Praha: Czech it out!

After a two hour delay and multiple mice spottings in the airport, my friend Heidi and I finally made it to our hostel in Prague at about 1:30 a.m. Friday night/Saturday morning.  On Saturday we got up early and meandered our way over to the Prague Castle.  On the way we saw the Powder Tower, which was built in 1475 as one of the original gates to the city, and in the 1600's was used to store gunpowder.

Then we crossed the Vltava River on the Charles Bridge.  It's a beautiful old stone bridge lined with 30 statues, and there are artists and people selling jewelry all along it. 

Finally we climbed up a big hill to the Prague Castle (In Czech: Pražský hrad) , which is the biggest medieval castle in the world.  The castle has been there in some form since 870 and has a cathedral, a basilica, four palaces, a riding school, and lots more.  We spent lots of time exploring!

Then we grabbed some goulash for a traditional Czech lunch (actually quite good!) and went to the Lennon Wall.  It's just a random wall on the side of a Prague church, which has been painted with Beatles and John Lennon related graffiti since the 1980's.  

Since Prague is the "musical capital of Europe," we decided to go to a classical music concert in the early evening.  They played Mozart, Bach, and Vivaldi and it was in a beautiful old church.  Then we rested a bit at the hostel, went out to dinner, explored, and went on a pub crawl with a few Cornell students we met at our hostel.  It was fun but Paris nightlife is way more exciting!   

This morning Heidi and I did some shopping, then checked out the astronomical clock: on the hour there is a little skeleton that rings a bell.. I can't say I quite get the appeal of these things.

Then we shopped a bit and headed to the airport.  Once again our flight was delayed which means that in the past seven days, I've had three delayed flights!  All in all I loved Prague, it was a beautiful, perfectly sized city with a great vibe.  The best part was all of the buildings:  they seemed very European in style yet totally different from any I've ever seen before.