11 Sept, Day of the packed tours

so after saying to ourselves many times that we have 5 nights in prague and having kept pushing some of the tours to the next day, we finally headed out for the castle tour! I think part of the reason it was such was cos 3 of us were down with bad vernonlimsitits. Honestly, i felt that the tour with discoverwalks wasn't worth the money and we were kinda forced to give a higher tip than usual cos she said that you should give at least 300 CZK for such tours.

We went for the castle tour after the charles bridge tour. The guide was slightly better but because we gave quite abit to the previous guide, we had no choice but to give a lower tip. =/ Oh ya. we met up with the CTU guys today, Sai Chang and Yu Heng. I would recommend newpraguetours's castle tour over this one and its only 250 CZK, somewhat lesser than what we spent on tips for the 2 lousy tours.

It was quite funny to see new comers to prague struggle to finish their food as we saw such from sai chang who couldnt finish those hearty rice dumplings of his. Okay kinda tired now and rather lazy to blog and the moment. here's the video log.

St Vitus Cathedral in the Prague Castle

welcome sai and yuheng

some beer brewed in the monastery!

the last time in our lives seeing the astro clock

9 Sept: The Bone Chapel

Today we headed to Kutna Hora. Founded in the early 13th century as a silver-mining town, the name comes from kutati 'to mine minerals' and hora 'mountain' or 'rock', a reference to the fact that at this time minerals were mined predominantly in mountainous country. This town really honors its miners alot with many symbolic references to them even in the church.

 The tour was informative and we had a great guide by the name of Filip, a local who works with newpraguetours. The highlight was of the day was the Church of the Saints, which is made famous with the Bone Chapel. Decorated by the bones from forty thousand people it looks pretty cool (dont know if im sick or what) but its a pretty unique chapel. It originally had 6 pyramids of bones stacked up without support but later 2 pyramids were used to decorate the chapel including the bone chandelier to what we see today. However, i think the bone displays in Cambodia are more interesting compared to this one. Maybe cos of those bones collected in Cambodia were from the holocaust of the Khmer regime and had a more gruesome story behind it. Again, I found this chapel too touristy that it loses the feeling of eeriness that is meant to be inside. The message this unique bone chapel puts across is that the body is insignificant to God. When we proceed to the afterlife, our body decays and whats left is our soul which we should have nurtured during our time on Earth. With the church as the final stop, we proceeded back to Prague.

 I thought that the tour was quite worth with us paying only 540 CZK (with ISIC discount) compared to other companies which charge 1100 CZK. Whoaaa. Also checked out transport from Prague to Berlin, apparently, the bus is almost twice as cheap (~25 Eu) and slower by 15min. What kind of sorcery is this! The only downside are the timings. We depart 730 am and arrive in Berlin at 1230.

Well, i guess after staying 6n in Prague, we can't wait to get out of the place. Don't know why, but we were kinda of sick of the hearty meaty czech food that we decided for some chinese food next to our accommodations. Wouldn't say its the best asian food but the feeling of using the chop stick again with some fried rice and fresh vegetables just reminded us how much we miss home and singaporean food. 

Actually the day was great, but i think i didn't really enjoy it as much as i should is cos of my stupid cold. can't taste much, can't drink beer and worst of all, my nose is leaking now. think i should be getting some rest. tmr is another lepak day with activities only starting after noon.

 nights!

St Barbara's Cathedral

Patron Saint for Travelers: St Christopher

lunch @ Daricky Pivnice. Do try their fried cheese.

Church of All Saints, Bone Chapel

Coat of Arms of a Donor made from bones

Day 25: Eat till you drop

Its been a while since I blogged. Been rather tired and shit. And feeling dam sian cos I’m falling sick. Must be the opened carriage window in the train that caused this. Nose kinda leaky now. =/

Anyway, greetings from Prague! It’s a really beautiful city, full of history and its own unique culture of beer drinking. It’s a tad bit too crowded though. But oh wells, its rated as the top 3 must-go places in Europe even with the crowds. Its transiting into Autumn now and the temperature is getting colder. The first time we stepped off the train, we were like O M G why isit so cold! But thank goodness it warmed up towards the afternoon!

Like all the Eastern European countries, its relatively cheap and I must say the meal portions here are enormous! I think their plan is to stuff tourist with so much food that they can’t stand up after the meal to control the crowd in old town. Haha.  Beer here is awesome. We are literally drinking it like water! With hundreds of microbreweries around, we get to try a new beer every meal! The price of restaurants here is gauged by their beer prices. An affordable one would have a 0.5l of beer going from 25-50 CZK (1-2.4 Eu)! Real cheap! I think most of Czech cuisine consists mainly of meat. Very hearty meals indeed! But I think the grilled and smoke style of cooking is so much less gerlat compared to the polish and Hungarian style.

Would recommend

Free walking tour (www.newpraguetours.com) by sandermans, great walking tour although it aint led by locals.

Head to

U Medvidku (Ns Perstyne)

And order any kind of meat. It’ll be awesome. They are the original brewers of Budweiser.

Pivoarsky Klub (Krizikova 17)

A little bit pricier but like freaking huge selection of beers! The beer menu is thicker than the food menu. Pork Knuckle goes for 0.5 CZK/g.

Corsaire (Linhartska 134/2, Praha 1)

Good service plus good food too!

through the wooden door that opens with an old school key to our apartments

the toilet with a discussion table

one of the sleeping rooms.

didnt know here got race! would be interesting if i could run

it does have the best rates in town

 time for some beer at U Medvidku

view of the prague castle from across the river

 shit load of tourists heading across the charles bridge

vintage tour cars!

bugel call

check out the size of the pork knee at Corsaire

Chicken leg

super cool astronomical clock.

cheers to prague!

smoked pork with spinach and bacon bread topped with friend onions!

one of the many beers at Pivavosky Klub

YY's desperate attempt to get wifi