Sightseeing in Prague

On Wednesday, Craig, Alan, Uwe, Venelina, Igor, and I took the train to Karlstejn, a picturesque little town about 40 km south of Prague with a castle high up overlooking the town. It was a bit of a hike up to the castle, but well worth it. We took a guided tour of the castle, including a chapel that included many rare paintings.

Here's the castle from the town:

Here's a view of one of the turrets from another part of the castle:

We took the train back to Prague and had a great dinner hosted by Gaby and Hans Lochmann at the TV Tower. The TV Tower is a Communist-era structure with a restaurant at an observation deck. It recently was decorated with what I think look like naked alien babies. Here's a close-up:

Craig and I spent Thursday and Friday sightseeing in Prague. I must say I'm very impressed. Prague is a lovely city: very tourist-friendly, the people are nice, the majority of the historical buildings are within walking distance of each other, and it's inexpensive (Igor, Craig, and I had a fabulous dinner Thursday night which cost, including beer, about $8 per person). It felt like we walked at least 20 or 30 km each day. We saw a lot of beautiful Gothic churches and climbed five towers: the clock tower at Old City Hall, a scaled-down version of the Eiffel Tower, the Powder Tower, and the towers of both St. Nicholas church (the one in New Town; there are two churches named St. Nicholas in Prague) and St. Vitus Cathedral (at the Prague Castle). Here's the Old City Hall (the observation deck is above the clock):

Here's the Powder Tower (the observation deck is just below the steeple):

Here's the Eiffel Tower clone:

As you can tell from these pictures, we spent as much time going vertical as we did horizontal.

Here's the beautiful Municipal Hall, used for concerts:

We met up with Igor late Thursday afternoon and went bar hopping to try out the various local brew. Craig doesn't drink beer (or a lot of anything else), so Igor and I felt challenged to corrupt him. He finally agreed to drink one beer, and here's the result:

Igor led us to Two Cats, where I had a great traditional Czech dinner of roast pork stuffed with cabbage, bread dumplings, red cabbage, and more beer.

After sightseeing Friday, Craig and I were both wiped out, plus I had to get up at 4 am for my flight home, so we ate at the Bavaria Restaurant at our hotel, and once again had a fabulous meal (peppercorn steak in my case, cooked perfectly).

What a great trip! Thanks to Igor for inviting me to speak and being a wonderful host.