How do I even begin? Maybe by mentioning that I visited five countries in the last ten days! What an adventure, but utterly tiring. I woke up this morning stiff as a board- my body finally telling me to take it easy. I believe that leisurely travel in Europe is next to impossible. There is so much to see and do! Our schedule was so jam packed that the only real breaks we had was when we were traveling on the bus. Since there was SO much that we saw, I can't guarantee this post will be any shorter than the one I did for our 5 day trip... So if you're in a hurry, this won't be the blog post to read...
With that said, I will start with the beautiful city of Česky Krumlov. Located in the southern part of the Czech Republic, this quaint town is absolutely stunning. I think part of it has to do with the fact that it's been untouched by modern influences- in architecture at least.
There is a beautiful castle that is the center of town, and instead of taking a Czech tour through a castle I didn't know anything about, I paid to go up the tower and overlook the landscape. I feel like that's becoming a habit for me now- if there's a tower, I will climb it.. It doesn't hurt to mention either, that it was an absolute perfect fall day. Crisp air, a little chilly, but wonderful all the same.
Česky is relatively small.... Actually, I take that back, it's puny. After the castle, there wasn't much left to choose from besides the little touristy shops along the main street. A bunch of the group wanted "Czech me out!" shirts, but decided to wait and get them in Prague. Anyway, back to finding things to do. Sister Minert mentioned something about a mirror maze, so obviously we went directly there. Turns out, the place we showed up at was a wax museum, and since they had a figure of Harry Potter, we had to go in. I am completely amazed at how realistic wax sculptures are! It was actually kind of creepy how real they looked.. So after the wax museum, we went to the mirror maze. I don't think I have had so much fun since being here. I mean, I've seen a lot of really neat and amazing things, but this maze was pure joy. The four of us that went in had a blast! I wonder how it would be to have a giant mirror maze for Halloween... Plenty of places to hide.... :>
My soup craving also started in Česky. Unfortunately, the place we found for soup wasn't very good. Or maybe that's just how they make soup in the Czech Republic, but it was... Slimy. I ate it anyway because it was warm, and after a long day in the cold, it turned out to be a great warmer-upper. All I could think about was how much I missed Mom's potato soup and Dad's wassail - which will probably be my request for a homecoming dinner? Hint hint... ;)
Česky Krumlov! This man hole started a tradition this trip...
I had fun with these street mirrors...
Castle in Česky. It's the big building in the back with the tower. Not the green hat one, the one behind it.
Sehr schön...
It looks like a carnival! I cant believe how different it was from Salzburg... This entire castle was beautifully painted- just like the tower.
Close buildings! I love the narrow alleys for streets...
Česky Krumlov!
I'm in love with the buildings.
Proof! I'm actually there. Well, the back of my head is there, anyway ;)
We were lucky enough to get our bus driver, Willi, back for our ten day trip! Brother Minert is a great genealogist, and on our tour to Salzburg and Munich, he asked Willi if he wanted his genealogy done. Well, of course Willi said yes, but he had no idea about his father. Where he was born, where his parents were married, etc... Anyway, within 48 hours of getting home from the five day trip, he had sent Brother Minert his father's death certificate (I think. It was some certificate he found..). Naturally, Brother Minert employed the girls on internship here to help him find out everything about Willi's father. They worked on it for a few weeks and found a bunch of stuff about Willi's family. They gathered everything and put it in a book to give to Willi on our ten day trip. As it turns out, Willi's grandfather was buried in a little Czech town on our way to Prague! So, so as a surprise to Willi, we stopped there and Brother Minert presented him with his family's genealogy. you can tell that he was so surprised, and completely elated that he now knew something about his ancestry. To place that experience on a chart, it would definitely be in my top three during my entire stay in Europe.
Brother Minert with Willi
Willi next to the grave of a cousin, Karel Mareš.
We got back on the road and made our way to Prague. First impression: this city looks almost exactly like Vienna................... THEN. We got to our hostel. Some hostels are really good, but this hostel... Oh, this hostel was something else. I think I'll let the pictures do the talking..
I think something died inside the wall.
Yummy...
Let's just say I was tempted to keep my shoes on when I went to bed.. If you're planning on going to Prague, I'm not trying to scare you away from the hostels, just make sure you know what you're getting into ;) the location of this one was actually pretty great, so I guess you give and take.
