Prague

Prague is beautiful.  We spent three days in this lovely eastern European city and just loved it.  After a 2 hour flight from London we checked into the Hilton Prague (of course) and set out to have our first beer in the Czech Republic.  Unfortunately, we failed miserably as the pub that the hotel recommended, Pivovarsky Klub, closed at 11:00pm (as we later found out most things did in Prague.)  So we went to bed and got up early the next morning to start exploring.

Our first stop was the Charles Bridge.  The bridge crosses the Vltava river and dates to the 13th century.  It contains 75 Catholic statues, most added between 1600-1800.

After crossing the Charles Bridge we made our way up the hill to the Prague Castle.  The Prague castle is a sprawling complex dominated by the St. Vitus Cathedral.  It is the largest ancient castle in the world and is made up of many buildings built over time in different styles.  Our first stop was St. Vitus Cathedral:

 Views from the bell tower:

St. Vitus is 14th century French gothic with gargoyles resembling those on Notre Dame.  The cathedral contains the tombs of the kings and queens on Bohemia, King Wenceslas (of Christmas carol fame, "good king Wenceslas") and the Bohemian crown jewels.

We then toured the Old Royal Palace:

St. George's Basilica:

And Golden Lane, which is an adorable shopping street but is where the palace guards used to live and houses examples of their armour over the years:

From the castle we headed to a cute restaurant right on the canal (which runs along the river right near the Charles Bridge.)  After lunch we visited St. Nicholas Cathedral, a baroque church built in the 18th century and restored during WWII, when the Czech army was stationed there.  It was one of the most beautiful churches I've seen and definitely my favorite of this trip.

After St. Nicholas we headed back across Charles Bridge to Old Town Square.  The square dates back to the 11th century when it was a central marketplace along several European trade routes.  The main feature of the square is the Old Town Hall and Astronomical Clock:

 Views from the top of town hall:

Our Lady of Tyn church (also on the square):

After climbing the Old Town hall tower we enjoyed some delicious Trdelnik, a popular Czech pastry which is like a cinnamon sugar soft pretzel except rolled into a cylinder shape:

For dinner, we headed to U Fleku, a brewery and restaurant with a great garden.  The beer was excellent and we both had the Goulash, which was delicious:)

Unfortunately, right after we finished eating it started pouring rain.  We tried to wait it out under our umbrella for a while but when it wasn't letting up we headed to the bar next door for some more beers before going back to the hotel.

The next morning we visited Prague's other castle, Vysehrad.  It dates from the 10th century but not much remains of the original structures or walls.  The gardens and grounds are beautiful and the area functions largely as a public park now, with great views of the city and the river.

The centerpiece of the castle is the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul:

From Vysehrad, we got on the metro and headed to Wenceslas Square, which is actually a boulevard.  It starts (in the south) with the National Museum, an impressive building which unfortunately is closed right now for renovations.  At the foot of the museum is the statue of St. Wenceslas on his horse.  The boulevard holds a series of beautiful buildings in many different architectural styles, most converted into retail shops.

We then walked back over to Old Town Square to visit the Tyn church and the other St. Nicholas Church.  The Tyn church was closed so we were unable to go inside but we went in the St. Nicholas Church.  Less impressive than the St. Nicholas Church on the other side of the river, but still beautiful.

On our way back to the hotel, we walked through the Jewish Quarter.  Unfortunately, it started raining so we did a quick tour but it was a pretty area.  We had dinner that night at a delicious Italian restaurant, La Fenestra and ended our night with a walk across Charles Bridge to take some night photos.

Monday we decided to visit Petrin Hill.  We took the funicular railway to the top where we climbed the observation tower for more great views of the city.

After climbing the tower we headed down the back side of the hill to the Strahov Monastery.  The monastery area includes two churches and an impressive library housing books dating back to the 9th century.  We didn't have time to go in any of the buildings so we just walked around the complex.

 Monastery:

 Brewery:

We ended our trip with a great lunch at the brewery right next to the monastery; good beer, made right there for less than 1 pound!

Scotland

We just got back from our first official trip on this European adventure and it was awesome.  We decided to rent a car and break up the journey from London to Edinburgh with a stop in York.  I also thought it would be fun to give driving on the other side of the road a try.  We were upgraded by Enterprise from the smallest possible car to a brand new Prius:)  It took us about 10 minutes to figure out how to work a hybrid but once we did we were good to go and Dan did a wonderful job staying on the left side of the road (most of the time;))  Our Prius also came with a built in navigation system which was crucial considering the Garmin we bought on Amazon for this trip ended up not working at all; it for some reason kept putting us "near" but not quite on the road and then constantly "recalculating" because it thought we were driving through fields.  Hopefully we can fix it before driving through Spain or we will be in real trouble!

