Prague is an adventurous city! We wish we could stay here longer! Prague is known for their beer, unique liquors, street-meat, amd most importantly Old King Wenceslas! Our first day here we just walked around the city aimlessly... tried some streetmeat called the Wenceslas sausage, and it was yummy! Its basically a big sausage wrapped in bread with saurkraut and/or any sauce you want. We visited Wenceslas Square... he is the patron saint of the Czech Republic. Then we ended up at the Charles bridge to watch the sunset over the river. It was beautiful :) Our second day we went to the Prague Castle which sits on a hill overlooking Prague . There we got to tour the Old Royal Palace which is exactly how it sounds, an old baroque style castle... it was really fascinating. Then we saw St. Vitus' Cathedral which is where Wenceslas was buried and we saw his crown and sceptor! Very cool! And we visited the vineyards on the hill, which had breathtaking views :) It took the whole day to see everything so we were exhausted! We rested the remainder of the evening at our hostel, The Old Prague Hostel... which is I think our favorite hostel yet! They have free WIFI, free breakfast, a free lunch sandwich, free towels and shampoo, a kitchen, AND its located in Old Town Square which is within walking distance to everything in Prague :) So basically its AWESOME!
Today, Thursday July 7, is our last day in Prague. We went on a day trip to Kutna Hora to see the Kostnice Ossuary, which means "church of bones".... it was very cool and creepy! Its a small church that's filled and decorated with bones. This is the story as we heard it... there was a Czech man that traveled to Jerusalem on pilgrimage. He took a handful of soil from Jerusalem and brought it back to his home in Kutna Hora... he laid the soil over the foundation of what was to be a church... so then the church was built over the holy soil... when people learned of this they wanted to be buried there... so many people wanted to be buried there that the cemetery became overcrowded... thus a half-blind monk was asked to take many of the bones and decorate the church with them... its believed that there are bones of over 40,000 people in the church. Creepy!
We are now at the hostel about to eat some dinner. Then we are taking a night train to Auschwitz... we will visit it tomorrow, and then head to Berlin and then the Black Forest. This trip is blazing by and we are seeing so much in so little time. I am glad we are journaling and taking lots of pictures. We can't wait to share it all with you when we are home! We are doing really well, so thankful that God has continued to bless us with safety, good health, and overall provision. Thank you all for your prayers. Keep praying please and keep us posted on how all of you are doing back home and if there's anything we can be praying about for you. We love you and miss you very much. We'll be home in about three weeks!
Much love,
Tyler and Carmel
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Vienna!
Hi everyone! So, my apologies for not blogging for over a week and now posting several blogs at once in a day but hopefully you won't mind getting multiple posts and you can catch up on us in your own time :) We won't have internet for the next few days so I'm trying to blog while I still have internet and while I have all these amazing places fresh in my memory!
VIENNA, AUSTRIA aka WIEN
We arrived in Vienna on July 2. We stayed at the "Do Step Inn" hostel. It was a lovely place, especially because it had a kitchen. Since we've been staying at campgrounds over the past week or so we haven't been able to cook our own meals so it was wonderful to have that luxury again! After hitting up a local supermarket, we cooked some rice with peppers and onions and Vienna sausage! But its not what you're thinking... Vienna sausage in Vienna does not come in a can and its absolutely delicious!! On Sunday July 3rd we visited the Vienna Zoo called the Tiergarten Schonbrunn. On the way there we passed the Schonbrunn Palace which was beautiful :) It was a cold and rainy day but we still had so much fun! The zoo is huge, we saw a wide range of animals from all over the world, and the exhibits are really close-up so we got some great pictures. Our favorites were the penguins, giant pandas, flamingos, and seals!
Funny story: While standing at a viewpoint above the elephant yard Tyler noticed an umbrella that someone had dropped and thus abandoned inside the yard, just a few feet below the railing of the platform we were standing on. So what does he do!? He proposes that we fetch it by using his belt and my scarf (remember I said it was rainy, at at this particular time in the day it was raining really hard so an umbrella would be very useful to us!) So, after rigging up his belt and my scarf, he lowered it down and began to try and hook the loop around the umbrella so we could pull it up. After a few close attempts, I gave it a try and guess what? I hooked it! So with a swift movement we flipped it over and then Tyler was able to get the loop hooked under the hook-end of the umbrella, and we lifted it up to our hands. To our surprise a crowd of people across the elephant yard started clapping and cheering! Apparently they had been watching us for a few minutes, lol... Se we rescued the umbrella and thus we were much drier the rest of the day, hooray!
