Prague, part 2: venturing out and home life

Karlstejn Castle

We decided to explore a bit outside of Prague and get some exercise in too.  We rode the train 30 km outside of Prague to visit Karlstejn Castle.  It was founded in 1348 by Charles IV, King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor-elect!

After exploring around the castle, but forgoing the official tour, we headed off on a hiking trail we had read about online (https://martinmajer.wordpress.com/2013/08/10/hiking-near-prague/).

A little dose of Czech countryside

Happy hikers

Love all of these names!

Our (little) waterfall destination, named Bubovice.  Not quite Oregon, but still a pretty spot

A heavenly vision in the town of Karlstejn.  Note the arrow on the left that has wounded this unfortunate person.

Finding our first Czech geocache, on the bridge crossing the Berounka River in Karlstejn.

Cute train station.

Waiting for the train back to Prague.

Another day we explored the Vysehrad (Czech for "upper castle") area of Prague.  This castle, a rival to the Prague Castle, was built in the 10th century.  Within the castle grounds sits the Basilica of St. Peter and St. Paul, as well as the Vysehrad Cemetery.  In the cemetery are buried many famous people from Czech history, among them Antonin Dvorak and Alphonse Mucha.   Dvorak I knew; Mucha I did not know until after visiting St Peter and St Paul and being impressed by the paintings inside that were inspired by Mucha's art nouveau style.  We later visited the Mucha Museum and enjoyed his artwork, including many posters he created in the late 1800s in Paris.

Basilica of St Peter and St Paul in Vysehrad, Prague

Art Nouveau-inspired paintings cover the interior.

This angel reminded us of Anne Frank.

Lovely paintings decorate St Peter and St Paul

The final resting place of one of our Czech heroes, the composer Antonin Dvorak, in the Vysehrad Cemetery.

Mucha's sassy Princess Hyacinth, in the Mucha Museum.

View of Prague Castle across the Vltava River from Vysehrad.

We walked down from Vysehrad to the river and found ourselves among a rowing tournament and much festivity on this very hot Saturday afternoon.

Rowing on the Vltava.

Henry takes in the riverside summer scene.  Our hottest day in Europe so far!

We cooled off with ice cream overlooking the river.

Since we were in Prague for almost a month, the kids were able to make more good progress on their online home schooling.  This was our longest stop since our month in Valparaiso, Chile.  Our apartment was roomy and comfortable.  We spent many hours studying, reading, cooking, doing crafts and Madeleine and I exchanged quite a few hair braiding sessions.

The view out our kitchen window

Henry spent many hours in this position, doing school work and coding.  

Crafting in the living room/ bedroom.

More crafting/ artwork on our consistently cluttered kitchen table.

Learning some Czech!  I enjoyed this challenge but did not progress much beyond some basic phrases.

Some highlights from our kitchen hair salon...

We had some funny cooking challenges.  Henry loves biscuits and gravy, so we tried to make it one day.  The sausage we bought was not what we were used to however and looked like pink slime, so we switched to bacon gravy.  Finding the baking powder and regular flour for our biscuits was challenging, with food items labeled only in Czech, and we think Slovak.  Everything turned out a little funny, but edible!

We had another challenge with the unfamiliar can opener we found in the kitchen.  I spent some time with Google trying to figure out how to use it but finally gave up...

Wha?!

... and bought a new one, also unfamiliar, but I was able to get it to work very well.

I enjoyed the Czech beers Eva left in the fridge, and tried some others from the store, all good!

We had two grocery stores within walking distance of our apartment.  We preferred the Tesco, a chain that we remembered from our trip to London 4 years ago.  There we found just about everything that we needed, including yoga mat, art supplies and clothes!  Traveling light can be hard for a teenager who gets tired of her few clothes.  A new shirt from Tesco was a real treat.

Bulk frozen food at the Tesco was a novelty.

Another treat for us was going to movies at the mall, Atrium Flora, that was just a few subway stops away from ours.  We watched San Andreas and Spion (Spy), both in English with Czech subtitles.  There were other movies we were interested in seeing, but they were dubbed in Czech and we knew we'd be lost.  Next to the movie theater in the mall were many tempting restaurants, and we enjoyed the sushi and Indian fast food.

Fast food Indian and sushi at the mall on one of our movie outings.

When walking around Prague, we were often tempted by the Trdelnik sweet rolls that smelled heavenly.  These are made by wrapping dough around a thick stick and grilling over hot coals, then rolling in sugar.  We shared one a few times, opting for the Nutella filling.

Trdelnik is various stages of preparation.

Lined with Nutella is how we like it!

As Nik's time in Oregon working wound down, we counted the days until we would get him back and then continue on with our European travels.  Madeleine prepared a German chocolate cake to welcome Nik "home".