The Trip to Romania (Day 1)

Sunday 12:20am: 

Boarded a midnight bus from Heidelberg to Prague. Excited, but sort of wishing we were in bed. We arrived there around 5:30, but had nowhere to go. So,we bunkered down in the bus station seats and tried to sleep until we could check our luggage in at the hotel. After staring at the same people and hearing the same baby crying for about 2 hours, we wandered off to our hotel to drop off our luggage. (You may notice from the pictures that we never really recovered from our lack of sleep.) From there, we found our way to church. After about a 45 min. hike, we got there only a couple of minutes late. The chapel was completely full, so all of the seats and translation sets were taken, but we didn't mind. We sat down on the stairs and enjoyed sacrament meeting  in Czech.

 After church, we made our way over to the castle. It was only about a 15 min walk, and it was so pretty because the church and castle are up on a hill overlooking the city. Before getting to the castle, we walked through the castle gardens. They were really pretty. Our favorite part of the gardens was the automatic, robot lawnmower. You know the one you've always wanted from "As Seen on TV" that mows the lawn by itself.

The gardens led up to the castle wall and into an old medieval town surrounding a massive cathedral. 

 The cathedral had gorgeous stained glass windows, and we finally got a picture of stained glass that turned out.

 After wandering around the castle, cathedral, and old town, we made our way back down to the main part of the city. Again the view was amazing.

 Downtown, there were lots of booths with Czech food and treats.

 But best of all, there was a Pink Floyd concert. Who would have thought that Pink Floyd is still touring through Europe. They sure have developed a funny accent over the years.

After enjoying the concert just long enough to take this video, we found a nice Italian place for dinner. Pizza is always a safe bet when you're too starving to risk trying something new.

 The next day we headed back out to see the rest of the town. Our backs were already pretty tired after the first day so we put our korunas (Czech currency) together and hired a mule. It was well worth it.

While strolling through the city, we found a doorway in a wall a little outside of the main part of town that led to a secret garden. Like the castle gardens, it was really pretty with perfectly trimmed walkways leading into the center of the garden.

 And inside the secret garden there were a couple of peacocks roaming around. The white one was our favorite. It finally spread out its tail when we were leaving just in time to get this picture. 

We left the garden and headed back to the old part of town for some lunch. This time Mike had to try the traditional Czech food they were selling on the street: bratwurst with some concoction of potatoes, cabbage and bacon. It was pretty good, except the bratwurst had a new surprise in every bite. I have never seen so many chunks of who knows what in a single piece of meat.