Then on Monday, July 4th we visited the Heindl Schokolademuseum... can you guess what that is? Yup. A CHOCOLATE museum! So we weren't able to celebrate the 4th with hot dogs or fireworks, but we had a LOT of free chocolate samples! The museum and factory were very cool. We learned all about the process of harvesting cocoa beans and how to make it into chocolate. We saw artwork made of chocolate including paintings and sculptures. And then we got free vouchers for the gift store so we bought some Hazelnuss Ecken (wafer covered in hazelnut cream, then in chocolate, and then in chopped hazelnuts) and some Truffel Pralinen mit Alkohol (chocolate covered truffles with different alcohol flavorings). Both were very good, especially the white chocolate bourbon truffles! Now, I'm not a big fan of chocolate anyway so maybe I'm not the best judge but I must say that some of this Vienna chocolate was delicious and had Hersheys beat by far. Sorry Hersheys :(
Vienna was a beautiful city. We hope to go back there one day and maybe then we'll be able to afford to bring you all Vienna Chocolates back home!!!
VIENNA, AUSTRIA aka WIEN
We arrived in Vienna on July 2. We stayed at the "Do Step Inn" hostel. It was a lovely place, especially because it had a kitchen. Since we've been staying at campgrounds over the past week or so we haven't been able to cook our own meals so it was wonderful to have that luxury again! After hitting up a local supermarket, we cooked some rice with peppers and onions and Vienna sausage! But its not what you're thinking... Vienna sausage in Vienna does not come in a can and its absolutely delicious!! On Sunday July 3rd we visited the Vienna Zoo called the Tiergarten Schonbrunn. On the way there we passed the Schonbrunn Palace which was beautiful :) It was a cold and rainy day but we still had so much fun! The zoo is huge, we saw a wide range of animals from all over the world, and the exhibits are really close-up so we got some great pictures. Our favorites were the penguins, giant pandas, flamingos, and seals!
Funny story: While standing at a viewpoint above the elephant yard Tyler noticed an umbrella that someone had dropped and thus abandoned inside the yard, just a few feet below the railing of the platform we were standing on. So what does he do!? He proposes that we fetch it by using his belt and my scarf (remember I said it was rainy, at at this particular time in the day it was raining really hard so an umbrella would be very useful to us!) So, after rigging up his belt and my scarf, he lowered it down and began to try and hook the loop around the umbrella so we could pull it up. After a few close attempts, I gave it a try and guess what? I hooked it! So with a swift movement we flipped it over and then Tyler was able to get the loop hooked under the hook-end of the umbrella, and we lifted it up to our hands. To our surprise a crowd of people across the elephant yard started clapping and cheering! Apparently they had been watching us for a few minutes, lol... Se we rescued the umbrella and thus we were much drier the rest of the day, hooray!
Then on Monday, July 4th we visited the Heindl Schokolademuseum... can you guess what that is? Yup. A CHOCOLATE museum! So we weren't able to celebrate the 4th with hot dogs or fireworks, but we had a LOT of free chocolate samples! The museum and factory were very cool. We learned all about the process of harvesting cocoa beans and how to make it into chocolate. We saw artwork made of chocolate including paintings and sculptures. And then we got free vouchers for the gift store so we bought some Hazelnuss Ecken (wafer covered in hazelnut cream, then in chocolate, and then in chopped hazelnuts) and some Truffel Pralinen mit Alkohol (chocolate covered truffles with different alcohol flavorings). Both were very good, especially the white chocolate bourbon truffles! Now, I'm not a big fan of chocolate anyway so maybe I'm not the best judge but I must say that some of this Vienna chocolate was delicious and had Hersheys beat by far. Sorry Hersheys :(
Vienna was a beautiful city. We hope to go back there one day and maybe then we'll be able to afford to bring you all Vienna Chocolates back home!!!
Venice, Italy to Munich, Germany
VENEZIA
We spent two days in Venice. Our first day was spent laying by the pool at our campground, Camp JOLLY! It was very refreshing to take a day to relax instead of tour. We spent the entire second day in Venice and it is BEAUTIFUL! It is so cool to see an entire city built upon the water. There are no cars, everyone travels by boat or foot. We had no idea what to do in Venice so we just explored the town by walking along the Grand Canal. The streetpaths don't actually follow right along the canal so you have to zig-zag back and forth through winding narrow passages in order to go in one direction. And the buildings are so close together! We felt like two mice in a maze, it was so fun! While exploring we stumbled upon the Venice Museum of Natural History. We ate lunch in the courtyard and then visited the museum. It was really fun and a nice change from all the art museums we've seen so far. We walked to the famous Piazza San Marco which at high tide is covered in about 6 inches of water. We wanted to take a gondola ride back to the main station that evening but it was far too expensive :( So we got some strawberry and vanilla-bourbon gelato and walked back instead. It was so delicious! On the walk back we found a Music Museum Exhibit. It was really neat, we saw some instruments dating back to the year 800 AD. Tyler really enjoyed seeing everything there. We thoroughly enjoyed Venice. It's a beautiful city and hopefully if we ever make it back we'll ride a gondola. Venice was our last stop in Italy, a great place to end our Italian tour!
