Christmas in Prague

Prague was beautiful! I loved everywhere we went on our trip, but Prague was by far my favourite! All the buildings are gorgeous and it's small enough that almost everything is walkable. It also has a ton of history. And to top it all off everything is so inexpensive there, we ate like kings! Seriously, I loved Prague.

Day One December 22:

The first day we flew into Prague and arrived by mid-afternoon. We rented an apartment for our stay through the website Airbnb. I highly recommend this website, it provides listings for apartments that people rent out to visitors. We ended up using it for all three places on our trip with success. It also allows you to view ratings and comments by previous guests, so you can make sure the apartment and host are reliable (and not crazy psychos). We were able to stay in full apartments that each had their own kitchens. It was nice to have our own apartment to come back to and the kitchen allowed us to save money by having breakfast and a few dinners at home. We also had washing machines at all three apartments, which was handy as we didn't have to pack as much for the trip and were able to travel with just our backpacks. And, we saved a lot of money, as it was often cheaper to rent a whole apartment through this website than it was to book a hotel room. Our apartment in Prague was beautiful and in the best location, minutes away from the centre of town and within walking distance to all the sites.

After checking in at our apartment we heading out to the grocery store to pick up a few supplies for our stay (aka Czech beer). We then heading out for a nice dinner at a great little Czech restaurant called Krcma in the cellar of a building. It had a really cool atmosphere with dim lighting and candles dripping wax everywhere. We started with an appetizer each (a delicious onion soup and sausage in a beer sauce) and then had a traditional Czech main meal (beef with cranberries in a creamy root vegetable sauce, served with bread dumplings). We sampled a few delicious Czech beers too. Everything was really delicious and inexpensive (about 3 dollars for a litre of beer!). It was a great start to our trip. We had a nice evening walk back to the apartment and checked out some of the town on the way.

Entrance to the restaurant Krcma

Cool candles with melted wax in the restaurant

Mmmm our first Czech beer

Dave enjoying his sausage appetizer

Beef in creamy sauce with dumplings (delicious!)

The Christmas market in the centre of town

Prague castle in the distance at night

Day 2 December 23:
Our second day in Prague we awoke early (well early for us) to go on the Prague Royal Walk Free Tour. I read good reviews about this tour on Trip Advisor and it didn't disappoint. The walking tour lasted about 2.5 hours and took you to all the main sites in Prague. It was very informative and our tour guide, Chris, was full of interesting stories about the city. Also, it was free!! Woo hoo! If you know Dave, you know that he can't turn down free things, so I knew he'd be thrilled with this tour, and I was right! Although it poured rain for most of the day, it was still a lot of fun and I'm glad we did the tour on our first full day in Prague as it gave us an introduction to the city and allowed us to pick out the spots we wanted to go back to and spend more time at later in the week. After the tour we went to an early dinner at a beer hall called Lokal. We warmed up and dried off as we enjoyed some delicious Czech tank beer and some yummy food. I had the pork schnitzel and Dave had a chicken and mushroom dish. It was a nice way to relax after all our touring. We headed home after to rest up for awhile. That night we joined a pub crawl with the same company that ran our walking tour. For about $25 dollars we each got an hour of open bar at their own pub to start the night, plus entrance and a free shot at 2 local pubs, and then to end the night entrance into a 5 story night club that played different music on each floor. We also got a pub crawl t-shirt included in the price, as our guide said, "Not sure why you get a t-shirt, perhaps to help you remember that you even went on a pub crawl" haha. It was a fun way to spend a night in Prague and sample the local beer. We also met some other people, most of them were Australians from a Contiki tour group and they were a lot of fun. The pub crawl was a fun way to see the night life in Prague. We had the approach that it was a marathon, not a sprint and enjoyed our drinks in a responsible manner (aka I'm getting too old for this!). However, some of the pub crawlers were definitely trying to get their monies worth and went full force at the open bar at the very beginning. Let's just say that these people took the "crawl" part of the pub crawl a little too seriously and we witnessed a few of them "crawling" home early. Dave and I had a lot of fun and the last bar was about a minute away from our apartment, so it worked out great. It was a good night!

Rainy day in the Old Town Square

This is the Prague State Opera building. It was once used by the Nazi party for political assemblies.

Powder Tower: part of the old city gate and once used as a gun powder storage facility.

This statue is a hit with tourists. Our tour guide told us the locals like watching the tourists look inside (as it is faceless and hollow). Apparently one lady actually got her head stuck inside the statue while trying to peak inside haha.

National Museum in Wenceslas Square

Wenceslas Monument with candles for the former President of Prague Vaclav Havel on the anniversary of his death.

