A Weekend in Prague!

Our English hosts Aaron and Emma recommended we visit Prague (Praha) if we had the chance so we decided to make a weekend trip out of it. Prague is only about a 3.5 hour ride from where we were in Hirshfeld and we took a rideshare there for 60 euro for the 2 of us. We arrived around 8 pm and met our couch surfer for the weekend. After a failed attempt to find some place to change money and grab a bite to eat we settled for a handful of snacks and went to bed.


Our couch surfer host Frantisek.

We woke up well rested and hit the town. Our first stop was the tourism office (which took quite a while to find) where we got a map and some info on a free tour that was starting in 15 minutes. We hurried outside, met our guide and stopped to see the magnificent (or not so magnificent) automated astronomical clock. The clock was the thing back then (1338) because of its moving figures that would come alive every hour.




They recently added a trumpeter because the crowds were a little dissapointed with the show.

We started our tour shortly after and it was a pretty awesome next 2.5 hours. The tour took us through old town and the old jewish quarter with tons of information from our very knowledgable Australian (Czeck born) guide.


Church of our lady before tyn.

The old town square.

The old new synagogue (oldest operating synogogue in the Europe).

Clock with hebrew letters (numbers?) that runs backwards

Statue based on a dream of Franz Kafka

One of three remaining powder towers, there used to be thirteen!

The tour was very interesting. Prague is a unique city because it saw almost no damage at all in WWII, our guide told us that this was because it was Hitler's favorite city. She also explained that the Old Jewish quarter also sustained no damage because Hitler wanted it to become the "Museum of an Extinct Race", scary. After the tour ended we wandered off to see the Charles Bridge, the only part of old town that the tour didn't cover.




Built in 1357, finished in 1402.

The statues weren't added until the 18th century.

Tons of people and artists on the bridge, we bought two prints of the city.

St. Jakob's Church, we visited this on our tour but we had to return to it later in the day to go inside because they were holding mass. The main reason that we wanted to return was because of a certain mummified body part that was supposedly hanging from the ceiing. Here is the story we were told:

There was a thief that came into the church disguised as a traveling monk, he sat down in the pews and pretended to pray. He sat there for hours until eventually he was unsupervised at which point he hid himself somewhere in the church until after closing time. Then he emerged from the shadows with intentions to steal a valuable necklace that hung around the neck of the statue of the Madonna. He climbed up the statue and just as he was reaching for the necklace, the statue came to life and grabbed him by the wrist. There he hung until morning when the clergy members found him. They tried to pry the statue's hand, but it was no use, they were forced to call in the executioner. The thief's arm was severed from his body at which point the statue finally resumed its prior position. The thief was sentenced to death, but the church was left with his arm, so they decided that as a warning to all people considering stealing from the church, they would hand his arm from the ceiling of the church to show what happens to those who steal.

AND SO...

There is the arm!

The next day, we walked down to the Jewish Quarter again (it was Saturday when we went on the tour so everything was closed for shabbat) and got a pretty good look at the old Jewish Cemetary.


100,000 people burried in less than a square block.

Then we hiked up yet another hill to Prague castle.



The huge gothic church at the castle.

As if climbing the hill wasn't enough, then we climbed the tower too!

View from the top.







View of the church before we could go in because they were holding sunday mass.


Possibly the closest we will ever get to wearing Lederhosen!

Birds of prey, up close.

Finally got into the church!

Us and every other tourist in Prague!

We had a great (and very exhausting weekend) in Prague. We probably walked 15 miles around the city in two days. Our ride back was squished and kind of terrible, but totally worth it!

Bamberg!

Earlier in the week we visited another small city that is known for its beauty, Bamberg. To get to Bamberg we had to first go into Schweinfurt and then catch a train. In the Bavarian region of Germany (where we are) they have a train ticket known as the Bayern-Ticket (Bavarian ticket) which is good for up to five people to use for unlimited train and bus rides for the day. This ticket costs 29€, which may seem like a lot, but transit is SO expensive here that it is actually a pretty good deal. Upon arriving in Bamberg we headed straight to the tourism office which is located on an island in the middle of the Regnitz river. On the way, we got a little bit distracted by some playground equipment that would surely be illegal in the US.


Amy trying out the Zipline type toy.