MUNICH, Germany
We only spent one day in Munich... our hostel was called The TENT and thats exactly what it was, a giant tent that had about 100 beds in it. Probably the most interesting place we've slept so far... The best thing about Munich was the food and the beer :) It was REALLY cold and rainy so we didn't do as much as we had planned to do in the city. We ate lunch at a Bavarian tavern called FUNKSTADL. We ordered some "schnitzel weiner art" and a mixed grilled meat plate with fries and two beers. The famous Munich beer is the "weiss" beer, which is a light wheat beer. It was really good (and this coming from a girl that doesn't care much for beer)! The food was delicious too!! We walked through the city market, bought some snacks, and then visited the Oktoberfest Museum. We spent the afternoon and evening at "Tollwood" which is a park area on the edge of the city where they frequently have festivals. The festival going on while we were there was a Food & Music of the World festival. It was fascinating! It was a huge fairground covered with rows and rows of food booths and music tents, each with a different cuisine from countries all over the world and different music styles. We stepped into many tents to stop and listen to the live bands, most were pretty good. And for dinner we tried some African cuisine from the Africa booth. It was a huge plate of different stews poured over rice with plantains on the side. It was really yummy! We ended the night hanging out around the bonfire at the TENT and chatting with other travelers.
We spent two days in Venice. Our first day was spent laying by the pool at our campground, Camp JOLLY! It was very refreshing to take a day to relax instead of tour. We spent the entire second day in Venice and it is BEAUTIFUL! It is so cool to see an entire city built upon the water. There are no cars, everyone travels by boat or foot. We had no idea what to do in Venice so we just explored the town by walking along the Grand Canal. The streetpaths don't actually follow right along the canal so you have to zig-zag back and forth through winding narrow passages in order to go in one direction. And the buildings are so close together! We felt like two mice in a maze, it was so fun! While exploring we stumbled upon the Venice Museum of Natural History. We ate lunch in the courtyard and then visited the museum. It was really fun and a nice change from all the art museums we've seen so far. We walked to the famous Piazza San Marco which at high tide is covered in about 6 inches of water. We wanted to take a gondola ride back to the main station that evening but it was far too expensive :( So we got some strawberry and vanilla-bourbon gelato and walked back instead. It was so delicious! On the walk back we found a Music Museum Exhibit. It was really neat, we saw some instruments dating back to the year 800 AD. Tyler really enjoyed seeing everything there. We thoroughly enjoyed Venice. It's a beautiful city and hopefully if we ever make it back we'll ride a gondola. Venice was our last stop in Italy, a great place to end our Italian tour!
MUNICH, Germany
We only spent one day in Munich... our hostel was called The TENT and thats exactly what it was, a giant tent that had about 100 beds in it. Probably the most interesting place we've slept so far... The best thing about Munich was the food and the beer :) It was REALLY cold and rainy so we didn't do as much as we had planned to do in the city. We ate lunch at a Bavarian tavern called FUNKSTADL. We ordered some "schnitzel weiner art" and a mixed grilled meat plate with fries and two beers. The famous Munich beer is the "weiss" beer, which is a light wheat beer. It was really good (and this coming from a girl that doesn't care much for beer)! The food was delicious too!! We walked through the city market, bought some snacks, and then visited the Oktoberfest Museum. We spent the afternoon and evening at "Tollwood" which is a park area on the edge of the city where they frequently have festivals. The festival going on while we were there was a Food & Music of the World festival. It was fascinating! It was a huge fairground covered with rows and rows of food booths and music tents, each with a different cuisine from countries all over the world and different music styles. We stepped into many tents to stop and listen to the live bands, most were pretty good. And for dinner we tried some African cuisine from the Africa booth. It was a huge plate of different stews poured over rice with plantains on the side. It was really yummy! We ended the night hanging out around the bonfire at the TENT and chatting with other travelers.
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Naples and Florence
Hi everyone, so here is a short attempt to share with you our last week or so since I haven´t got much time to blog right now....
Naples, Italy
We spent just two days in Naples. We had been hearing rumors that it was a really dirty city and they were all true. It was terribly filthy. As we walked from the station to our hostel we passed piles and piles of garbage just lying on the street. One street was even blocked completely because it was filled with trash from one side to the other. We were in shock. At least we were relieved when we reached our hostel, The Welcome Inn, and it was nice and clean. We ventured outside of Naples to go see the famous site of Pompeii which was the ancient civilization that was destroyed by the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. Pompeii was fascinating. We saw preserved shops, streets, homes, kitchens, a theatre, and some tombs. In one of the tombs we even got to see a preserved body of a Vesuvius victim. It was cool but SO creepy... After Pompeii we headed to the Sorrento, a town along the Amalfi Coast of Italy. It was beautiful, we swam at the marina, ate a picnic dinner, and then headed back to Naples for the night.