Trdelnl'k stand at the Christmas Market

Trdelnl'k (cinnamon and sugar pastry)

Sausages with horseradish and mustard

Pork Schnitzel with potato salad

Mushroom chicken with potatoes and cabbage

Tank beers

Dave and I enjoying the pub crawl

Crazy lights at the 5 story club

 Day 3 December 24:
Christmas Eve in Prague is their main day to celebrate Christmas, so most of the non-touristy shops were closed and pretty much all of the museums and other sights were also closed. This is a day where the Czech people enjoy a traditional Czech Christmas meal (usually fried carp, which they sell at the Christmas markets in barrels of water right up until Christmas Eve). They also open gifts and spend time with family on this day. Dave and I decided to sleep in (nothing to do with the previous nights pub crawl at all...) and then had a nice Christmas walk around the city and across Charles Bridge. We explored inside a few of the churches that we came across on our walking tour. It was a beautiful day and was surprisingly busy out, it was nice to hear Christmas music and be amongst the crowds wandering around the Old Town Centre and the Christmas markets. We had some lunch at one of the Christmas  market stands and enjoyed some kielbasa sausage and some delicious potato dish that had pototes, cabbage, and ham mixed together in a bowl of goodness. We also bought a few souvenirs at some of the Christmas stands, an ornament to remember our Christmas trip in Prague and of course Dave had to buy a beer stein to add to his growing collection of bar ware. We headed home to have our own little Christmas celebration that evening. We watched Rudolph and Claymation Christmas and had a lovely homemade dinner of pork chops, potatoes, and carrots. It was a nice Christmas Eve.

This view was practically across the road from our apartment

Crowds of people on Charles Bridge

View of Prague Castle from across the water

Church of Our Lady before Tyn in Old Town Square

The Astronomical Clock

Remember when Emily and Jef (with one "f") went to Prague on Season 8 of the Bachelorette? No? Well Dave and I remembered!

And we tracked down the same marionette shop! Score!

Dave poses in front of the shop.

Cool hand crafted marionette puppets

This old man was rocking that saxophone in the town square

There were all sorts of neat nativity scenes all around the town

Town across the bridge

Lunch: kielbasa and potato with ham and cabbage

Hot wine to warm us up!

Pig on a spit anyone?

Rudolph and Christmas eve dinner

 Day 4 December 25:
On Christmas day we decided to tour Prague Castle. There are several buildings that make up the castle grounds and we purchased the long tour ticket that gave us access to pretty much everything. We saw St. Vitus Cathedral, the Old Royal Palace, St.George's Basilica, Golden Lane and the Daliborka Tower, Powder Tower, Rosenberg Palace, and a few exhibitions about the castle. The castle grounds were quite large and it was very beautiful. That night we had a special dinner at the Strahov Monastic Brewery restaurant located just up the hill from the castle. This is a monastery that has it's own brewery and restaurant on site. It was one of the best meals of the trip and had some of the best beer we have had. It was a special Christmas dinner and we really enjoyed it.

In front of St.Vitus Cathedral

Inside the cathedral

A nativity scene in front of the stained glass window

Hey look! Dave's making me climb up to the top!

View of Prague from the top of St.Vitus Cathedral

View of the castle grounds from the top of St.Vitus Cathedral

At the start of Golden Lane (lots of old houses on this street)

Colourful Golden Lane

Dave would not have done well in old timey days, look how tiny those doors are!

An entrance to the castle grounds

Look it's me!

Look it's Dave!

View of Prague and Prague Castle from the hill, climbing up to the restaurant

This is Prague's version of the Eiffel Tower, taller than Paris' Eiffel Tower , of course it's built on a hill so I'm not sure if it counts!

Dave's chicken soup

My onion soup with cheese toast

My beef goulash with onions and a mix of potato and bread dumplings. It was sooooo good and the beef melted in your mouth it was so tender. Delicious!

Dave's ribs with a mixture of sauces (garlic, sweet chili, and plum).

Dave's dark beer, he said it was the best dark beer he's ever had

My amber beer , so good

 Day 5 December 26:

 On our final day in Prague we decided to head over to the Jewish Quarter. This used to be the Jewish Ghetto and the only place where Jewish people were able to live. Today it consists of the synagogues, the old Jewish cemetery, and the Old Jewish Town Hall that make up the Jewish Museum. It was really interesting learning about the Jewish culture that existed in Prague before the Second World War. Many of the Jewish people living here did not make it through the war, and most of those that did, did not return to Prague. It was really sad thinking about how the war affected the Jewish people in Prague. In one of the buildings they have the names of all the Jewish people from this area that were killed in the war at concentration camps. We were not allowed to take pictures of this, but it was very moving and really put things into perspective. There were two floors of this building and almost every inch of wall space was filled with names. In some cases whole families were killed. I think it took something like 4 years for them to finish writing all the names, so you can image how many there were. It was very sad and moving.

