NKk in Europe (Part II)

Thursday, February 16 - Thursday, February 23 2012

On Thursday we left on our second adventure as group…Prague! 

The two of us spent 9 days in Prague in 2009, visiting our friend, Kevin; it was our first trip to Europe together and where our desire to live overseas all started…

Ever since our first visit, we have been itching to go back to this wonderful city—and we’re glad that it’s where Nick and Kate were interested in going, too, so they could experience it for themselves.  In a nutshell, if you love affordable vacations (cheap, but quality hotel, food and beer), some great architecture (Prague was one of the only cities during WWII that remained untouched because of an unofficial truce, leaving it’s original beauty intact), and a little history (it’s been around for over 1000 years) then you will LOVE Prague as much as we do. 

Our flight from Geneva dropped us into Prague around noon and we wasted no time on that goal we talked about in our last post – enjoying good food and drink!  We stumbled upon a restaurant close to our hotel and when we asked for the non-smoking section, were seated around what looked like King Arthur’s table. :)  The food was amazing and the beer was equally delicious.  We really didn’t stray away from traditional Czech food the entire 4 days we were there, which consists of hearty meats along with different gravies, dumplings, and cabbage.  Yum!  This first restaurant we visited, called Pražský Most U Valšů (go ahead, try to pronounce that), ended up being our favorite of the trip so we wound up back there again on our last evening.  So good!

We spent the rest of the first day getting NKk acquainted with the Old Town area.  Our hotel was in a perfect location, just south of the famous Charles Bridge and most of the other sights.  We spent the majority of that evening simply wandering around, enjoying the atmosphere and taking in as much as possible.  

Wearing the matching beanies that
Grandma Karen (Kate's mom) made each of us!

We came across a flyer for a Salvador Dali art exhibit that happened to be in town while we were there.  Nick was intrigued so we decided to pop in and take a look at the display.  You may or may not be familiar with Dali’s work.  He was an ‘out-there’ sort of guy that produced ‘out-there’ sort of art.  :)  As is the norm in many museums, we weren’t allowed to take photos.  But once again, Google Images swoops in to save us.  Here is probably the most famous Dali piece, which most of you will likely recognize:

 

"The Persistence of Memory"

We stopped on Charles Bridge for a nighttime photo shoot of the Prague Castle, perfectly lit up. 

Afterward we had a late, yet delicious, dinner and soon after agreed that we would stick to only one hearty Czech meal a day (it’s a lot of food). :)

Yeah, that's right - a pretzel rack.  AWESOME.

On Friday we decided to go explore the Mala Strana side of Prague (west of the river, the hilly side of town) and walk up to the castle.  Of course the best way to get there is to cross over Charles Bridge, so on the way we got some great daytime views of the bridge and castle in the background.  The bridge itself is pretty sweet and one of the most historically famous sites in Prague.  It was originally built in the late 1300s and used to be the only means of crossing the river until the mid 1800s, playing a significant part in connecting the castle area to Old Town.  The bridge was named after the Czech King Charles IV, who was also the Holy Roman Emperor at the time and commissioned its construction.  It's still a pedestrian-only bridge and has two awesome old watchtowers at each end which you walk through.  It's pretty incredible to see both from a distance as well as walking across. 

Charles Bridge

Walking across Charles Bridge

It was fun to take our time on the way up, stopping at different stores that caught our eye.  One in particular was called Manufaktura, which could very well be ‘crack’ for women.  Picture (on a much smaller scale) Crate & Barrel meets Pottery Barn then meets a classic toy maker and throw in the charm of being a local Prague chain and you’ve created a store that women have no chance against (we stopped there on 4 different occasions in 3 different locations – they even had one in the airport right next to our departure gate!). :)  Jokes aside it was a pretty cool store that we all found something we couldn’t resist.  

We also found our favorite treat in all of Europe-- you may remember previous posts mentioning it-- the 'turtle-neck'!!  We first discovered these in Prague in 2009 and have only come across them in a couple other cities in Europe.  A cinnamon-and-sugar-doughy-delight.  YUM.

As we crested the top of the hill near the entrance to the castle and saw that amazing view of the Prague skyline, we had the same ‘wow’ moment we had a few years ago.  All those red rooftops and spires are overwhelmingly stunning. 