Second impression of Prague: Holy. How beautiful. One of the best parts was looking at all of the original buildings. Prague was one of the cities that was left untouched during WWII, so everything is beautifully not modern. Being on half of the world's "top destination" list, it is crowded. And when I say "crowded", I mean that the five of us wandering around together had to hold onto each other, literally, so we wouldn't get separated. We found some amazing views of the city, and had a lot of fun wandering around above the main center.
That empty space is the main street. Strictly for cars. Every other street is overrun by pedestrians. Well, the main streets I should clarify.
Normal street.
Prague
I am so proud of this picture...
Man hole #2
Clock in the city center. They have a presentation every twenty minutes or so of the history of Prague.
Since Prague is known for being one of the worlds most haunted cities, I opted to go on a Haunted Tour of downtown. Our guide took us around to some of the buildings where ghost stories reportedly happened. Attention: do NOT read this next part if ghost stories freak you out. Skip to the next paragraph!! It freaked me out, but since its so close to Halloween, i feel like i should share... There is church where a particular chancellor was buried. This chancellor, in life, kept having this reoccurring dream where he was buried alive, and when he was about fifty years old, he confided in a family friend/psychiatrist. He relayed the dream to him, and asked him to pierce him through the heart when he died. The friend agreed, but when the chancellor died, he couldn't bring himself to do it. They held the funeral and the chancellor was placed in the crypt of the church. A few days later, the Chancellor woke up from a coma and realized that he had been buried alive. His nightmare had come true. He managed to get the lid of his coffin off, and spent the next countless hours screaming for help. The people passing thought it was just the restless soul of the chancellor, so they sprinkled the door with holy water and flowers, but never checked inside. Years later, when the crypt was reopened for another burial, they found the skeleton of the chancellor sitting in a corner, resigned to his terrible fate... Creepy, huh?
Church in the Czech Republic was... Different. It was the first time I've used a translator headset, and let me tell you, I missed the German language so much after that. Especially since I'm beginning to recognize words! Besides feeling like I didn't understand anything, church was good! Is nice to have a group of friends that are in the same boat. It also helped that Brother Minert had no idea what they were saying either ;)
After church, we changed and went to the Jewish Quarter. This Quarter is really cool, too, because it wasn't destroyed during the war like other Jewish sections in other cities. My favorite part of the Quarter was the cemetery. The headstones are really really old, and they look like they've been placed wherever there was room. Because of this method, the headstones look like a mountain of badly crooked teeth.
The pebbles are a blessing for the dead. If you remember Errand of Angels, there was a sister who collected rocks... Same deal. Rocks=blessings
Lined up against a wall.. All different sizes
Crooked teeth!
After a much desired All American dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe (macaroni and cheese with a chocolate milkshake) I walked around with a few of the girls while it turned dark. One of the things I really wanted to do was look at the Charles bridge during the night. I had imagined what it would look like, and was not disappointed in the least! I took about a million pictures and these are my favorite:
I think this has to be my favorite structure in all of Europe... Okay maybe that was an exaggeration, but it's up there.
My last few hours in Prague, I found out at I had missed the biggest castle in the world. Who misses the biggest castle in the world?? Wouldn't that be the point of building it? So it'd be seen from miles? Obviously I had to go. Oh, it was so worth it to climb to the top of the hill. Absolutely gorgeous view! Since we only had a few hours on Monday morning, and there was still so much to see, Becca and I waited until the last possible minute to leave, then hightailed it back to the bus.
Prague in the fog :) poetry.
My beautiful friend, Becca. Or the back of her head, anyway.
Mom, this is the one I was telling you about. I am obsessed with it.
Another Charles bridge... :)
The next stop on our tour was Dresden. At a glance, you wouldn't guess that Dresden is hundreds of years old. It actually looks a lot like a modern city, but it has a rich, historical past. Especially dealing with WWII. Because the Germans were unyielding even though the war was basically won, the allies tried a different tactic to make them back down. Now, you're not going to like this, but it's part of history.. The allies chose a civilian target, and destroyed the entire city. They chose Dresden because of the narrow streets and highly flammable buildings. February 13, 1944, two air raids occurred and basically leveled the entire city. The city burned for two more days, then smoldered.
In the 80s, they did a rebuild of Frauenkirche and used as many of the original stones as possible. So when you look at the church, it's a mixture of light stones, and dark, charred ones. So even though the city isn't all architecturally appealing in the European sense, the history makes it very cool :)
Manhole #3
Frauenkirche. The dark stones are original.
