Prague, a classic stop for all central European travelers and the capital of the Czech Republic, was first up. It’s difficult not to love Prague – the old town centre is mind-blowingly beautiful with different architecture and colours everywhere you turn, being the birthplace of pilsner, the beer is delicious and dangerously cheap, and it has the largest castle complex in the world (who doesn’t love castles??). They say that one is lured in to Prague by its past, but compelled to stay by the present, a description that seems fairly accurate. We’ll be back.
Help! Phoebe's drowning in a sea of history and culture! HEEELP!! (She survived)
The old clocktower, which is famous for the animation it does on every hour. Often voted one of the most overrated tourist attractions in Europe, but considering it was all done in the 15th century, it's not bad.
The view from Prague Castle. The most interesting history fact we learnt here was about the 'Defenestrations of Prague'. Czech people love throwing folk out windows (defenestrating) when they get into arguments - there have been several defenestrations throughout Prague's history. Basically if you get into an argument with a Czech person, make sure it's on ground level.
We fell in love with the Czech/Slovakian desserts, particularly the poppy seed ones!
One pizza in Oslo = 35 euros.
Beef goulash, a pint of beer and an after dinner shot in Prague = 7 euros.
Need more be said?
Need more be said?
Looking up at Prague Castle from the old Charles Bridge. The lights on the castle are courtesy of Mick Jagger, that old devil. Cheers Mick.
After czeching out from our hostel in Prague, we popped over the border to Vienna, another classic stop. Vienna is beautiful, there is no doubt about that – it is populated with some of the most luxurious and decadent palaces you could ever imagine, left over from when Austria was the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and it overall feels very clean and safe. Maybe we needed more time there, but we couldn’t help but feel that Vienna is just another beautiful European city. It sounds horribly blazé, but there was nothing that made Vienna special to us. Or maybe it just had some pretty tough acts to follow, after Berlin and Prague.
In an unexpected turn of events, Felix got crowned king of the entire Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Lol just kidding, he's just wearing a map on his head.
The Real Estate in Vienna is through the roof. Bucketloads of nice buildings.
We felt lost in Vienna without a free walking tour. We got some electronic walking guides instead, which were completely abysmal. Never ever get one of these. The only good thing about it was that it played classical music in between chapters. Speaking of which, this is a statue of Mozart, who is a bit of a big deal in Vienna.
The Opera House. Very nice, but not nice enough to make us want to see an opera show. We'll stick to music festivals!
Get that wiener down ya, boy!
We hurried on to our next European capital city (we love you Europe for being so compact), Bratislava. We had no idea what to expect as we had heard very mixed reviews from other travelers, but it turns out Bratislava is a bit of an underdog in Europe. We love underdogs. Sure, a lot of the old town of Bratislava was destroyed to make way for communist development during the Soviet occupation – the buildings are quite ugly, with no real embellishments at all except the odd creepy, sad looking statue. But if you stick to the part of the old town that remains today, which has become the centre for all the hustle and bustle, it’s a pretty nice city with plenty of character. Slovakia has had a huge increase in tourism over the past few years and is continuing to boom; a pretty cool place to explore!
The old part of Bratislava. The same as any European town centre you might say, but dang it's got character.
The view from Bratislava Castle looking out towards lego city/concrete jungle, aka the Communist block. Also Bratislava is right on the border, with views into Hungary on the left, and Austria on the right. Geography, it's science.
The Blue Church (10 points if you can guess why it's called that), built as part of the Art Nouveau movement in Europe. Oh yes, we're quite partial to a bit of the ol' Art History.
Next time: You can never get sick of mountains, can you?
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