After soaking in the view, we ventured toward the castle entrance.  After taking a few pictures we found ourselves right in the middle of the ‘changing of the guards’ ceremony.  Don’t think Buckingham Palace changing of the guards… think 3 guys just doin’ their thing in a somewhat no-frills event.  Still kind of fun to see (video below)…

Originally founded in the late 9^th century, the Prague castle was continually added to through the 18^th century and has become the largest castle area in the world (covers 18 acres).  At times during the 14^th, 15^th and 16^th centuries, the castle was also the seat of the Holy Roman Empire.  Centuries later, its significance is still plenty alive as it is currently the seat of the Head of State of the Czech Republic.

We wandered into the main square of the castle and were met with the massive Katedrála svatého Víta (Saint Vitus‘ Cathedral).  Construction of the cathedral began in 1344 but wasn’t officially completed until 1929—600 years later!  Not only is the cathedral massive, but it’s also intricately designed so it gives quite the bold impression inside and out. 

We opted to skip the long castle tour this time (we didn’t think Kamryn was interested in a half-day investment) so we just took in the beautifully elaborate setting within the castle walls (and also found some running space!).  We posed for a family photo and Kamryn ran the tripod with great skill. :)

We meandered our way down through the castle grounds and through the oldest vineyards of Prague, all while enjoying the fabulous city views.  This is now our second time in Prague during the winter season – we think next time we’ll visit in the growing season when we can see these vineyards in bloom and enjoy a glass or two on the winery’s terrace. 

After walking back down the hill from the castle, we looped around to visit one of our favorite pubs from our first trip – U Kocura.  This pub is home to an unfiltered beer called “Bernard”, which ironically is the last name of our friend Kevin who we came to visit on our 2009 trip.  It was surreal to be back and felt so familiar – we are pretty certain that even the bartender was the same guy.  One thing we forgot about this little pub though is that they allowed smoking throughout so we quickly had a beer in the least smoky area possible, sent a photo to Kevin (who now lives back in Seattle) which we’re sure sparked some jealousy, and were off again to wander the streets of Prague.

Nick might be a bigger Beatles fan than both of us combined so we for sure had to walk by the famous John Lennon Wall.  Originally just an ordinary wall, in the 1980s it started to get filled up with John Lennon-inspired graffiti.  Apparently the art on the wall constantly changes, which is kind of cool, but unfortunately someone decided to partially paint over the most recognizable image of John Lennon.  If this continues it won’t really be the John Lennon wall anymore, just another wall with a ton of spray paint on it. :)

By this time it was getting dark – dinner time!  We wanted to show NKk one of our favorite restaurants from our 2009 trip – a brewery that also serves traditional Czech food (what else?). :)  The gimmick of this pub is that they will serve you beer in a tall five-liter contraption.  We took a pass on that this time (we remember how hard it was to finish it last time we came) and just settled on the sampler which included unique flavors like banana, sweet cherry, coffee, and strangest of all – Kopřivové pivo (nettle beer), which was green in color.  The nettle beer tasted familiar but we could never put our finger on it – it was interesting, that’s for sure. :)  Exhausted from a long day of walking we retired back to our hotel for the night.

Saturday was another wandering day for us.  We set off on our now-familiar route from the hotel to the main Old Town Square, to take in the interesting scenes and people once again.  As you have probably figured at this point, Kamryn is a very active toddler—loves to run, jump, and climb all over the place.  Kate had found this cute giraffe backpack-ish thing for her and it has a long tail attached to it, which has a handle for an adult to hold onto.  Call it a leash if you’re cynical—but this thing was fantastic to have during their two weeks over here.  If we were in a crowded area or where there might be vehicle movement, it still gave Kamryn the opportunity to run and explore, but only at a safe length from one of us.

Tasted as amazing as it looks.

