Day 17: Berlin - Buddy Bears

All around Berlin there are these large fiberglass bear sculptures with various designs on them called Buddy Bears. The bear is sort of the symbol of Berlin, being somewhat "founded" by Albert the Bear in the 1200s (a pretty young city by European standards). The Buddy Bear program started in 2001 as a cooperation between businesspeople and sculptors; they began sculpting and placing these bears all over Berlin. It soon turned into the United Buddy Bears program, an international art exhibition teaching and expanding the art of tolerance. The Buddy Bear Exhibition is on tour around the world promoting peace, tolerance, love, and international understanding. They are in St. Petersburg, Russia now.

So, being Baers and all, we tried to snap a picture of every Buddy Bear we came across and really wanted to buy one of the tabletop replicas to bring home. But being that they were €60, we settled on the smaller version for €14. This one was in the train station representing the Berlin Zoo.

Day 17: Berlin - Fat Tire Bike Tour

On my previous Europe trip, we did the Fat Tire Bike Tour in Paris and loved it; the company was started by some A&M grads and is in Paris, Barcelona, London, and Berlin. So I knew this was something we wanted to do as soon as we got to Berlin to orient ourselves to the city.

The bike tour was great - despite the sporadic drizzling. We had a cheeky little British guide who had fallen in love with the city on a weekend visit and had lived there several years now. She was as interested as I am in the historical aspects and Berlin's sometimes bewildering ways of doing things.

Most sites in Berlin are new construction, considering the city was basically flattened during WW II. But the buildings look old because they generally rebuilt everything to look the way it did before. It's so interesting to look at a building or plaza and learn all about how it came to look the way it does, or in some cases even be in the place it is considering how many monuments and structures Hitler relocated for his planned "perfect city". Whether it was the early imperialists, the Nazis, The Soviets, or the Allies, every site has its own history. There is still considerable controversy surrounding what to do with certain monuments/memorials; our guide would tell us - take a picture of this because it most likely won't be here on your next visit -like the statue of Karl Marx.

We got a great view of the city overall and specifies on certain sites, which gave us an idea of the places we wanted to visit on the following days. We also went to a great beer garden with our group - delicious cream of asparagus soup and French style pizza for me and schnitzel for Chris. (Plus great beer of course.) This picture is in front of the Brandenburg Gate - check out our sweet gloves borrowed from Fat Tire - it was pretty chilly.

That night we made some delicious pan-fried pork chops, steamed asparagus (spargel), and avocados for dinner.

Day 16: Berlin, Germany

We took a morning train from Prague and arrived in Berlin around 1pm. The hotel we'd booked the night before was about a 10min. walk from Berlin's massive, shopping mall of a train station. It was a windy, considerably cooler walk than we were used to.

We got to Adina Apartment Hotels and were completely wow'ed and excited. We had no idea how nice the place was going to be and I didn't realize it had a kitchenette and everything. It was the most expensive per night thus far, but totally worth it because we were able to grocery shop and save lots of money cooking plus it had its own washer/dryer. It was the best place to end our whirlwind 3 weeks. Probably the nicest place we've ever stayed - and much cheaper than something comparable in the states would have been.

We unpacked, went to for a workout/sauna/swim in the hotel "wellness center" and then headed out for some groceries - excited for the chance to cook and eat-in. We made some pretty delicious spaghetti and steamed broccoli, and bread. Plus some yummy cheap wine.

Day 15: Prague Love

Tired and hungry, we made our way back to Amedia Hotel Theatrino. (It's not nearly as threatening in the daylight and once we had our bearings.) All day we'd talked about going back to Akropolis and it was another great decision. In Prague their menus have "appetizers" and "foods that go well with drinking beer". We ordered some fried green beans with chili garlic sauce from the latter section, expecting something like a basket of fries. It was enough green beans to feed a family of 6 - all for about 3 bucks! Then I had the pasta Chris had ordered the night before and he got another great pesto pasta dish. So Asian appetizer, Italian main course, and Czech beer in a Greek-sounding restaurant. A much better infusion than our Austrian-Italian-Indian experience in Salzburg.

Praha - I Love Thee!

Day 15: Prague - Staré Mêstro

Pretty worn out, we took a bus back to the east side of the river to Staré Mêstro (Old Town) but got to the Old Town Square (or Staromêstské nàmèstî) too late to see its major churches - [another] St Nicholas and St James. Cash's Prague blog-post from her trip last year gave a great description and I was looking forward to seeing the 600 year old shriveled arm of the would-be thief who tried to steal the jewels from the statue of the Virgin Mary (see here - http://caitlincash.tumblr.com/)

On the hour, we gathered with the hundreds of other tourists to see the town hall tower's astronomical clock do its thing. This clock, built in 1410 and improved in 1490 by master clockmakers, is absolutely amazing. I still don't quite understand it all but it tells the time, sunrise, sunset, an astrological star clock, reads military time and standard time, moon phases, zodiac signs, stellar time, and the month/season.

Crazier than all this is the scene that plays out every hour. The 4 figures represent the issues of 15th century Praguers - Vanity, Greed, Death, and Pagan Invasion. The lower figures are the Chronicler, Angel, Astronomer, and Philosopher. On the hour Death rings a bell and inverts his hourglass and the other figures shake their head while the 12 Apostles parade past the upper windows. At the end the rooster crows and the hour rings.

The story goes that because Master Hanuš had created such a spectacular clock, he was blinded by Prague officials so he couldn't recreate it elsewhere. So in revenge he climbed up and dismantled it so it wouldn't work... Documents show that it didn't work properly until 1570...???