I took some artistic liberties with this one.
Besides the spires, every other building is new. And there's a lot of open space where apartment buildings used to be.
One of the best things we did, hands down, was go to the Freiberg temple. When we pulled into the parking lot, I could feel that it was sacred grounds. Living in Utah, I've never really missed the temple because we have so many that are so close. The Freiberg temple is the closest temple for thousands of saints and it's hundreds of miles away from some of them. Because of this, they have housing for those coming from miles away, and we were able to stay in them! I can now officially say I spent the night on temple grounds ;) so neat, though. We woke up early in the morning to do baptisms for the dead and had a wonderful time there.
At seven in the morning...
Freiberg. Small, but wonderful!
Berlin is super great. It also helped that a girl in our group, Camille, spent all of July in Berlin, so she got us pumped up and then showed us around to some of her favorite places. First, though, we stopped at the Berlin Wall. Well, what's left of it anyway. They had a big display of the timeline leading up to the tear down - how Hitler gained power, how the people reacted, and what happened under the Dictatorship.
The Wall
Self explanatory.
Me at the wall. I'm in Berlin!! Or... Was.
Checkpoint Charlie
Victory tower
Manhole #4
Another really neat place we visited is actually very somber. It was the execution chamber for the resistors of the Hitler dictatorship. One of the resistors in particular was named Helmuth Hubner. He was a member of the LDS church, one of two that resisted. His story is way cooler, but he was seventeen when he was executed. Can you imagine being treated as a traitor to your country at seventeen? You can google him if you want to know more :)
This is at the entrance to the prison. It's a memorial to those that resisted the Hitler dictatorship
You might not think this is cool, but I need to write about the hotel. We walked in and my first impression was "Little Mermaid meets hipster.." basically a cool, modern hangout spot that was underwater themed. After feeling dumb because we needed to be shown how to use the elevator (you have to scan your key card to use it! What happens when you don't have one??), Lyndsi and I found our room. We unload our stuff, and the lights don't work. We are pounding around in the dark, looking for light switches and playing with the television to see if the electricity worked at all -with no success, i might add- for probably a good ten minutes. Because of our unsuccessful attempts to light the room, we came to the conclusion to march down to the desk and demand an upgrade. Okay, so we weren't really mad, but we really couldn't turn on the lights and were on our way to ask for electrical assistance when we opened the door and the hallway light fell on a key slot. Right above the dang light switch. O my word, we felt so stupid, but it was hilarious!
...reading back through that, it's not really that funny.. But I don't want to delete it because it took me forever to write. You just had to be there.
The next day we had a lot of free time. We were dropped off at Museumsinsel (an island filled with museums) but I was so museumed out, that I only went into one- the Pergamon Museum. Really cool because they reassembled architecture from Turkey inside the museum. So I got to see a bunch of ancient architecture that was really cool. I honestly don't have any more words for the museum, because I can't remember what museums I have been to and what I've read... Its all a blur... Hopefully I will recuperate enough to soak in the museums in Florence... (!!!!!!!!!!!)
Anyway, more free time filled with freshly squeezed orange juice, döners, a death dance from the middle ages, and searching for a cuckoo clock with no success made it quite a full day.
The last two days consisted of travel. We did get to stop in Poland and Slovakia on our way home.
The little corner of Poland we went through.
Boarder of Slovakia
I'm in Austria and Becca is Slovakia. Countries apart, yet so close!
So, I mentioned Willi earlier, and he was so happy about his genealogy (I'd like to think he really liked us, too...) he invited all 23 of us to dinner in his hometown in Burgenland (province of Austria). We got to meet his wife, Hedwig (I know. Harry Potter!! But she pronounces it differently, so it doesn't sound like the owl) and his dog, Teton, who's name was super fitting because this dog was HUGE! I'm talking probably three of Belle. They were so sweet and it was hard to say goodbye to Willi because he was part of the family on the trips we've taken.
Coming back to Vienna felt oddly like coming home. I really didn't realize how much I missed it until I was back listening to a language I am familiar with and sleeping in a familiar bed. I think I really miss Vienna when I go back to the U.S. but I know I'm always welcome back ;)
Mom comes on Wednesday and I am PUMPED!!! I can't wait to travel with her around Italy and Prague and show her Vienna!
Next time: probably Budapest. I leave on Friday morning! :)
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