praha :: day 6.5 :: lunch "at the maltese knights"

the rain is finally easing up as we make our way down the hill from prague castle through the little streets of mala strana to lunch.

lunch is at u maltezskych rytiru, which means "at the maltese knights". this listing jumped out at me while i was perusing my lonely planet book, mainly because of the description of being able to eat in an underground gothic cellar. unfortunately! i didn't do my research thoroughly, because when we get there, the waiter tells us that the cellar is only open during dinner!! SAD FACE. however, he is very nice and when i ask if we can just see it, he is more than happy to lead us down the steep steps, turn on the lights, and let us into the room.

this is the cellar. it's a small room. at night, they only use candlelight.

back at our table upstairs, i order my beer as we look through the menu.

we start with an appetizer of game. i don't know what it is, but it's pretty tasty.

i have the duck with pickled red cabbage and gnocchi. the gnocchi isn't that good.

destuctor's veal. poor baby cow. i have nothing to say about this (well, just a note that the weird pale green sauce thing you see is supposed to be guacamole).

my friend belvedere's wild boar.

next up: we race through the rest of the day, stopping at st. nicholas church, the charles bridge, old jewish quarter, house of the black madonna, hot dog stand, h&m (yes!), and dinner at a mexican restaurant!

praha :: day 6.33 :: prague castle

from vysehrad we make our way back to the metro and take the green line to malostranska for the prague castle.

we take the old "royal way" up to the castle, which is a loooong flight of stairs. here, i stop to pick up a loose cobblestone to take home.

this is the view at the top of the steps and at the entrance to the castle grounds.



shoes on cobblestone on the castle grounds!


this is the st. vitus cathedral.

inside - there are a lot of beautiful structures but what i love most are these gold, embellished gates in front of various displays.



so, we had been forewarned about this climb but really didn't think it was going to be so bad. it was bad. There are 297 steps up the "great tower" to the top. of course it's completely narrow and claustrophobic inside but at least we are lucky and there are not that many people. every once in awhile we'd stop and press ourselves to the wall as people on their way down pass.

the view from the top is rewarding, but too bad it's not sunny. in fact it's snowing by the time we get up there. we take a break and spend 10 minutes sitting in front of the entrance to the stairs, secretly waiting for the next sucker to emerge from the 297 steps. various expressions emerge - it's really funny.


right after i sneak this photo, the guard yells at me "no photo!" this is inside the old royal palace. the entire room is covered from floor to ceiling in these intricately drawn coat of arms - i think it's a family tree of some sort.

time for a snack! destructor and i practically inhale this meat pie outside in the freezing cold. it's so delicious and satisfying.

zlata ulicka - "golden lane". this is a charming little street in the corner of the castle grounds.

unfortunately all the charming little houses have been converted into various shops catered to tourists. golden lane brings us back to where we started, and we exit and hurry through the rain to meet the rest of our group for lunch in mala strana.

praha :: day 6 :: vysehrad

of course, by this point we have tons of things left to do/places to see. so what do we do? we cram it all in!

our grueling schedule on our last day begins with getting up at 7am to eat breakfast. we then head out to vysehrad, the "old castle" and the "birthplace of prague". we leave during the morning rush so we can be there by 9am.

our new thing this trip is jumping. everywhere we go we take jumping shots because posing and standing in front of the 100th building/church/museum/site is just boring. here we are at the vysehrad station. destructor is floating.

although we're not that high up, the view outside the station is beautiful.

apparently the area around the vysehrad station is where a lot of skaters hang out and play (according to lonely planet). there's a lot of interesting graffiti to check out. wherever i go, i am always drawn to the graffiti. it provides a different way of looking at the city, something visual that can't be articulated by guidebooks.

on our last day, the sun finally comes out! it had been gloomy and rainy up until that time. praha sun on the last day - i couldn't have asked for more.

as you enter the old castle - which is essentially a park now that many locals frequent on weekends - you walk through several old "gates". this is the "leopold" gate. we remain in front of this gate for nearly 30 minutes because we take many many jumping pictures.

this is the view from one of the pathways along the old wall. it's a pretty nice view of the city and the vltava river.

this is the church of st. peter and paul. beautiful, but the most beautiful thing about this church is the doors.

here i am jumping because the door is really pretty. there's another one next to it with a square pattern but the same bright, fun colors (pink, blue, gold).



pretty soon our walk takes us out the other end of the park. it probably would have been even shorter if we weren't so busy taking jumping pictures.

once outside of vysehrad we head up the street along the river to catch a tram to our next adventure. this is a photo i took while walking through an underpass. it's still pretty early in the morning, maybe 9 - 9:30am.

praha :: day 5 :: karlovy vary, u fleku aka best beer in the world

monday, we get up early and wait for our tour bus to pick us up so we can make the trek out to karlovy vary, a beautiful little "spa" town 2 hours outside of praha. it is known for its "healing" mineral/spring water and famous wafers. the tour bus is very inefficient and makes several circles within the city to pick up other tourists. our tour guide is bad, explaining the old town and new town areas like this: "over here, is old town. it is oldest town. and here, is new town. it is newest."

as we get further away from praha, it starts to snow.

our first stop is the becherovka factory/museum. obviously one of those stops a tour group picks so you can spend money. we go inside and are told the history of the herbal liquor, and the guide yells "no photos!" while taking us through the cellars to see barrels where this is stored.

at the end of the museum tour we have our becherovka tasting. pictured above is the museum guide. she is very mean and yells at you to hurry up and finish your drinks so she can pour you the next one and get you the hell out of there.

while watching a short film on the history of becherovka, we sip 3 different kinds, each tasting worse than the first.
after getting liquored up in the morning we walk through town to go to lunch. it starts snowing/raining again...but the town is breathtaking!




these are some of the "springs" from which you can drink the mineral water. some are as hot as boiling water!


lunch is at the hotel thermal, and it sucks. the food is blah - i would rather have skipped it and found a local eatery. by the time we are done with lunch we only have 2 more hours of free time. we are given a ticket to the heated pool but no one actually has time to take the dip in the mineral water.

so instead we race back through the town to look at all the springs and shop. this is me sprinting.

several little stands along the road sell hundreds of these little cups. they come in all colors, shapes and sizes, but each has a little spout from which you can drink your water.

we buy boxes and boxes of these delicious wafers. they are the size of your face! the vanilla ones come toasted. it's thin, crispy and airy. the inside seems to be filled with sugar but somehow it's not overwhelming.

after a 2 hour drive back into prague, we go to dinner at this tiny fish house listed in lonely planet. of course, dinner starts with a beer.


this fried carp is very tasty but it takes nearly an hour for them to bring all our food!

after dinner we walk to the famous u fleku pub down the street. it's nearly 10:30 and the place closes at 11, but it's still packed! it's famous for a special brew that you can only get here. it's sort of a dark beer, but it tastes amaaaazing; i don't normally like dark beer either.




this is the u fleku beer, above. i am still kicking myself for not buying some to bring back. i have 2 of these in 30 minutes!

after dinner we stop by a bar on the way back to the metro and have more beer. of course!

our last stop is KFC by our house for some chicken strips and mashed potatoes. for some reason there is a bowl here called "fuller creamy". we're not sure what this means but the picture looks delicious?