Before Martin and I arrived in Prague, and somewhere in between the
“ticket panic", I was able to secure a driver to pick us up at the airport in Prague.
Speaking of hotels, I only booked a few hotels before flying
to Russia knowing that there were certain dates that we needed to be in
particular cities. The rest I have just
booked the night before on hotels.com.
Having my laptop, I usually just book our hotel the night before we are
to arrive in a particular city (I caved and bought a beautiful light Mac Air
which has turned out to be invaluable for this trip). This way, booking our hotels gives us some
flexibility if we want to stay an extra night or leave a day earlier than
planned. Such is the case with Prague and our hotel turned out to be divine!
When we woke up the next morning, I opened the window of our
hotel room and there before me was the beautiful St. Charles Bridge leading
into the city. I felt like I was on the set of some Renaissance period movie. I wouldn’t
have been surprised if a knight on a white horse rode past us on his way to a
duel.
We got dressed, and set out to discover Prague. Since it was Sunday, we looked for a local
LDS (Mormon) church. However, once we arrived to
the address specified, we found the street to be under construction and what we
thought was the building, was the Israeli embassy. It was actually fine because it put us on top
of the hill right in front of Prague Castle at the foot of St. Vitus cathedral.
St. Vitus cathedral is probably one of the most impressive
sights I have ever laid eyes on. Built
in 1344 by King Charles IV it has a Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque style
façade all combined to make one of the most majestic sights one can ever lay
eyes on. I had to keep telling myself
that I was there because it seemed so storybook and unreal.
Martin, Lily and I roamed inside the cathedral taking
hundreds of photos of the woodwork, art and beautiful stained glass
windows. After a tour of the cathedral,
we roamed the streets of the castle and just sat in the main square and took in all its charm. It’s almost
too beautiful to be able to describe.
After we felt like we had taken in enough of the cathedral
and castle, we decided to go down the long path and over the King Charles bridge that leads into the city (Old Town).
To me, I felt like we were walking into Disneyland, but for grown
ups. It was all just too much like a
fairytale. It was marvelous.
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| This is how Lily rolls... |
Words really can’t express the beauty of Prague. When strolling through the city, I was
surrounded by one architecturally constructed masterpiece after another. I particularly loved the Jewish quarter that
boasts some of the most beautiful Art Nouveau buildings that I have ever seen…
okay, never seen before in my life.
In the Old town section, Martin, Lily and I ate at the foot
of the St. Nicholas church in a lovely café that looked over the main
square. It almost feels as if you’re at
a staged Oktoberfest or Czechoslovakian festival because everything seems so
perfectly placed.
In the middle of the square are various eating kiosks with
traditional Czech food. All of which
looked appetizing (and I’m pretty picky when it comes to food). I
wanted to try everything but opted to hold out until dinner.
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| This looks a little gross, and I'm not much of a meat eater, but really, it was good! |
After dinner it was almost midnight and we decided that we
needed to call it a night since both Lily and I were still both struggling with
jet lag. So we headed back over the St.
Charles bridge that lit up the river beneath us while we looked up at the impressive sight of the St. Vitus cathedral. Honestly, I felt like I was
in the most unimaginable dream—one that I could never have dreamed up myself.
The next morning, we scheduled to have Neil (our British
driver) come back to the hotel to pick us up at 1:00pm to take us out to the
airport to pick up our rental car. So we
knew that we had to get up early if we wanted to finish our tour of
Prague. We headed back down to the
Jewish quarter by Old Town. I felt like I didn’t get enough of that
area the prior day and wanted to take advantage of the Jewish sights.
We toured through the Jewish cemetery, visited various
synagogues and learned the terrible fate of the Jewish people during WWII. It really was sobering.
At noon, I had eyed a spectacular café/bakery the day before
so I made Martin retrace our footsteps because I was determined to find that
bakery. After a few twists and turns
down streets, I recognized the awnings and knew we had found the bakery of my
dreams. Of course, Martin wasn’t nearly
as excited. For me, I felt like I had
won the lottery. We ate buttery
croissants stuffed with chocolate, REAL apple fritters and drank fresh squeezed
orange juice. I don’t think I said one
word to Martin while I ate. I sat there eating the mouth-watering pastries while taking in the charming art nouveau
architecture that surrounded us from every angle. It was the perfect ending
to an already perfect holiday.
Soon it was time to head back to the hotel where we met Neil
(who had already packed our suitcases in the car for us) and we were on our way
to get our rental car, but not without a stop at the local equivalent of Target
(Tesco) to pick up a car seat for Lily.
The rental car agency was willing to let us pick up our car in Prague and drop
it off later in Paris, but they weren’t willing to part with their car
seats. I knew that we were going to have
to have a car seat before we took off on our journey so Neil willingly obliged
and took me shopping. Shopping for
Lily’s car seat was almost comical. Instead
of doing what I normally do (i.e, compare all car seats and getting the one
with only the BEST options), in less than 10 minutes I had selected, purchased
and had Lily in her new seat in the car.
I have never purchased something so important and not even questioned myself or gone back for another comparison. I knew we
were on a schedule and I was not going to get us behind schedule!
At the airport, we picked up our car, got all our maps in
place, got Lily in her new car seat and set off for Kotowice, Poland (about an
hour outside of Krakow). Katowice is a
city right by the city of Oscwiecim where Auschwitz is located. I knew I wanted to get us close to Auschwitz
without having to go into Krakow and then retrace our footsteps the next
morning. Again, I booked the hotel
online and got the directions thinking that I had it all perfectly
planned. Only when we arrived at Katowice
(at 9:00 at night) did I realize that the city was much larger than I had
expected and the hotel I selected wasn’t EXACTLY in Katowice. After driving around for an hour, Martin used
his superior navigation skills and found the hotel. It was a welcome sight in the middle of what
seemed like a shady neighborhood.
It was around 10:00 pm and we were famished but a little
nervous about leaving the hotel. The
good thing is that most hotels here in Europe have decent restaurants. With no other options and
given the time, we decided to eat in the hotel.
Truthfully, I knew the food would be terrible, but to my
surprise, it was fabulous. Gourmet all
the way! Since the restaurant's clientele was basically the Frey family and some random Polish businessmen, Martin and I were treated like
royalty. The chef came out and prepared
each of our meals and placed them artistically on our plate, making it even
more special. Also, when the staff
figured out we were Americans, they switched the music from authentic Polish
music to a Polish singer who sang old songs from the 70’s. It was so bad, that it became hysterical to
Martin and me. We sat there and stuffed
ourselves silly while anticipating the start of a really bad rendition of a
Beach Boys song by a Polish-accented singer. It
made the evening so memorable. We absolutely loved our stay in the Polish
ghetto.
The next day, we arose early, had another great meal in the restaurant
and set off for Auschwitz. The weather
was cold and damp setting the mood for what was the most difficult day of our
journey so far.
To be continued…
