Karlovy Vary...Sounds Like a Song!

From Prague to Nuremberg

Hotel St Augustine in Prague

After packing up and leaving our lovely hotel in Prague, we headed west toward Germany to meet our cruise ship in Nuremberg.  Our guide stayed with us to show us around the spa town of Karlovy Vary, also in the Czech Republic.  It is home to several hot springs and cold winters!  The little town has a large Russian population.  Apparently Peter the Great visited the town, returned to the motherland and bragged about what a beautiful town it was with its healing hot springs.  After that, Russians began to come to the town and eventually many moved here.

The town follows the river, with hotels, shops and restaurants lining both banks.

All over the town are little kiosks where you can purchase for roughly 45 cents one of their famous spa wafers.  It tastes a lot like those little waffle wafers at home that have the white cream center.  How good the wafer is depends mainly on how hungry you are.

The thermal springs are all over the town.  This one, inside a building, shoots naturally several feet into the air.  We were told by our guide to purchase an inexpensive little porcelain pitcher like the ones below.

Then as you walk through the town, you can stop at one of the springs, fill your cup and taste the water or even drink large quantities of it for its medicinal strengths.  Having several physicians along came in handy as one reminded us that the water probably had a lot of magnesium in it (as in Phillips Milk Of) and that I might not want to drink too much of it since we still had about three hours on the van to Nuremberg.  No worries about that though....the water was not very good.

For lunch we had a pizza at this little restaurant on the right.  The crust was really thin and it was good!

The town had several very lovely green spaces.

On the way to Nuremberg we stopped at a gas station for a restroom break where I loved looking all the different kinds of candy and soda.  I noticed that an Oreo is an Oreo...even in Germany.

We drove on the autobahn where buses have speed limits but cars do not.  I noticed lots of Audis, Volkswagens, and BMWs flying past us...and I mean flying!   The countryside was absolutely gorgeous...the greenest fields of new wheat and bright yellow fields of canola (you can see the canola in the distance in this photo) and dotted among them were old white farmhouses with red roofs, one with smoke coming out of the chimney.  I couldn't soak it up fast enough.

GLORY be to God for dappled things—

 For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow....

Gerard Manley Hopkins

A Diamond Among the Pearls

If European cities were a necklace, Prague would be a diamond among the pearls.  (Anonymous)

This morning we woke up at the insane hour of 5:00am with the sun already streaming through the windows of our hotel room.  The combination of spring and Prague being so far north make for lots of daylight.  It was still daylight last night at 9:00.

We met our guide this morning and headed out to Strahov Monastery which is located on a hill overlooking the city. We walked around admiring the building's architecture and looked out over the city from a great vantage point.  Prague is called the "City of 100 Spires" and from here, you can tell how it got this name.  There are dozens of church spires rising up over the red roofs dotting the city.  Sadly, the city is one of (if not the most) agnostic city in Europe.  The years the Communists ruled the country church attendance was discouraged.  In fact, our guide told us his grandparents went to church before and during the Communist occupation and because of that, his mother (their daughter) was not allowed to attend university.  I suppose an educated church-goer was seen as a threat to Communism.  The churches are lovely buildings and are now mostly used as classical music venues.

 Strahov Monastery

This city looks like a painter's canvas.  It is splashed with bright reds, greens and yellows.  Below are Tony and I with the city behind us.  The spires of the Gothic Tyn church loom over my shoulder.

The Prague Castle district is rather large and is home to several famous buildings.  Below is the Castle itself with the Cathedral of St Vitus in the background.

St Vitus Cathedral is awe-inspiring with its gargoyles and flying buttresses.  My first glimpse inside took my breath away.

One part of the Castle District is the Golden Lane, a very small street with even smaller ancient houses.  They look exactly like colorful playhouses or even doll houses.  People actually lived here and for a short time Franz Kafka lived in No 22.   It is said it was here that he got the inspiration for The Castle.

We then walked across the Charles Bridge to the Lennon Wall, a graffiti-filled wall begun in 1980 to memorialize John Lennon after his death.  Prague at the time was still under Communist rule so each night the police would come and paint over the wall but each day the graffiti would reappear.  We were told it was a way to express the desire for freedom which finally came in 1989 with the Velvet Revolution.

These locks are on many bridges in Europe.  Lovers come to the bridge with a lock and key, vow undying love for each other, attach the lock to the iron work on the bridge and throw the key in the river.

An incredible site for all of us was the old Jewish quarter with the Jewish cemetery.  Because Jews of Prague were for years forced to live in one little quarter, burying the dead became a difficulty.  New soil would be brought in, spread over the existing graves, a new grave dug and then the two (or more) tombstones would share the space.  Over time, over 10,000 Jews were buried in this cemetery, some graves going back as far as 800 years.  Above, the men in our group had to wean yarmulkes for the tour.

We walked over to the Old Town Square after visiting the Jewish Quarter.  

We stood with tons of other tourists to see the astronomical clock.

And we ended our touring day with pastries and ice cream at Mysak.  

We walked home back over the Charles Bridge and got ready for dinner at Celeste which is at the top of the Frank Gehry dancing building.  Our meal was delicious and afterwards we walked to the very top of the building for a fabulous view of the city.

Today's Prague Blog

This post will hit only the basics.  We flew into Heathrow and then boarded a plane for Prague and arrived around 3:00pm.  

Arriving Heathrow from DFW

Flying east,  about to leave England

Prague is the most colorful city I have ever seen.  It is old and quaint and there is just too much to look at and take in.  Our hotel, the Augustine, is lovely and very modern.

After freshening up a bit, we took to the streets, checking out the neighborhood.  We walked over the Charles Bridge and then visited a traditional pub.  Tomorrow we have a walking tour of the city.