Prague, Czech Rebublic

 After a year of planning and quite a few changes to our original itinerary due to the droughts across Europe, it was finally time to leave for our Danube River cruise to celebrate Brian's 50th birthday a little early!

I don't do a lot of long flights, and I'm always amazed at the drinks and food they offer you... Brian, on the other hand, is VERY used to this kind of service and knows how to time it perfectly with sleep!

After a long night of travel, we checked into our hotel at the Marriott in Old Town in Prague, and got our first of many helpful schedules from the cruise line:

If this trip was meant to make Brian feel young despite his big birthday coming up, traveling with mostly 60-80 year olds and being given a handicapped room at the hotel definitely missed the mark!

He even set off one of the MANY safety emergency alarms in our room one night, thinking it was a light switch!

After checking in, we headed straight out to go exploring to find lunch, and had our first glimpses of the city! It was absolutely beautiful, and became Brian's favorite stop by the end of the trip! 

We found a cute bistro to eat lunch, called Spejle, where you grab your food from the buffet and each item had 1-3 sticks in it. They figure out how much your bill will be by counting up the sticks at the end. We did pretty good!

We officially started the trip with a couple of hours relaxing at Sauna Central, which is one of the popular wellness centers in Europe. The outside was a little sketchy looking, but even though we didn't take any pictures inside, it was amazing! There were multiple sauna rooms for different purposes, a cold plunge pool (NO THANK YOU), a snack & drink bar, and a quiet relaxation area. It was a heavenly start after a long day of travel!

All relaxed, we headed back to the hotel to get ready for our first nightly meeting with the cruise director for information on our next days' activities. We found out that many people had canceled their trip due to the itinerary changes, so we only had 59 on the ship out of the original 140! We also were pretty sure we knew going in, but we were very much the youngest people in the group, and we became known around the ship as the "young ones".  We did find a couple of people that were in their 50's, and a few that weren't retired yet, but we loved getting to know each and every one of them! We got a great recommendation for an Asian restaurant, Sia, near the hotel, and it was wonderful!

Still feeling a bit jet lagged despite our rest time at the relaxation center, we wrapped up the long day with a cocktail in the hotel lounge before heading to bed. This was my first introduction to my new favorite drink... the amaretto sour!

It was great way to end our first day in Prague!

We started bright and early the next morning with a short bus ride and a walking tour to see the sights in the city. 

We started at the entrance to Prague Castle, which is thought to have been built around 800 A.D. and is considered the most significant Czech monument.

We took a walk by the Archbishop's Palace located on Castle Square.

I loved seeing artists of different kinds all over the city.

Also within the Prague Castle complex is the beautiful Gothic, St. Vitus Cathedral, which was built in 1344, and is considered the largest and most important church in the Czech Republic.

We made it to see the medieval Astronomical Clock on the Old Town Hall on the hour, when a short "show" is put on with the figurines on the monument. There is so much history about this clock that has been continuously running for over 600 years, so definitely take some time to reach about it in the link above!

Old Town Hall was beautiful, and check out the windows above the Swarovski building... We found NC State's sister campus where many students travel abroad!

We found a great outdoor spot for a nice lunch break and enjoyed some schnitzel and a delicious chicken dish. When I ordered a Coke, it came with ONE lonely ice cube... I had forgotten how skimpy the Europeans are on their ice!

After lunch, we braved an Uber ride with a not-so-friendly Czech driver and headed to Letna Beer Garden. It is known for its large area under the chestnut trees and its beautiful views of Old Town.

Our next stop was to walk across the iconic Charles Bridge which was built in 1357 and crosses the Vltava River. It is a medieval stone arch bridge lined with statues of saints, and was important for the trade route between Eastern and Western Europe.

Artists & musicians were everywhere along the bridge making and selling their crafts.

There were some beautiful views of St Vitrius Cathedral which we had seen earlier on our tour.

As we continued our stroll around town, I found it interesting that the old cobblestone streets are used for both the rail tram AND cars! I can't imagine driving around there! 



I loved all the quaint farmers markets and all the beautiful displays...

We found some interesting and unexpected things along the way too! I'm not even sure what to say about this one...

We enjoyed our first taste of the traditionally Hungarian "Chimney Cake", or "Trdelnik", which is a wrapped pastry dough into a cone shape and dipped in cinnamon sugar. We had ours filled with fresh strawberries and ice cream, and it was delicious!!!! 

After a refresh back at the hotel, we got ready to go out with some of our cruise mates to a traditional Czech dinner and folklore show, and we had no idea what we were about to experience!

There was free-flowing beer and wine which is famously poured and served using a traditional Moravian glass wine pipette or taster known as a koštýř. We were quite impressed with his technique!

Dinner was... interesting, but authentically Czech, so we tried it!

The entertainment was interesting too, but a lot of fun!

There were some weird but interesting Czech dances we were shown...

There were also interesting instruments they played...

The main singer was serious about audience participation!

Brian played "the rake" in their makeshift band and had a great time!

And I was pulled up for dancing... It was quite an entertaining night!

They ended with several pieces played beautifully and it was a wonderful end to our evening!

When we got back to the hotel, we found a couple of the "younger" older people in our group, and we convinced them to go to a nightclub with us for a cocktail. They were so excited, and we had a great time getting to know more people in our group!