We have new pictures! Heather just wrapped up the Leeds, London and Frankfurt pictures and is finishing up Prague as we speak. Check out the photo gallery to see them! I've also gone back to some of our old entries and linked specific entries with their pictures. Enjoy!
Today we did perhaps the most classic Prague stuff - the stuff we wanted to do once we got an understanding of the city layout and history. We visited Prague Castle, the Jewish Quarter, and did our laundry.
Today we took it easy and spent the morning doing laundry in our hostel, and attending to some personal matters on the internet. (This is when you really appreciate the fact that your phone company, bank, etc, are all on the internet!)
We made it out of the hostel by noon and took the Metro (the subway) out to Prague Castle. The castle is the oldest castle still in use in Europe. Its sort of like if in the US if the White House were 1100 years old. Much of it has been modernized and houses the office of the president and other parts of the government. But at the center of the castle is an amazing Cathedral that took some 800 years to finish. Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating.. but only slightly. From what we could figure out, they worked on it for a good 50-100 years but didn't really finish it enough to use it. About 600 years later (in the 19th century) the King at the time said "Its high time we finish this here cathedral!" and spent another 10-20 years finishing it.
Our Lonely Planet book on Eastern Europe has been invaluble. It contains just enough information about sites like the castle to allow you to enjoy it on a budget - i.e. without hiring an expensive tour guide.
Even though Prague has really gotten rather capitalistic (After the castle and the Cathedral, the 3rd place we could visit with our castle admission was literally a closed off mini-mall of tourist crap built on the street where Franz Kafka lived for 1 year of his life) its fascinating to think about the changes this poor country has gone through. The descriptions of all the different uses of this castle (from local Czech rulers to German kings to Roman Emperors to communist governments) really put into perspective the waves of governments that the Czech people have gone through. Just in the last 100 years they've been a republic (pre-WWI) ruled by the Germans (circa WWII) and Russians (post WWII until 1989) and now capitalistic democracy. It has to be wierd for the Czechs today to see their country so radically changed in just the last 15 years since the "Velvet Revolution"
Anyhow, more pictures are on their way, and heather is picking out the good ones right now. Stay tuned!