Praha

outside the Mosaic hotel which was covered with bright turquoise pigs that lit up at night

the Dancing building aka Fred and Ginger designed 20 years ago by Frank Gehry

beautiful art nouveau buildings everywhere

street lights look like soccerballs

I loved all the details

entrance to St. Charles bridg, very crowded place. Had lots of artists selling their wares on the bridge

lots of statues on the bridge

Kafka memorial

chimney cakes, number one street food. Slowly roasted sweet dough that can be filled with all sorts of gooey stuff Had one in Cesky Krumlov

main square of the old town. I drank some gluhwein (hot spiced wine..not sure of its Czech name)

lots of Thai massage parlors. This one featured fish that nibble off your dead skin on your feet

Charles bridge at night

spiralized fried potatoes. In German, they would spiralize radishes to serve with the wurst

Vaclav Havel building, a Czech hero/poet who led the velvet revolution against the Communists

Kafka head, constantly moving plates that would give different expressions. Near our hotel

On our schedule, I most looked forward to seeing Prague. We had spent the morning in Cesky Krumlov eating a typical heavy Czech lunch complete with enormous bread dumplings which seemed to be to be ten slices of wonderbread rolled tightly into a ball. I couldn't begin to finish them. Also at a given restaurant, they will have only one beer on tap. Budweiser! Fortunately it was much tastier than its watered down cheap, insipid American cousin. But after that lunch, we had had it with Czech food. We'd pick up sandwiches and salads in the little supermarkets. The next night, we ate Italian. Although the train option would not be so harrowing as going from Salzburg to Cesky Krumlov, we opted to take the shared minibus again. We stopped at a McDonalds for a potty/snack break. Big Macs are called 'maestro' there. Very elaborate desserts but  I already had that chimney cake. I did have the best cappuccino  there, individually prepared and decorated for not much although I was making a crucial math mistake in all my calculations most of the time I was in the Czech Republic.
When I first tried to find my hotel on a map, I had a hard time. The streets, all crooked and changing names  every block seemed impossible to follow. But I figured out how to get between the hotel and the train station. The van was supposed to drop us off in front of our hotel. I knew we were on the same side of the river as the dancing house but as we crossed the river away from it, we parked along a square and we were told to get out. I knew what my hotel looked like and didn't see it. This is not it.!  He said it was around the corner, he just can't drive in front of it. Then it would be on a east west street and I know for a fact my hotel was on a north- south street and not anywhere near a square and besides, we are not on the right side of the river. Please, please check. He finally did and it turned out it was another passenger's hotel. As we were the only non Asian travelers, I don't know how he confused our names. He did drop as off next. That would have been a very long walk with our luggage. He was at least apologetic.

But Prague is beautiful.  We walked forever exploring mostly our side of the river.

Cesky Krumlov in 20 hours

the castle

we had a snack sitting along this stream

seven story bridge connecting the castle with a theater

main square. Taking panorama shots tends to distort things. Sve used a wide angle lens a lot . I haven't gone through his photos. All my photos are with an iPhone. Convenient but has its limitations

Cave restaurant

me and Czech beer

view from our crappy room

the castle moat had at least three giant bears in in it.  Looks like a grizzly bear. Much bigger than our little Michigan bears. Would they import Grizzly's? No, they are European brown bears, more common in Northern Europe. The Apennines in Italy have bears but they are tiny. There was a sign in English that if we want the bears to eat, we must donate money. They look well fed. Someone had thrown pumpkins down for them.

one of the many 'bernstein' stores we encountered. I had bought a fairly expensive Mexican amber necklace in the US and always wondered if it is 'real. They had some amber here like mine. Baltic amber is different than mine though

pretty grill work

fancy soap store where I bought a lot in part because I made a huge math error in turning kroners into euros

I didn't discover my stupid mistake until I left the Czech Republik a few days later. Feel very stupid and bought much more thinking it was way cheaper than it was. Very dumb Sue

Steve in front of a synagogue The Czech had a huge Jewish population that was well integrated into their society but then Hitler....

castle courtyard Yes everything is painted

On the way to Cesky Krumlov, I was in the front seat of the van taking photos. This was the Rosenburg castle (Jewish???) about ten miles south of Cesky Krumlov

I awoke early our last day in Salzburg to go to the river a few blocks away. The bike path was lit, the pedestrian path not so much. I had a little light on me. I ran away from the city along the river. The sun didn't come up until I was almost finished. Alas I didn't take the camera. The sky was all pink behind the mountains. Breathtaking. It was the only day I could run.  Although Cesky Krumlov has a railroad station, it looked far way  and it seemed from the map we would have to switch trains numerous times. We took a shared van that theoretically would deliver us to our little hostel. Now when I booked this, somehow, I put in for 2020!! By the time I discovered my mistake, the initial van was filled so I would have to pay extra for a new van (which turned out to be full too). They were to pick us up at the nearby train station. Annoyingly the van appeared at a different spot than specified. Luckily we were not alone in this. We shared the van with a pair of Korean honeymooners. As it turns out Cesky Krumlov seems to be the number one spot for Asian travelers, so much so that the evil  communication giant Huawei is making a complete replica of the village in China. Who knew. It would have been a 2.5 hour trip but there was an accident in the ugly town of Linz (home of Hitler and numerous chemical factories) that delayed us an hour. I thought it would be cool to see the little villages of Austria and the Czech Republic. We were on a freeway most of the time in Austria though we did go by a beautiful lake but we could have been on I-80 in northern Pennsylvania for all I knew (a well worn path for us)  On to little mountain roads through cute towns in the Czech Republic..new country for us both. Our driver was from India having lived in Cesky Krumlov for 5 years. He tried to teach me a few Czech phrases. All that remains is 'pivo' beer. I have to stick to Germanic or Romance countries. So why does the Czech Republic have kroners versus euros when 1) its allegedly part of the EU and 2) the Slovak Republic has euros? He said (Czech resident of 5 years) the economy would crumble if they used euros. I soon learned that there is  a thriving, shady money changing industry in the Czech Republic. The official rate is 38 euros=1000kroners but they would give you only 20-22 euros for 100 kroners. Money changers were all over the place taking advantage of people's inability to do math. We got our kroners directly from the bank. but I screwed up big time thinking I should divide everything by 40 to convert to euros (1 euro = 1.1 usd). No. I was off by quite a bit and I bought so much stuff thinking it was cheap when it really wasn't.

He dropped us off near where he thought our place was. He was wrong. although the distance as the crow flies wasn't far, it was when I had to pee, steep hills were  involved and the cobble stones from hell. I went to find the place  leaving Steve at the bottom of the hill forever. He too had to pee. I wet to the wrong place, found the right place but she was too busy gouging tourists in her money exchanging to deal with me (had to pee) and then  the place was in yet a different building up numerous staircases with a key that took numerous tries to make work(have to pee!!). Peed some in the right place then found Steve (what took you so long!) The apartment was so ugly. But we weren't in it much. Once I changed clothes and washed up, we explored the city. so, so cute!!!!!

And we spent most of the morning touring the cuter than cute place. We used the same van company to go to Prague.