Prague

With our time in Europe running out quickly, we have been trying to travel as much as possible lately. Our latest mini-vacation was a weekend trip to Prague.

After finishing work early on Friday, we took the train to Zürich and flew out to Prague in the evening. After checking into our hotel around 9:30, we rushed out to get a quick dinner before exploring the town. Our new friends from the USA, Chastity and Mark, also went to Prague this weekend, and after dinner we met up with them.

The four of us explored the old town of Prague, including the Old Town Square, which includes the Týn Church, Old Town Hall and Astronomical Clock before walking down to the world famous Charles Bridge. The Charles Bridge crosses the Vltava river and offers great views of Prague Castle, the biggest castle in Europe. The bridge also has about 30 statues all along it, dedicated mostly to religious figures. The bridge was built in the mid 1300s, and the statues date back to about 1700.

Saturday and Sunday we spent just touring the town during the day, and then meeting up with Chastity and Mark for dinner and drinks at night. Prague has a lot of tourist attractions, like the bridge, the castle and the town square, but really, the town itself is a tourist attraction. It is absolutely beautiful, and it has done a great job of becoming a modern city while still having a look of an old European town. Walking through the streets, you can imagine that the way the street looks today is almost the same as it would have looked one or two hundred years ago.

So we spent a lot of the weekend just sort of strolling around town. We saw sites like the Prague Castle, some old churches, and a relatively new attraction, the John Lennon Peace Wall. The wall is a section of wall in the "Lesser Town" across the bridge from the Old Town, where when John Lennon was murdered, people in Prague, which was still under communist rule at the time, went to spray paint messages of peace and freedom in spite of government orders to not do so.

While in Prague, we of course also sampled some of the local beers. The Czech Republic is where the Pilsener style of beer was invented, so it is of course prevalent here, and often dirt cheap. It was also very good.

We had to head back on Monday afternoon, so Monday morning and early afternoon we took the opportunity for one last walk around town and one last drink on a sidewalk patio. Prague was definitely one of our favourite places we've visited, and it was nice to soak it up a little more.

Next up is a short, last-minute trip to Dieppe, France. Erin has to go there for work, and Tim will be tagging along. Dieppe is probably best known to Canadians as the site of a battle where Canadians were decimated by the Germans in WWII. There is a large Canadian War Cemetery there. We will definitely visit it and pay our respects.