At lunch we had our first experience with a true language barrier and the waitress was very rude and short with us, I guess if it only happens once every two weeks, we are doing ok. After lunch we began our walking tour of Bamberg.


The city has two rivers cutting through it.


The Altes Rathaus (Obere Brüke), the old town hall, rebuilt after a fire in 1440, but then later re-designed in Rococo style in 1744.


They always seem to put the castles and churches on the top of a hill for us to climb.




Fresh fruits and veggies from the area in a market.

Area known as "Little Venice", later in our trip we will know if it is actually anything like this in Venice.

The Dom, the Old Court and the New Residence were all up on the hill, unfortunately, cars were allowed to drive through the area, which made it impossible to imagine you were in a medieval city. The Dom was started in 1007, but not finished until 1237.

The rose garden.

Not a bad veiw from the terrace garden!

Monestary on the hill converted into an old folks home. Not a bad location eh, Grandpa?

And of course, we had to try the thing that Bamberg is known for: Rauchbier. It literally means Smoked Beer. Kurtis said yum, tastes like bacon and Amy said gross, tastes like bacon.

Schweinfurt and Wurzburg

To get from Frankfurt to Schweinfurt you must endure a 2 hour car ride on the autobahn with a man who has a minimal personality who is against wearing deoderant in all forms. Hannah helped us arrange a car ride from Frankfurt to Schweinfurt via a website for ride shares (www.mitfahrgelegenheit.de)which is a very common way for the German people to travel. The website is difficult to navigate if you don't speak German but luckily our translator (aka Hannah) walked us through it and called our ride for confirmation of the pick up point and the cost. To our delight, the ride cost only 16€, which is great in comparison to the train (80€). We held our breath, endured the ride and were dropped of at Burger King for pickup by our first workaway host and enjoyed a little American fast food flashback while we waited.

Our workaway is with an English family who live in the village of Hirschfeld in Bavaria, Germany. The village only has a bar and a church but luckily, a bus that runs often. Emma, Aaron, and their 4 boys Cameron, Arlie, Jonah, and Darwin (ages 2-12) graciously invited us into their home. We are helping out with the kids in addition to chopping wood for the winter months (made easy via a chainsaw and hydraulic splitter), and doing some small home renovation tasks. We have a lot of freetime to explore the area and have been using it to its full potential.

On our first day Emma dropped us off in Schweinfurt where we took some time to explore the city and attend the local art Museum (Museum Georg Schäfer, featuring an exhibit about the relationship between animals and humans). There wasn't much to Schweinfurt but we made a day of it none the less. Emma told us that Schweinfurt is a depressed city from being smushed in between Wurzburg and Bamberg which are both very beautiful.




Oh look, another church.

We took a day trip to Wurzburg (Got a ride to Schweinfurt from the friendly American Keana down the street and hopped a train to our final destination). There are many Americans in this area becuase there is an Army base nearby.


The bus unfortunately only runs every 2 hours on Saturday :(.


Trainride through the countryside. You can see the local nuclear plant off in the distance.

We had a limited amount of time in Wurzburg because the last bus back from Schweinfurt left at 8:30 so we assigned our site seeing priorities and marched off to Fortress Marienberg.


Another church (Marienkapelle) along the path between the bus stop and the Fortress.

The churches are beautiful, most of them taking 100 years or so to build.

View of Grafeneckart and Dom St. Kilian in old town.

We had to cross the 15 century bridge Alte Mainbrücke to get to the Fortress. The bridge was full of musicians and people enjoying the locally made weisswein (white wein).

Aww.



We are probably going to hell for this.

The view from below would be enough to keep me away from the fortress. We hiked all the way up the hillside, marching on switchbacks through rows of wine grapes in 85 degree heat (of course the weather earlier in the week was very cool and only changed from cold to hot when we planned on doing this walk).







The fortress was enormous and we walked through the museum (Fürstenbaumus), but unfortunately a lot of the artifacts were destroyed during WW2 bombings, which were never mentioned in the musuem (all of the signs simply read "destroyed by fire in 1945").







The views from the top were pretty amazing.





Doing what the locals do best, sitting and drinking beer and wine. Locally made wine for Amy and locally brewed beer for Kurtis!

We finished are drinks and caught the train and bus back to Hirschfeld, collapsing from exhaustion upon arrival.