Day 7: Prague, CZ; Prague Castle

For our one full day in Prague we decided to not jam as much stuff in as possible and just pick one activity to do. We had a choice between Prague Castle and the Mozart museum. We picked the castle because I had read it was one of the best things to do while visiting Prague. That would be correct! We spent the entire afternoon at the castle and enjoyed every minute of it!


We arrive around lunch time and got our tickets. We picked the longer tour in hopes of getting as much as possible out of the experience. I was feeling hungry so as we were walking along we discovered a little garden cafe and had some lunch. It was a perfect little lunch outside, after feeling refreshed and ready to explore we headed over to the Old Royal Palace.

The palace was absolutely beautiful! Back in the day most of the palace was destroyed by fire (Big surprise here, do we see a theme with these castles? Apparently they couldn’t engineer the fireplaces well enough!) but over time it was rebuilt and made to be just as beautiful as the original palace. During the big fire the Land Rolls were almost all destroyed which caused some big problems for Prague for a while. After the palace was rebuilt they devised a new plan to keep the records safe and hopefully avoid this problem in the future (It involved not keeping everything in the same place and only using the books they needed at the time.) We also learned about how bricks were made and how molds were used to create different parts of the castle. There was SO much information in this part that we eventually just looked at the things that were interesting to us, we could have spend hours reading everything! The view from the big hall balconies was stunning to say the least! We took a few pictures out there with the city in the background. :)



Our next stop was “The Story of Prague Castle” in this part of the palace we learned even more about the history of the castle and all kinds of interesting facts. We saw some of the original walls to the palace and learned that the oldest known artifacts found on the palace ground date back to 3000 BC! I love to think about the people who lived there so long ago! It’s really amazing to me! We also saw some old graves that had been found on the grounds. Two of them were for people who must not have been high in status, or even criminals. They were buried just in the hole in the ground and their hands were tied together and then tied to large rocks. We learned that they did this to prevent the people from coming back among the living. The third grave we saw was for someone much more important as he was buried with his sword and other possessions. They had a lot of clothing from the graves too which was really interesting but also hard to believe that at one point someone was buried in them! It’s so interesting to me to see how people lived so long ago and it makes me think about what people will find in a few thousand years from our time and what they’ll think about us. We got to see some cannon balls that had been used against the castle at one point which was pretty cool as well as some china and glassware. It was so interesting to see everything and learn more about the castles history.

At this point we had been touring the castle for almost 3 hours and only had 3 more till everything closed. We still had several places we could visit but we went to St. Vitus Cathedral next to make sure we got in to see that. Let me tell you, there is something about these old Cathedrals in Europe! They’re absolutely AMAZING! I just can’t get over the details and design and all the time that went into building them. They had some beautiful stain glass windows as well and the tomb of someone who must have been a really important guy but I’m not sure and I can’t find anything on the internet so we’ll leave it at an important guy! :) The cathedral was just amazing though! :)
After the cathedral we went to a smaller church called St. George’s Basilica. It was also very beautiful and had some wonderful details as well. In the convent we saw some art work and then went to the Rosenberg Palace. This palace was also very beautiful and important for nobel women. They had a lot of furniture and clothing from the time period the palace was used which was cool to see. When we got to the big hall I imagined all the parties that were held there and the women all dressed up and dancing.

Our final stop was the Powder Tower where we learned all about the Czech Army and how it changed over time. We got to see all the different uniforms and see how the area over came communist rule. It was very interesting!

We walked through the Royal Gardens on our way back to the tram stop and took some pictures. The gardens were of course very beautiful and blooming nicely. The tram took us right to the restaurant we wanted to go to and so we sat down and had a way better traditional czech dinner! :) I had pork tenderloin with cream spinach and HUGE gnocchi! (I thought of you Lauren while eating them since we both love to buy gnocchi at Weggies!) Joe got a platter with different meats and dumplings and cabbage. We had a delicious chocolate cake for dessert and enjoyed people watching.

We walked back over the Charles bridge and took some more pictures and then walked through Old Town Square. The area is just beautiful and I think of all the Eastern European cities Prague wins when it comes to beauty. I loved looking at all the buildings and seeing so many amazing designs and details on those buildings. I really loved being in Eastern Europe and hope that this isn’t the only time I get to visit this area of the world! (Though it is kind of a pain to always be buying water since you can’t drink the tap water here.) All in all this was a great experience and I wish we had a little more time in Prague because one day just didn’t seem like enough. I really did enjoy the feel of the city though, a great place to visit!

Back to the hotel we went to repack things (again) and get ready for another long train ride the next day! On to Munich we go!!!