Prague

This is such a beautiful city and is our favourite so far . . . Edging out Berlin! Prague has everything from castles to horse and carriages to cobble stoned streets and lots of history.  This city has made us realise just how “young” New Zealand is in comparison to the rest of the world.

  Narrow streets with tall buildings

DAY ONE

We arrived in Prague late on Monday afternoon and headed down the cobble stoned streets to find our apartment.  That night we dined at a local Prague restaurant eating dumplings and meat.

After Dinner we checked out the shops, 200 stores in  one building – Trace was in heaven!

DAY TWO

Today we headed to the local markets in the morning and brought some local berries which were so yummy, and so expensive – about NZD$16 for a little punnet!!

We joined a free walking tour at 11am (free meaning you only had to tip the guide).

This took us to all the “hot spots” in Prague.

According to all the guides the Czech’s drink more beer per person than any other nation… You can tell!!

One guide said each man, women and child averages over 150L per year!

Once we had finished the tour it was time for some shopping.  Trace brought a dress and hoodie (very cool!) and Mike got a t-shirt and some new shorts.

After shopping it was time for dinner and then we hit the famous Prague Pub Crawl. . . . . . and that’s all we have to say about that!  But just to add for your information, the first hour was all you can drink vodka and cranberry shots, absinthye shots, beer, and wine!

The nights clubs in Prague are a lot like something out of the Flintstones.  They even have a night club which is 5 stories and on each story different music is played.  You can move from dance music and disco balls on one floor up to the slow music and couches on the top floor!

DAY THREE

It was a bit of a slow start to the day today, we headed out the streets of Prague for some more exploring and then joined a Castle tour of the Prague Castle at 2pm.  This is one of the oldest castles in the world!

The view of Prague city from the Castle

One of the many cobble stoned streets we walked down.

 

A Palace

 

The view of Prague from up by the Prague Castle

 

Inside of the castle walls

 

This was our tour guide.  He was very enthusiastically explaining the door to the Cathedral within the castle grounds… He’d had a couple of beers during our 30 minutes break – Czechs!

The outside of the Cathedral

This is St George’s Cathedral… It’s 1100 years old!!

After dinner we headed up to the old kings residence (before Prague castle) which the guide had told us had amazing views of Prague and was his favourite spot in Prague.  This was a 10 minute tram ride to the south end of the city.

The guide was right, the views from here were AMAZING and we timed it just right with the positioning of the sun.

 

The walk way up to the old Prague castle

The view of Prague looking south

 

The view of Prague looking North

 

Trace taking in the view – thinking this is a place she would love to come back to

A view from the dock

 

 

The Prague Castle (background) with the Charles Bridge.

 

As soon as we arrived in Prague Trace spotted (and heard) the horse and carriage.  You can take the farm girl away from the farm but you can’t take the farm… You get the idea.

We enjoyed a romantic tour of the city at night in the horse and carriage (This was Trace’s highlight of Prague)

Our horses which escorted us around Prague

View of Town Square at night

Munich here we come, followed by the overnight train to Venice! (We have only booked a seat for this overnight leg, after advice from all at Aegis, will let you know if we survive at our next blog).

Berlin

 

DAY ONE

We arrived in Berlin after a great train trip.  We are travelling on the Euro Rail pass, 1st Class! Buying this first class euro rail pass was a great call as we get a 6 seat spacious booth to ourselves which means we can lie down and sleep most of the way.

By the time we found our Hostel and checked in it was getting on so we decided it would be a good night to do the Berlin Pub Crawl, yes that’s all we have to say about that, not much was remembered but it was great to meet some new people from all over the world and see what Berlin’s night life is like.

DAY TWO

It was a slow start to day two but once we got moving we were away.  We hired bikes and headed out to the East Gallery, which is the longest remaining section of the wall.  We also stopped at Reichstag gebaude.

Reichstag gebaude

Altes Museum

The Berlin Wall

The Berlin Wall – Famous Portrait of Soviet leader Brezhnev kissing GDR leader Erich Honecker

From here we headed to Check point Charlie and onto the Tiergarten park where we stopped for a well deserved break.  Berlin’s attractions are very spread out.

   

It all got a bit hard for Mike at one stage – rest time

 

Check Point Charlie

    Tiergarten park

On our way out of the park we stopped at Brandenburger Tor

Holocaust Memorial was our final stop.  Trace could have spent hours there taking photos.

   

 

Below are some photos of some Berlin street art, we really enjoyed looking around the streets.

 

We headed out for an early dinner and then came back to our hostel to pack and get ready for Prague.  It was just luck that we checked our facebook page and discovered that Mark and Tiff (friends from Auckland) had spotted us from there Top deck tour bus while we were on our bikes.  They tried to bang on the windows and catch out attention but were unsuccessful so turned to facebook.  We ended up getting together at a pub and had a few cocktails!

The waiter who took this photo pretended to run away with our camera and then proceeded to take photos of himself too.

Paris

To start with a little bit of house keeping, Mike has fixed the website (hopefully) so everyone can comment – come on guys, let us know how things are in New Zealand and if you are all coping with out us.

DAY ONE

After staying in luxury for a few nights, with Andrew and Claire it is time to get back on the road.

We rose bright and early in London ready and rearing to go for Paris.  Boarding the Eurostar at 0735 we were off, destination Paris, the city of love!

After a good train trip through the Chunnel, we proceeded to check into our hostel.  Everyone was very friendly, we were pleasantly surprised. 

The streets were scattered with dogs droppings and the city was a lot dirtier than we had thought it would be.

We dined at a French bakery for lunch which was yummy!

After sussing out the New York and London subway Paris was a peace of cake. . . .  we made our way downtown to the Eiffel tower.  Here we were hassled by hundreds (no kidding) of guys selling little statues of Eiffel towers, who knows how they make any money, there is no diversification of product whatsoever.

 

 

3pm we headed off on the Paris “Fat Bike Tour”.  The bikes were great, just like riding on a couch.  It was a great way to see the city.

Neopoleono

By the time we got back to the hostel it was 9pm, after gathering some ingredients for a home cooked meal.  The girls cooked up a storm in the kitchen while the boys went on the hunt for some beers.

We had a nice relaxing dinner in the hostel.

DAY TWO

It was another early start for us, we planned a trip to the Louvre and were determined to beat the crowds.  Breakfast at the hostel was cereal, croissants and bread (very nice although we are a little over the bread now).

Arriving at the Louvre early paid off we didn’t have to line up for too long.  This place was amazing, you could seriously spend days there and not see it all.  We took the token Mona Lisa photo, below.

 

 

Heading on we went and saw the Arc De Triomphe, madness roundabout with who knows how many lanes of traffic… There’s no lines!

  The 3rd needle on our journey, one last one to see in Cairo

There was one last thing we had to “tick”, actually going up the Eiffel Tower of course! 

We walked down to the Tower getting a little lost in the small Paris streets which was fun.  Once we arrived the lines were so long for a elevator up to the top so we decided to give the stairs a crack.  704 to the 2nd stage of the tower . . . . . We made it and the view was amazing. 

 

     

From here we caught the elevator up to the top of the Eiffel, the view from here gave Paris a whole other angle, it was amazing.

For dinner we dined out at a local French bar, this was interesting to say the least!

For an entree we ordered snails, as you do in France, these were not too bad.  We also ordered Herring – this came pretty much raw and we don’t think we will ever eat that again!

Desert was chocolate moose which was devine! or cheese, this was a quarter block of cheese with a whole French stick!

After eating far too much we needed to do a bit of walking so we walked up the Montmarte which was not far from our hostel.  The view of Paris at night was stunning.