There was a street performer who was a little nutty (perhaps may have been drunk at the time?)—singing his heart out and playing various instruments—he was entertaining nonetheless.  We watched him for a bit and then Ang took Kamryn up to toss a few coins into his case.  He seemed touched either by her donation or just how cute she is, so he gave her a postcard which has photos of him performing, etc.  She was so proud of her new prize and promptly handed it over to mom for safekeeping. :)

The plan was to then go see the Old Jewish Synagogue and cemetery but when we arrived and it was definitely closed, we remembered that Saturday is the Jewish Sabbath – oops.  Instead we took a walk up to the “metronome”.  This hill to the north of Prague used to be a bit of a sore spot for the local people as it housed a massive statue of Stalin during his communist rule.  In 1962, as the Czechoslovakian Communist Party began to distance themselves from Stalin, the statue was destroyed with dynamite (yeah, that would have been sweet to see).  Then in 1991 the giant, functioning metronome was built in its place.  While we aren’t quite sure what the significance is, the hill offers some amazing views of the city below.  It also gave Kamryn some room to run around after being stuck in the stroller much of the morning.

When it was getting closer to sunset we headed back down the hill and into the Old Town center so that Nick and Kate could experience one of the things that made us fall in love with Prague the first time around – climbing the Astronomical Clock Tower.  The tower itself is kind of fun.  Not only is it visually stunning, but every hour on the hour a guy plays a short chorus on his trumpet for the eager crowd below.  We heard this so many times throughout our trip that Kamryn soon recognized it and would clap politely at the end of every performance. :)  Perhaps the best feature of the tower though is the stunning 360 degree views of Prague…

We were somewhat in a hurry to reach our next destination.  We were told about this “train restaurant” by a couple of our co-workers.  The gimmick is that you order drinks and a toy train comes to drop them off.  Sounds fantastic!  We tried to go on Thursday evening but were quickly turned away as this place is very popular.  We figured that if we went around 4:30 or 5:00 we would have a better shot, and it worked.  On the walk to our table we saw how extensive the whole train set-up was.  There were about 40 tables or so, which were all connected together by a network of train tracks.  We reached our table and ordered a round of beers – soon enough here comes our very own train car!  Of course Kamryn got a kick out of it (which was our main reason for coming, although by the end of it we grown-ups might have enjoyed it even more).  The great thing is that the food was amazing and the price was just as reasonable as a non-gimmicky restaurant – if you are ever in Prague we highly recommend this place, “Vytopna”.  We spent the rest of the evening walking off our early Czech dinner, visiting various stores and peeking into interesting shop windows. 

Sunday was our last full day in Prague (tear).  We decided to head back to the Jewish Synagogue and Cemetery for a visit.  We rediscovered how interesting this place was from our first visit!  First of all, the Synagogue: the inside walls of this building are a memorial to all of the 80,000 Czech Jews killed in the holocaust.  Throughout the entire building are perfectly hand-written descriptions of the victims, ordered by last name and city of residence.  They also wrote the birth date and the last known date they were alive.  When you see the massive collection of names, it really makes you think about the massive scale that people were killed on.  So sad.

The outside cemetery is equally interesting.  Established in the early 1430s, people were buried there until 1787.  There are nearly 12,000 tombstones on less than a couple acres of land and history shows that actually over 100,000 people are buried there.  Jewish people were not allowed to be buried outside the ghetto, so the dead had to be buried on top of one another, up to ten layers deep (!).  As unbelievable as that sounds, when you see it in person, it becomes more believable. The gravestones sit stacked on top of and against each other and the ground really gives the impression that it is busting at the seams because of the sheer amount of people buried there.  Some graves are so old that the surrounding trees are literally growing around them.

While that visit was extremely interesting for us adults, Kamryn was ready to do something fun!  On our taxi ride into town on Thursday we noticed a small play area next to the river – this sounded like the perfect spot to take her.  We were right – she ate it up!  Her highlights seemed to be interchanging between the two slides, riding the spring-loaded-bug-like things (scientific name, of course), and just running around in general.  She even met a new friend and followed her around, either curious about seeing another small person or hearing her speak French. 

We ended our final day the same way we started our first – at the Pražský Most U Valšů restaurant.  This time we had a grand finale of Czech meals featuring 4-5 different kinds of meats, and all sorts of dumplings and cabbage.  And of course we experienced it all again at our King Arthur table (we’d like to think they held the special room for us because they knew we were coming… yeah right). ;) 

You may have noticed a common theme throughout this post – beer (aka pivo in Czech)!  Fun fact: the Czech Republic consumes the most beer per capita of any country in the world.  In fact, the original Budweiser is actually Czech (called Budvar over here in Europe) and the pilsner variety was born in the Czech city of Plzeň in 1842 (this is still the brewing site of Pilsner Urquell).  In restaurants beer is cheaper than water, which probably attributes to the amount of consumption.  We were happy to partake in this cultural norm during our visit.