Day 15: Prague - Petrîn Hill

Petrîn Hill is about 300m. high and earlier in the day I remember asking Chis how big of a hill that would be. I don't remember his response but after the long, hot, 927-step (approx) hike, we both knew it was high and/or steep. I had this false thought we'd be able to get to the top and see forever without actually going up the lookout tower. But it didn't work out that way and after the huge hike (most people took the bus apparently) we felt it would be a waste not to go up the tower for the full 360 view of the city. So, like tourists, we doled out some crowns to take the lift to the top observation deck. Of course without a panoramic lens it's hard to capture, but a magnificent sight.

From Petrîn we hiked down to Strahov Monastery in the Hradčany neighborhood which has an amazing library and some other weird stuff. It's the largest monastic (not sure what that adjective means in the context of libraries?) library in the country housed in 2 massive baroque halls. The halls themselves are beautiful and rows upon rows of old books line the walls.

Outside in the corridors are Cabinets of Curiosities - glass cabinets full of interesting and strange things that explorers/sailors found and brought back to Europe as examples of sea monsters and crazy species. Typical things like shells and insects and skeletons, and also "crazy" things like whale penises and armadillos.

There's also a large collection of old (and probably very valuable) books in their original bindings unique to the era and location. It was amazing to see 15th century handwritten personal bibles, in beautiful gilded handwriting with illustrations. I can't imagine hand-copying massive texts; I can't even write in cursive...

Day 15: Prague - Malá Strana

From the castle we walked through Malá Strana to check out its many gardens. The Wallenstein Garden is a huge walled "formal"garden with a pond full of huge carp and some peacocks call it home, including a white one. The Vojan Gardens are less manicured but with more locals hanging out. I liked it more and a couple was getting married while we were there!

St Nicholas Church and its huge green cupola dominates the heart of Malá Strana. It's home tomEurope's largest fresco. Mozart played here in 1787 and an upstairs gallery houses an intense and dark series of paintings of The Passion. The Communists used its bell tower to spy on the Americans at their nearby embassy.

We passed the John Lennon Wall on the way to Petrín Hill. Lennon became a hero of pacifist Czechs after his murder and someone painted Lennon's face on this secluded wall. It became a venue fir thought and political graffiti during the communist era and now tourists and locals add to it layer upon layer. Really cool.

Day 15: Prague - Prague Castle (Pražky hrad)

The largest ancient castle in the world at 570m. long, Prague Castle mimics the city itself - you can tell it grew organically over time. It's somewhat of a jumble with a courtyard here, a church here, little complexes here and there and very incongruous (is that a word?) All the architecture seems different from different eras, but in the middle of it all is the impressive gothic-looking St Vitus Cathedral. Beautiful (I really need a thesaurus for a word meaning extra-beautiful) stained glass all around the nave and transept. There are also some great wood carvings including a door that shows Bohemian saints depicting their martyrdom - St Vitus in a cauldron of boiling oil and St Wenceslas stabbed in the back by his brother while clinging to the church door handle trying to get inside (the very door handle is in the church on the door to his chapel).

We also got to see the changing of the guards at Noon, nowhere near the extravagance of that at Buckingham Palace, but still pretty impressive.

Day 15: Prague - Charles Bridge

We had a long and exhausting day walking/bussing through Prague to see everything we could in 16 hours. It was incredibly warm that day and we ended up a little sunburned with tired feet.

We walked toward the Vltava River and saw the famous modern "dancing building". Then crossed the pedestrian-only Charles Bridge, full of painters, craftsmen, musicians, souvenir-sellers, tourists, and most likely pick-pockets. Such a great scene, still wish I would have bought one of those street paintings...

Day 15: Prague

The Czech Republic is so different from Germany (or anywhere I've ever been). Chris would tell you he didn't love it and that he didn't feel safe and that there were drugs everywhere, but I would have to disagree. I loved Prague and only wish we had had more time there and that I'd read about the city and the country's history a little more in advance.

Walking to our hotel (not in the best area) from the train station (also typically not in great areas) in the evening with huge backpacks in a new country where we absolutely don't understand the language certainly didn't help. The buildings were covered in graffiti and lots of men in doorways along the street. So it wasn't a great first impression.

It's definitely more run-down in many places and [seemingly] isn't as well off as the other places we've been. Everything is incredibly cheap (our dollars go much further as Crowns than as Euros). It's also the land of Bohemia, so it's a little more "free lovin" I guess you could say. But when you read about its history, you understand it a little more. Not that the former Czechoslovakia didn't have opportunities to determine its destiny, but it traded hands so many different times in European and World power struggles, it's really a wonder that it is what it is today.

So powerful and important in the past that it was once the seat of the Holy Roman Empire and is where the Thirty Years' War began (when a Protestant mob pushed 2 Catholic councilors out the window). Then Austrian rule for 300 years, an independent Czechoslovakia for 20 years, then under Nazi control, then communism under the Soviets, until finally independence in 1989 through the Velvet Revolution at the end of the Cold War, after which the Czechs and Slovaks peacefully split. A major multi-billion-dollar flood later ('02) and the joining of the EU in '04, the Czech Republic is finally getting back on its feet.

And it truly has some amazing, beautiful sites. The view from above - with its red rooftops and hundred spires - I could just look at forever. And its great river with the Charles Bridge full of peddlers and cobbled streets with a different neighborhood on each hill. I just loved it and sadly feel like it didn't get the time it deserved in our itinerary because we really wanted to make sure we got plenty of time to explore and relax in Berlin before our trip back home. So that's my disclaimer for poor Praha - I will come back to give you the attention you deserve one day!