The Jewish Cemetery, this was the only place that Jewish people were permitted to bury their dead.

On the left you can see the Jewish Cemetery again, can you see how high it is compared to the ground level? That is because they had such a small space to bury their dead that they had to start layering them. It is just one big hill.

One of the synagogues

Another synagogue

Inside one of the synagogues

After touring around the Jewish Quarter, we had to head back to the apartment to pack up and get ready to take our night train to Krakow. We stopped at McDonald's on the way to the train station for a quick dinner and to fulfill Dave's dream of trying every McDonald's in every place he visits. I have to admit, there were a few cool menu items at this McD's that we don't have at home. After filling up, we heading to the train station and settled in for the night. It wasn't the soundest sleep I've ever had, but it wasn't too bad and the room was comfortable. Plus, it was worth it traveling overnight because we didn't waste a day traveling and were able to explore right away once we got into Krakow.

This is some sort of Bacon Burger that was pretty good. I think it had onion ring bits on it or something.

This is the "My Country" it was a burger made of sausage patties. It was actually pretty delicious.

These are fried cheese bites with strawberry dipping sauce

Sooo yummy!

Yay! Night train! Who gets top bunk?!

Next up, we arrive in Krakow!

Until next time...

Au Revoir

Toulouse Christmas Markets

 Before our Christmas trip to Prague, Krakow and Vienna we had time to check out the Christmas atmosphere right here in Toulouse. Every year, as in most European cities, they set up a Christmas market in the town square. Dave and I managed to get down to the Christmas market a couple of times to get us into the holiday spirit. They had tons of stalls selling gifts, food, and hot wine! We enjoyed wandering around to the different stalls and sampling the different treats. They also had a band one day that was really great, although they didn't really play Christmas music, they played things like the theme to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles instead. I'm not quite sure why, France is weird sometimes you guys. But, they were still really good and fun to listen to. They also had street performers all around the market doing what can only be described as performance art, I guess? I'm not quite sure what they were doing or what it had to do with Christmas, but it was slightly odd and not quite what I was used to for a Christmas celebration. It was definitely an experience. We spent approximately 20 minutes watching a man interview a rock with a microphone and then chip a tiny metal statue out of  a block of ice for reasons that will never be known to me. It was something....

The market stalls were quite festive though and I have to say my favourite part was sampling all the yummy treats they had to offer (I know right? Who would have guessed my favourite part was the food? Shocking!). We went to the market a few times so I had a chance to sample quite a few of these treats, delicious!

Here are a few pictures from our Toulouse Christmas market experience.

Hot Chocolate stand, different flavours of chocolate on spoons

Macaroons

Toulouse sausage with fried onions

Hot wine

Churros

Lights at the Capitole building

The market at night

Hot chocolate, this was literally melted chocolate. It was so thick and tasted like hot pudding, yum!

Cheesy potatoes with bacon!

Baked potatoes: cheese and bacon, tomato and cream

Hamburger with cheese in a baguette

Sausage with cabbage

We watched this man juggle balls in this bubble, sometimes the balls floated, sometimes it was weird...

The dramatic rock interview

Tiny robot man in block of ice, this man chipped him out for a good 10 minutes. I watched the whole thing, it was riveting.

Light show on the Capitole building. This was actually pretty cool.

More of the light show

Big Christmas tree

Dave and I under the beautiful Christmas lights.

Here is a video of the band rocking it to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme!

Here is a video of the wonderful street art performance we watched with the rocks and ice block. I think this video really captures the magic of this show and you can tell how much Dave enjoyed it.

It was a lot of fun and got us into the Christmas spirit!

Coming up next our Christmas and New Year's trip!

Until next time...

Au Revoir

Gourdon

We are back from our Christmas trip and I finally have time to get updated on all my blog entries that I've been working on, so over the next few weeks I will be posting quite a few blog updates. Let's get started!

