Beautiful Cities Pt 3

Although we hated to say goodbye to Prague, we were anxious for the second half of our trip to begin. Heading north to Berlin, we decided to stop in Dresden for the Master's Art Museum, lunch, and a tour of the Volkswagen factory. The factory tour was seriously so incredible! It is this amazingly futuristic factory where they make the VW Phaeton BY HAND at the rate of about 35 a day...which is a small number, but when you see how incredible these cars are, and the crazy way they are assembled, you totally understand. All of our minds were blown and we daydreamed about our future Phaetons the rest of the trip. After that break we made it to our hotel in Berlin just in time to go out in celebration of July 4th! We found an "American Diner" which sounded fitting, then strolled through town until late that night.

Monday morning we found information about a tour through Berlin and bought tickets immediately. Our tour guide, Barnaby, led us through town and taught us all about the dark history of both Berlin and Germany. The tour lasted until the late afternoon but it was so worth it. We got to see Checkpoint Charlie, Hitler's grave site, many different Jewish/Holocaust monuments, the Berlin wall, Brandenburg Gates, and much more. It was super interesting and we really all learned so much. Definitely worth taking a tour as I am sure we would've missed a lot! That night we went out for gelato (as usual!), took fun photos in one of those old photo booths, ate some dinner, then took the subway to the Capitol building for another amazing view of Berlin by night.

The next morning we decided to go back to some of the sights from our tour to take more photos and actually go inside certain museums. We returned to the wall, the Victims of Communism museum and many more. We used the subway system a lot that day, making a large loop through the city before we ended up back near our hotel for dinner and drinks.

On our way out of town Wednesday morning, we went through the Museum of Contemporary Art, grabbed some lunch, then headed south to Eschenbach. We made it home in time to watch the Spain vs. Germany World Cup game in a pub in town.

Outside the Phaeton factory before taking our tour. We couldn't take photos inside but trust me, it was phenomenal.

Eric and me outside of the Master's Museum in Dresden.

Our tour guide showing a building where Hitler gave many speeches. We learned so much on this tour and really appreciated being able to see so many important places.

Checkpoint Charlie was really strange to be at too, it was hard to imagine this giant city as 2 divided areas.
On the left below the glass is part of the SS Bunkers, to the right is the Berlin Wall. It was surreal to see all that history literally feet away from each other.

The Brandenburg Gates were bigger and more beautiful than I expected. It was hard to imagine all the important people (and armies) to march through the same place we stood taking photos.

The Museum of Contemporary Art was a mixture of amazing and strange...thank goodness again for Brent being our impromptu tour guide through all the different exhibits. The Andy Warhol's were my favorite. This painting stood about 40 ft tall.

Beautiful Cities Pt 2

We were all so anxious to wake up and get another full day of Prague under our belts, and this day was definitely one of my absolute favorites in Europe so far. Friday morning was full of shoe-shopping and also picking up some fresh produce at the open-air market. The majority of the rest of our day was spent restaurant-hopping in search of good food and cold drinks. That night we rented a paddle boat to take out on the Vltava River, which was perfect during sunset. The boys peddled and us girls sat in the back enjoying ourselves and taking photos. It was so much fun, absolutely beautiful and I'm pretty sure we all just laughed the whole time. Can't think of a better evening to be had in Prague.

Saturday morning consisted of many cakes for breakfast at a local restaurant, Czechs aren't in to big breakfasts so it was rare to find one open before 11am. We then hopped on the tram to the castle district to see the cathedral. Walking up the million cathedral stairs was terrible, but once we got to the top and got to look over the town, we all realized it was totally worth it. We took the tram back to an outdoor shopping area where we shopped the "black market" for fun goodies (I got a few knock-off brand souvenirs), followed by drinks in the beer garden.

Us girls getting onto the paddle boat, the owner gave us Czech beers for the road!

Relaxing while the boys worked...each boat had a little lantern on the back which was so cute!

Eric and me on the boat, he had been dying to get on one the whole weekend.



Riding the tram up to the castle district, waayyyy better than walking in that incredible heat.


Eric and myself with the cathedral behind us.



After finally reaching the top look-out point, we all took dozens of photos of Prague. It was the best view we've seen by far!

Brent & Eric kept getting teased because they always ordered fruity drinks while April & I always got beers. They were great sports about it but the waiters thought it was pretty funny.

Beautiful Cities Pt 1

Well Eric and I are officially the luckiest people on the planet. After our 4 nights in Prague and 3 nights in Berlin...followed by 2 days at the beach here and a full day in Nuremburg...we are hugely aware at how blessed we are. And are totally in love with the places we are so lucky to have so near.

I have a lot to tell, and lots of photos to share, so I'll be breaking our trip up into a few separate posts. Let's begin with Wednesday night where I last wrote...

That night was just Eric and I enjoying ourselves in Prague! (Can you believe that sentence?!?! I hardly can!) We checked into our apartment, which was so beautiful. I had found it on Craigslist of all places, so had my fingers crossed that it wouldn't disappoint. It was 2 bedrooms, with 2 bathrooms, a kitchen, a big living room, and even a washing machine!! So nice for the 4 of us to be comfortable in. Eric and I went out for mojitos and walked along the river until sunset. We were so anxious to start our next day with Brent and April.

We picked them up early Thursday morning, and after letting them unpack and clean up at our place, the 4 of us headed to the main square. It's been in the 90s (and above!!) since mid-morning so we took LOTS of breaks during the day to drink beers (actually the boys had pina coladas and us girls had beers, haha) in the shade. Honestly most of our day was also filled with eating snacks and desserts (I am embarrassed to admit how much apple strudel I've consumed in the last week). We also went to a Salvador Dali exhibit--thank goodness for Brent being our art instructor for the day, a few Jewish synagogues and memorials (including the famous cemetery), Charles Bridge, the John Lennon wall and the Love Locks, then finished the night with some drinks across the street from where we were staying.

The view of the outside of our apartment. Fancy!

Looking out our living room window. We felt very rich and spoiled that whole weekend, haha.

This photo was taken just minutes after Brent & April arrived. Our apartment is on the left-hand side of the photo, right between the beige and teal buildings...seriously less than a block from the river!

The main town square was just incredible. It was full of restaurants and seating...and so many amazing things to take photos of--not to mention great people-watching opportunities.

The Jewish Cemetery was probably one of the most extraordinary things we got to see. This photo doesn't do it justice. It was literally 100s upon 100s of headstones piled on top of each other. During the war this was really one of the only safe spots to bury bodies so it is crowded in this strangely beautiful way. My favorite part was how many of them had prayer stones and even little notes placed on them.

The John Lennon wall and Love Locks (below) were just really fun to take photos of. It's neat imagining all of the people that had been to these same little unique places as us.

It was definitely hard to adjust from the Euro to the Koruny. So this meal (which LOOKS like it cost 1000s or 1000000s) actually was only about 70 Euro. Seriously it was a huge mind-trip every time we had to pay for something.

The river Vltava was so pretty each night as it was filled with dozens of people paddle-boating and floating...definitely the only time of day where it wasn't too unbearably hot.