Prague & Berlin

 Welcome to Prague, capitol of the Czech Republic and ancient seat of the Bohemian kings.

Prague is a real under-the-radar destination, or at least it was in 1994. These days, you can barely see the Charles Bridge through the crowds.

The astronomical clock in the medieval square is one of those sights you have probably seen on the Travel Channel, although you may have missed the little skeleton in the top right who pulls a bell cord every hour.

From the top of the clock tower, you can see Prague’s red roofs, dotted with chimneys, spreading out in all directions. 

At the base of the clock tower, you can see Prague’s chimney cookies, dotted with cinnamon and sugar, spinning in all directions.

 Wandering through Prague, we saw a cafe with an adorable cat logo. Sure enough, it was a cat cafe!

The cafe had about 10 cats snoozing amongst the coffee and beer drinkers, and 1 fatty who was wide awake, conviced that tuna was for him.

We spent the next day in Prague’s old quarter, filled with colorful buildings and tourists.  

The old quarter leads up the hill to Prague Castle, which is actually under a lot of construction and kind of empty. In the center of the castle courtyard, though, is a huge cathedral with beautiful stained glass windows.

In order to truly understand the Bohemian lifestyle, we had to partake in their tradition beverage of choice: absinthe. 

Our next journey was from Czech Republic to Checkpoint Charlie, in Berlin. This famous crossing between East and West Berlin is now a large open-air museum, although a piece of the wall remains.

A larger section of the wall remains outside the old headquarters of the Nazi secret police, along with a detailed museum about the various arms of the Nazi organization, especially their propoganda and police forces. 

 Directly in the center of downtown Berlin, there is a massive concrete memorial to the victims of the holocaust.

Despite being at the center of two World Wars, Berlin has done an impressive job of preserving (and rebuilding) beautiful historic architecture.

Berlin’s museums are not limited to their own history; we spent the better part of a day on Museum Isle, with museums full of artefacts from Egypt, the Middle East, Greece, and Rome. We didn’t ask how all these artefacts ended up in Berlin… 

We also spent a day in Potsdam, a short train ride from Berlin, seeing the palaces and gardens that put the “great” in “Frederick the Great”. 

His massive gardens are full of winding paths and nooks and crannies large enough to hide giant windmills in. 

 Feeling like his first palace wasn’t big enough, he built a second one for guests.

We were lucky enough to meet one of the current residents of the palace, at least according to his collar which said “My Home”.

 

 

-Phil & Jessie

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