At the end of November, Dave and I spent the weekend visiting our friends Anna and Rich in the small French town of Gourdon. We met Anna and Rich in Toulouse and quickly became good friends. They are also expats and recently moved to France from the UK, although Anna is Russian and Rich is Australian. Together we are a mixed bunch of expats and we always have a lot of fun. They recently decided to make a move to a beautiful little house in Gourdon hoping to live somewhere a little more in the country for a while. When they invited us for a visit we were thrilled to catch up with our friends and visit some of the surrounding French country side (thanks Rich for being our chauffeur!). I fell in love with their little country home and the city of Gourdon. It's a quiet little town, but it's beautiful and full of charm, as is their house. They were awesome hosts and Anna fed us some amazing meals, I'm still thinking about how good they were (yum!). I also can't stop thinking about all the beautiful places we saw during the weekend. We'd be driving along the country side on our way to a sight and all of a sudden we'd drive by an unexpected castle or a some gorgeous view. It was crazy. We crammed a lot of sight seeing into the weekend, but there's still so much to to see in that area.We had such a great time, I can't wait to visit again. The pictures really don't do these beautiful sights justice, they were unreal, but they'll give you an idea!

On Saturday we got up and headed to the Gourdon market. This is a cute little market that happens every Saturday in Gourdon. They sell everything from fresh sea food and vegetables to pastries and breads. There were even live chickens. It was so great and the produce was so fresh and local. I loved it.

Gourdon market, the place to be on Saturday morning

Fish anyone?

After making some purchases at the market we loaded into the car for our first day of adventures.  Anna and Rich took us to a little town called Domme that had an amazing look out with great views. It was beautiful and because it was the off season for tourists, we got the place to ourselves. It was a gorgeous start to the day and only the start of things to come.

Gorgeous view of the country side. You could see for miles.

Gorgeous

Enjoying the view (ignore the bags under my eyes, I had a late night of wine drinking and catching up the night before)

 After enjoying the view, we headed into the town of Domme and stumbled across a church where we found some creepy and questionable statues. For example:

One of the statues. I'm getting a creepy Mr.Burns vibe. 

The church

The town would forever be known as the town of amazing views and creepy church statues. It was a wonderful first stop.

Then we hopped back into the car to head to our next stop, but along the way we ran into this:

Where did this come from? Beautiful

And then we got side tracked again when we ran into this:

Castelnaud La Chapelle

Like I said, driving along and then BAM castle! So cool!

Dave standing where he's not supposed to stand...what a rebel

Eventually, hunger took over and before we got too hangry (anger caused by hunger) we decided to stop in the town of Sarlat for lunch. Sarlat was a bit of a bigger town with some nice restaurants. Unfortunately, in France many places only serve lunch from 12pm to 2pm and if you come any later than you are out of luck. We missed the lunch window so we ended up having lunch at McDonalds (you never let me down McD). Maybe it was the hangry talking, but it was the best McDonalds lunch ever and definitely hit the spot. Refueled, we continued on our adventure to the Lascaux caves. These are prehistoric caves with all sorts of amazing cave paintings. You've probably seen images of the paintings before, there are all sorts of animals and the paintings are really amazing. The real cave had to be closed because the pictures and breath from all the visitors was damaging the paintings, but they have a recreation made exactly the same way and using the same techniques that they allow you to tour. Unfortunately, you can't take pictures but it was really cool. Afterwards, we headed home for a delicious curry dinner that Anna made. I'm still thinking about how good it was today.

The next day we woke up early to get in some more sight seeing before Dave and I had to head home that night. Our first stop was in Gourdon itself. There is an amazing look out where you can see all of Gourdon. It actually use to be the spot of an old castle, but the castle no longer stands. It did still have amazing views.

Then we got into the car and began our journey. On the way to stopped at a bakery to grab some bread and we found this beside it!

How cool is this?

This was across the street. So beautiful.

 We drove along some pretty cool roads too. Look at the cliffs and tunnels!

We ended up at this crazy little town called Saint-Cirq-Lapopie. It is a beautiful town built right into the cliffs. It was so cool!

View of the town on the road coming into it

Dave and I with the town in behind

View from the town

Look how cute the houses are, they don't even look real.

More beautiful views

The boys stood out on this ledge...I cowered in fear from a distance

After Saint-Cirq-Lapopie we headed to an even cooler cliff side town called Rocamadour. This was such an impressive cliff side town and it even had a church on the very top of the cliff. The views were amazing and it was soooo high, I definitely felt weak in the knees at a few of the lookouts.

Driving up to Rocamadour

Heading towards the chapel at the top

The view from above....really, really high

More view from the top

Dave and I at the chapel on the very top

View of Rocamadour from across the way

Dave and I with Rocamadour in the background

 It was a day full of beautiful sights. I can't believe we live so close to these amazing French towns. The French countryside is definitely worth seeing if you ever get a chance. We had a great weekend with Anna and Rich and we can't wait to visit with them again. We made it home just in time for a quick dinner before literally running for our train. It was a short but busy weekend and we definitely fit in a lot of sights. We saw some of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. We have a ton of great memories from our weekend, it was wonderful!

Until next time...
Au revoir