go to sleep. But when I got to the room, I couldn't sleep. One of my friends persuaded me to go on the tour because who knew if I would ever get back to Prague again. So, I took Dayquill, grabbed my camera, and went on a 4 hour bus and walking tour. On top of all that, the temperature had dropped to 40 degrees and I only had a sweatshirt. All things aside, the city was beautiful and I am very glad I went along (don't worry mother, I was fine. I felt awful, but the Dayquill helped). Sorry for the quality of these pictures, but 1. I was sick and 2. it was a grey, cloudy day. Without further complaining and/or apologizing, here are some pictures from the city tour:

Holy crap, I took a lot of pictures. Well that was the first day of sightseeing. That night I went with friends to an Italian restaurant where I had penne pasta with meat sauce. I'm pretty sure it was delicious, but I couldn't taste a damn thing. By that point I was cold, tired, and in rough shape so I went back to the hotel and downed some Tylenol PM. I called it a night by about 10:30 and slept all the way through the next morning. Calling it a night early was the best decision I ever made because I felt sooo much better the next day. I was groggy from the Tylenol, but as soon as I ate some breakfast and drank some moccacino I was feeling pretty ok. I actually had people tell me that it was good to see that I was more like myself again that day (as they watched me dance and act like an idiot). It was also very nice to have people checking up on me, everyone asked how I was feeling and if there was anything they could do to help.

The second day, we went to the Charles bridge area and toured the castle and the church that are still there. What's really neat is that Charles Bridge was built back in the 1300's and has survived to this day. The church and castle also date back to the mid 1300's, so walking on this bridge was like going back to the Renaissance. All along the bridge we saw street buskers and caricature artists. We even saw a section that had shops that were built a long time ago. The neat thing was that the shops were still functioning, so we could walk around in them and buy worthless crap if we wanted to.

One more quick note about the church: construction was begun in the mid 1300's, but was not finished until 1906. It was a magnificent church! A mosaic was painted over the main entrance and was completed in the late 1300's. We learned that scientists sometime between 1980-2000 painstakingly took out every stone and covered it with a substance that would preserve the painting and thus keep it from fading.

Historical fact: it is accepted that the long conflict between Hungary, Prague, Austria, and other countries was started at the castle we visited. I don't remember the exact story, but basically some messengers from Austria (I believe) were thrown out of the top floor windows of the castle because the Czechs (or whatever they were called at the time) did not want to become part of that empire. In a rage, the messengers were thrown out of the windows but happened to land on a large pile of garbage and survived. As a result, they went back and told the Austrian emperor what happened who was in turn enraged, which sparked the many years of conflict. We saw the two windows where this event likely occurred. This story is what I remember from the German version that I heard. So if it is incorrect, well then I fail.

Here are many more picture of all these things and more:

Here is the mosaic that was painted 700 years ago:

And now, here is the church that took about 600 years to finish building:

Thank you for reading the final chapter to this part of my trip. Check back in the next weeks for more super cool Europe awesomeness. What I have planned: my birthday, Deutscher Herbst (Fall time in Germany), Edinburgh Scotland, Vienna Austria...

And what you've been waiting for, two more videos! Be sure to check out the one at the bottom, it's super cool!!