We had to complete our experience in Prague the Czech way—enjoying some absinthe.  “Enjoying” is not entirely accurate in this instance.  We each gagged a small portion down and were happy when it was over with.  Who in their right mind drinks this stuff on a regular basis?  After further research we've discovered that absinthe didn't even originate from the Czech Republic, it was merely re-popularized there in the 1990's.  Dang, maybe we would have passed on it knowing this now. :)

Monday morning we said goodbye to Prague and caught a noon flight back to Geneva, with enough time to walk around town in the evening. 

Tuesday morning NKk decided to take a day trip to explore some more of Switzerland outside the Geneva area.  They rented a car in the morning and were on their way to Gruyeres (one of our favorites) when Dave got a text from Nick saying “got to Gruyeres, headed back. K got sick in the car”.  Poor Kamryn – something just didn’t agree with her stomach that morning and, well, let’s just say Nick and Kate spent more time cleaning out the rental car than enjoying the Swiss scenery that day. :)  Fortunately, Kamryn ended up being just fine.  When they got back to our apartment she played in the bathtub for a long time and then they just laid low the rest of the evening until we got home. 

Wednesday… NKk’s final day with us. :( They came back to the office to have lunch with us one more time.  Of course, Kamryn did some more exploring. :)  We went on a quick walk out to the infamous Jet D’Eau so they could get some photos—the jet hadn’t been on the previous days that they were in town, so we were glad they had an opportunity to see it finally!  We went back to work and they headed out and ended up finding another playground for Kamryn to enjoy. :)   

That night we went out to a kebab restaurant that they discovered while out and about—and it is only a couple blocks from our apartment… very convenient.  Kamryn was starting to get tired and became a little delirious toward the end of dinner.  It was pretty funny.  She kept taking her arms out of her onezie and at one point was doing the “high five – fist bump – blow it up” thing with her own two hands.  Hilarious.  And quite clever.

The next day was going to be Kate’s 29^th birthday (!), so of course we had to have a pre-celebration that night. :)

We unintentionally decided to send NKk off with a bang.  Thursday morning should have been a routine trip to the airport (albeit an early one).  The city of Geneva recently changed their public transportation routes so the convenient bus #10 that picked up 5 minutes from our apartment and took us directly to the airport is no longer running that route.  We had to instead resort to a tram with connection to a train at the main station Gare Cornavin.  We made it to the tram stop with plenty of time but for some reason it was running late that morning and as we ran into the train station and up the platform ramp, we were seconds too late and watched our train leave the station.  Crap.  Luckily another train was coming in 20 or 30 minutes, but that meant they had less than an hour at the airport.  Yikes.  We caught the replacement train and sped-walked our way to the easyJet counter. 

To add to the stress, one of their suitcases weighed in too heavy—and easyJet charges 20 CHF per kilogram over the limit.  Not worth it.  So they frantically shifted things around and the desk agent graciously gave them some leeway with the last kilogram.  It turns out you don’t need to be to the Geneva airport any earlier than an hour before your flight because they ended up making it in time—but still not worth the stress, we’d say. :)  Unfortunately we had to cancel our long goodbyes (which would have been nice to have time for because Kamryn was out cold during the entire ordeal) and had to settle for some quick hugs.  But as we caught our last glimpse of them heading through the security gate, we saw a groggy Kamryn waving goodbye… :)  It was both sad and precious.

What a fun trip!  We are so glad to have spent such quality time with NKk.  Nick and Kate were able to reminisce about their previous time spent in Europe and hopefully a few memories will stick with Kamryn.  We’re guessing someday she’ll say something like, “Is that the trip we took where it was really cold the entire time?”. :)  Yes, it was.  But at least we made the most of it and created some great memories that we’ll look back on for years to come.  Thanks again guys for coming!

Side note:  The two of us drink a lot of milk—can’t help it, Swiss milk is so incredibly delicious.  NKk also is known for consuming a ton of milk on a weekly basis.  Here are our casualties during the two-week time span.  Consider the fact it doesn’t account for the milk Kamryn drank during the 6 & ½ days we were in Italy and Prague.  Well done, team. :)