Florence
After Naples we headed to Florence. We stayed at Michelangelo Campground just outside the tourist district. Our campground was on top of a hill overlooking the city so we had the most beautiful view of Florence. It was a fun city. We toured for two whole days... saw the Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral, which is the 4th largest in the world. It was pretty but not much compared to St Peters in the Vatican. We walked along the Ponte Vecchio, which is the famous bridge of Florence. Its one of only three bridges in the world that has functioning shops and stores on it. Its also the only bridge in Florence that was not destroyed by the Nazis during WWII. We learned that originally the bridge shops were occupied by butchers and fishmongers. They would clean their goods and dump the remains into the river, which flows west to Pisa. This caused Pisa´s water to become very polluted. After decades of pollution, the Florence officials finally realized the problem. So they created an edict that only goldsmiths and jewelers were allowed to own shops on the Ponte Vecchio. So to this day, all you see along the bridge as you walk in to Florence, is jewelry shops. It was really interesting. Florence is the birthplace of Michelangelo so the original David is here. The museum was too expensive but we ate at the restaurant outside it. Our first official Italian meal... spaghetti with meatballs and a regina margherita pizza. It was SOOO GOOD. Florence is also home to Dante, as in Dante´s Inferno, so we saw his house. Our favorite time in Florence was the Mercato Centrale. It was a huge food market in the heart of the city. We saw a meat stand selling cow hearts and tongues and pigs feet... lots of cheese, wine, and olive stands, fruit stands, and BREAD of every kind. We got to sample a lot of things and ended up buying some things to take with us. It was all so delicious. The best thing we´ve discovered in Italy is the GELATO. We had some coconut, mango, and pina colada in Florence. Its so much better than ice cream back home, we love it.
Got to go catch a train now but we´ll try to write more soon about Venice as well. We are now in Munich and heading to Vienna today. We´re having a great time and loving every minute of it. Thanks for all your continued prayers. We love you all and miss you very much.
Naples, Italy
We spent just two days in Naples. We had been hearing rumors that it was a really dirty city and they were all true. It was terribly filthy. As we walked from the station to our hostel we passed piles and piles of garbage just lying on the street. One street was even blocked completely because it was filled with trash from one side to the other. We were in shock. At least we were relieved when we reached our hostel, The Welcome Inn, and it was nice and clean. We ventured outside of Naples to go see the famous site of Pompeii which was the ancient civilization that was destroyed by the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. Pompeii was fascinating. We saw preserved shops, streets, homes, kitchens, a theatre, and some tombs. In one of the tombs we even got to see a preserved body of a Vesuvius victim. It was cool but SO creepy... After Pompeii we headed to the Sorrento, a town along the Amalfi Coast of Italy. It was beautiful, we swam at the marina, ate a picnic dinner, and then headed back to Naples for the night.
Florence
After Naples we headed to Florence. We stayed at Michelangelo Campground just outside the tourist district. Our campground was on top of a hill overlooking the city so we had the most beautiful view of Florence. It was a fun city. We toured for two whole days... saw the Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral, which is the 4th largest in the world. It was pretty but not much compared to St Peters in the Vatican. We walked along the Ponte Vecchio, which is the famous bridge of Florence. Its one of only three bridges in the world that has functioning shops and stores on it. Its also the only bridge in Florence that was not destroyed by the Nazis during WWII. We learned that originally the bridge shops were occupied by butchers and fishmongers. They would clean their goods and dump the remains into the river, which flows west to Pisa. This caused Pisa´s water to become very polluted. After decades of pollution, the Florence officials finally realized the problem. So they created an edict that only goldsmiths and jewelers were allowed to own shops on the Ponte Vecchio. So to this day, all you see along the bridge as you walk in to Florence, is jewelry shops. It was really interesting. Florence is the birthplace of Michelangelo so the original David is here. The museum was too expensive but we ate at the restaurant outside it. Our first official Italian meal... spaghetti with meatballs and a regina margherita pizza. It was SOOO GOOD. Florence is also home to Dante, as in Dante´s Inferno, so we saw his house. Our favorite time in Florence was the Mercato Centrale. It was a huge food market in the heart of the city. We saw a meat stand selling cow hearts and tongues and pigs feet... lots of cheese, wine, and olive stands, fruit stands, and BREAD of every kind. We got to sample a lot of things and ended up buying some things to take with us. It was all so delicious. The best thing we´ve discovered in Italy is the GELATO. We had some coconut, mango, and pina colada in Florence. Its so much better than ice cream back home, we love it.
Got to go catch a train now but we´ll try to write more soon about Venice as well. We are now in Munich and heading to Vienna today. We´re having a great time and loving every minute of it. Thanks for all your continued prayers. We love you all and miss you very much.
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