York is a quaint city in an area of England known as "The Dales."  The city was the ancient capitol of the north of England during the Roman Empire.  The medieval city walls are still in tact and the cathedral, the York Minster, is the 2nd largest Gothic Cathedral in the world (the largest being in Seville, Spain.)  We spent the night at a quirky B&B, The Old Grey Mare:

It was a cute place with a pub downstairs and 9-10 rooms upstairs.  It was certainly the budget option of B&B's, complete with old beach towels substituting as bath towels but for a quick place to sleep along the way, it worked great.

We spent the morning walking the city walls:

 visiting the York Minster, built between 1291 and 1350:

and shopping and exploring the Old Town, including the main shopping drag known as "The Shambles" where each floor hangs over a little further into the street than the one below it making it look like the buildings may topple over at any minute.

We walked through several outdoor markets and even happened upon the York Chocolate Festival:) We had a couple of pints at the Punch Bowl pub before getting back in the car and continuing on to Scotland.

We arrived in Scotland, checked into the lovely Hilton Edinburgh, and had dinner at the Whiski Rooms where Dan had his first scotch in Scotland after choosing from a selection of over 500!

The next morning we got to the Edinburgh Castle right when it opened, opting out of the tour and deciding just to wander around ourselves.  Walking up to the castle is really breathtaking and the views from the top are great.

After the castle we walked down the famous "Royal Mile" the main high street through the center of the Old City.  We took the "Real Mary King's Close Tour" which takes you through the now underground "closes" that used to make up the busiest and poorest part of the city in the 1600s.  Each close was a narrow alleyway between 6-7 story buildings with shop fronts along the ground floor.  Families lived in cramped and unsanitary conditions; they even used to dump their "toilet buckets" into the streets to let the waste run down into the obviously very contaminated "loch" where the Princes Street gardens are now located.

After the tour we went into St. Giles Cathedral, also along the Royal Mile.

We then popped into a mexican restaurant for lunch, odd choice I know but Dan and I have decided that we are going to try mexican in every European city we visit and see if we can find an unlikely winner:)  This place was pretty sub par but we weren't expecting much from Scotland.

We continued down to the end of the Royal Mile and visited the Palace of Holyrood House.  This is still a functioning palace and is the official residence of the queen when she visits Scotland and was also where Mary, Queen of Scots, spent a lot of time during her turbulent reign.

The most beautiful part of the palace was the gardens and the ruins of the Holyrood Abbey:

After the palace we climbed up Calton Hill for great views of the entire city:

We finished the day with dinner at La Piazza, a delicious Italian place near our hotel.

The next morning we drove up to St. Andrews.  We played the Eden Course, one of seven at the St. Andrews links.  Considering we hadn't played in 4 months, Dan and I both did pretty well; Dan shot 79, I had a 101.

After our round, we made our way over towards the Old Course, which is closed to play on Sundays and the public can walk along the fairways and greens.  It was an amazing experience for a couple of golf lovers.  The really cool thing about St. Andrews is that even though it is arguably the most famous golf course in the world and the birthplace of the game, there is surprisingly little pretension.  Anyone can play, even the Old Course if you book in advance, there are no golf carts or ball washers, we walked right into the clubhouse and got a table for lunch, no dress code, it's just about the golf.

We spent the rest of the day walking around the town and visiting the castle and cathedral:

Monday we headed to Rosslyn Chapel, which is the chapel featured at the end of the Da Vinci Code movie.  Legend says the crypt, which contains buried members of the St. Clair family, who have links to the Knights Templar, also contains the Holy Grail.  As the family refuses to excavate under the chapel, we will never know.  The chapel was really fascinating.  It is full of hidden symbolism and amazing stone carving.  Unfortunately, we could not take photos inside and the outside was covered in scaffolding, but I did get a couple shots:

 We also walked down the hill to see the remains of the Rosslyn House, where the ancestors of the family still live:

 Unfortunately, our trip ended with a miserable drive back to London through pouring rain and tons of traffic making a 6 hour drive turn into 9, ugh.  But overall, it was a great first trip!  Next stop, Prague!!