wonder world!

Sunday, September 14, 2008

One of the more ornate chapels on the north side

Mucha stained glass window

By far the most striking window was the third one in, done by the 20th
century art nouveau Czech artist, alfons mucha. Picture doesn't even
come close to doing it justice! Kicking myself a little for not
bringing a "real" camera... But then I wouldn't be able to blog it!

Flying buttresses

We entered into the main part of the cathedral, and were struck by the
vastness (as well as the 8 million little groups of tourists!). we
commenced to work our way around clockwise, learning about the 18
chapels, including the patron saints, history, art and artifacts of
each.

St. Vitus cathedral

Centerpiece of Prague castle grounds, original construction began in
1344, and continued into the 20th century. Major reconstruction took
place after a devestating fire in 1541.

Prague cathedral... Audio tour

Not really knowing where to begin, we headed to the ticket office.
Hooked ourselves up with tickets, maps and a three hour audio tour
device, with a mere 50 points of interest. The palace grpunds were
swarming with tourists, and the awesome thing about the audio tour was
that you get to skirt some long lines into the buildings, and move at
your own pace.

Frist stop was St. Vitus cathedral.

Girls on tour in Prague!...

History, castles, cathedrals, and old town... Here we come. Armed with
tour books and sensible walking shows, we set off on the tram from our
hotel to tour the Prague castle first, then head into old town.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Made it to the hotel, and settled in!

Car parked, checked into the hostel in Prague. Lovely hotel converted
partially to private hostel rooms. We have a nice sized clean room to
ourselves, and share a bathroom with two other female double rooms...
Pretty nice set-up.

Made our way around the neighborhood here to get some local currency
(czeck crowns), and found a quaint little place to linger over dinner
a few blocks from the hostel. Shutting down for the evening... And
looking forward to a big day of touring old town Prague tomorrow!

Big moon rising as we drove into Prague

Hazy in the fermenting cellar

"let the beer linger in your eyes for a moment, swirl it around and
take in the aroma, "na zdravi"... And enjoy!"

Did I mention excited??

Someone was VERY excited for the exclusive tasting from the brewers stock!

Hall of the original copper cook tanks...

Meticulously preserved and maintained, these tanks only went out of
production in the last decade....

Trying to crack into the "yeast vault"

Super top secret yeast strand... Under high security, stored in
Pilsen, Prague and London!

Locally grown barley that is cooked three times into a premium mash

Peek into the brand new, super high tech bottling plant

Our resident german was happy to learn that the new top of the line
manufacturing machines were all german made (and the best in the world)!

Ticket to gold (beer that is!)

Ok... So upon arriving at the brewery, us ladies needed a restroom, so
proceeded directly to the restaurant. Road weary (ok, we had only been
driving for lees than 2 hours), we needed some sustenance. A few
beers, and soup and snacks... We were revived, and headed over to the
visitors center to get on a tour.... Only we managed to miss the last
on of the day! Ugh! A little sweet talking, and a quick phone call,
and the agreed to let us catch up. Sigh of releif, only to get yelled
at (with hands waving in the air) by the Czech lady the we only had
euros, not Czech crowns! Oh the injustice!

Long story short, they took our filthy euros... And we gained
admittance to the birthplace of pilsner! :)