June 7
We arrived in Prague about 7 PM. The train station was clean, orderly and new. We had escalators and not stairs. I knew I was really going to like this city!
Hotel Julian is located just south of Prague Castle, just over the river from Old Town. It was about a 30 minute walk from the train station and Bee was the perfect guide, navigating the cobblestone streets and the city map with relative ease. We have a large room with a queen & a twin bed, air conditioning, and a long, deep tub. It seems to be a very clean, nice hotel with a full buffet breakfast each morning. We're on the 2nd floor; we take the elevators when we have the luggage. After that we take the stairs. No sooner did we arrive & put our bags in the room, then turned around to sightsee in the city at sunset.
Prague definitely lives up to its reputation as a beautiful, romantic, picturesque city. There is a Kodak moment around every corner, across every bridge, down every street. It is dripping in old world charm.
We spent the day touring Prague. Cee & Bee knew of free city tours that are advertised widely in the hostels. We met up with our guide, Michael, and 47 other tourists and spent the next 7 hours hearing about the history of Prague and the Czechs as Michael walked us around the city. He was very knowledgeable, entertaining, and funny and the entire group was very affable. About a dozen of us stayed with Michael after the tour, to share travel tales and Czech beer. The end result was that after Cee, Bee, & I had dinner (wild boar, lamb ribs, and risotto), the girls have met up with a young man from Finland (Mikko), our guide Michael, and another tour guide from Ireland, for dancing and fun. I returned to the hotel for my own idea of fun – a hot bath, cup of tea, and relaxing .
We have 4 nights in Prague...we could easily have stayed a week there is so much to see and do.
Cee vows to return to go to school here.
Today was a fateful day, not only for introducing me to one of my top favorite cities, world-wide, but also to one of my top favorite alcohols: Becherovka. Though no poet, to my knowledge, has dedicated love-poems to this secret-recipe herbal licquer, many have certainly considered it. Even Shakespeare, while never travelling Prague, was unknown to probably not have said that Becherovka was the inspiration behind his most beloved tragedy, Romeo and Juliet. For it was the sobriety between months of drunken, Becherovka-induced staggering that felt, to this genius, as soul-wrenching as ill-fated teenage love.
ReplyDeleteIt was under the influence of this herbal bitters (which tastes "like Christmas") that the Becherovka song was composed, a song to be sung to the tune of the Mexican Hat Dance: 'Becherovka, Becherovka, make me sing and make me dance. Becherovka, Becherovka, lalalalalalala yeah."
Now you know. Go forth, drink great drinks, and sing with gusto and shamelessness -- for Shakespeare.