OK. Week 2. Prague. Where to begin. We saw the window where the 30 years war began with the chucking of a priest (defenestration, what a fantastic word):

We saw the astronomical clock, of course:


We saw St. Wenceslas.

We ate lunch at a fantastically interesting place whose name translates into "At the Seven Roaches". Who wouldn't want to eat there?

A really neat thing about Prague: before all the streets had names, directions were given based off what the buildings looked like. It was in an establishment's best interest to have a picture of something on their building so directions were easier. So it would be said that the restaurant was at the Three Gold Stars:

Or at the White Swan:
You get it. It was a fantastic way to learn nouns, colors, and numbers. One of my favorite things about the town. We lived by the Green Tree, ate at the 2 Cats and at the Little Bear. Everything was "U", or at, the item pictured. Good stuff.

We went to the Jewish Quarter, which was pretty interesting. There is the tiniest cemetery I've ever seen with thousands of people crammed into it, because the Jews were only allotted so much space in the city. Rather sad.

The Municipal House (Obecini Dum) was another awesome thing to see in Praha. It was decorated by all the great Czech artists. Most have their own room/rooms where they were given full reign over what was placed in the room. Alphonse Mucha, one of the most famous Czech artists did a few rooms in the Dum and they were awesome. The whole thing is art deco, which Mucha popularized and its amazing to see. Here is just part of a wall in his room:

We were lucky enough to get tickets to see the Czech National Symphony in the Dum. Had ourselves a 150 crown ($10!) ice cream before we went in, which was totally worth it:

The symphony was amazing. The acoustics were fantastic and the atmosphere was just incredible. One of the few times I've almost been moved to tears by live music. Just the opportunity to do that was one of the highlights of the whole vacation to me.

We also visited Vysehrad, the "traditional" castle of the Czech Republic. It is here that the nation was governed in midevil times. We saw the castle (obviously), the church (of course), and something new (right), a cemetery. Only this cemetery contains the graves of all the famous Czechs that ever lived. Artists, musicians, inventors, politicians, everyone. Mucha, Dvorak, Skoda, Smetana. It was pretty neat to see all these important people in one place. Imagine what that would look like in the US. Here is the large crypt that many of the urns are kept in:

We needed to do laundry while in Prague, but there are no laundromats. You basically go to a cleaner, they weigh your clothes, wash them, and give them back to you the next day. Silly us, we didn't know it took that long so we had to wash clothes in the tub. Yay for family bonding:

After 4 days, we moved on to Karlovy Vary. On the way we stopped at Karlstejn and the Krusovice brewery. Karlstejn was one of the few castles built for the sole purpose of storing the royal treasures. Most are locked up in banks now, but replicas are on display. It was founded by Charles IV who was the King of Bohemia and the Holy Roman Empire (aka, very important dude). It was quite beautiful:

Now, onto the brewery. We arrived at 3 only to find out that the last tour went out at 2. We were informed about a place that sold stuff (which was all we really wanted) down the street a bit, so we headed down there and used our purchasing power. Saw some hops growing along the way:

This post is getting way too long, so we'll pick up everything from Karlovy Vary on in the week next.