Who could ask for anything more?

Visiting Prague, in all its medieval glory, has been one of the best experiences of my life. There is so much to see and do here, that I cannot imagine not coming back to visit on my own someday. From the food, to the shopping, to the sights, everything here has astounded and lit a fire in me - definitely incentive to do more exploring of the world. Having never left the U.S. before departing on this trip, I'm extremely thankful that Prague was one of the cities on our itinerary. I just wish we could stay longer! 

Our last two days in Prague were filled with great memories. On Wednesday we took a four hour (!) walking tour of the city and got to learn more about the rich history of the city. Stops included the Prague Castle, where we saw an amazing old cathedral and dodged press crews - the president was set to nominate a new government that day. We didn't get to see him though - a street lined with tiny medieval houses where castle guards once lived, the names of 80,000 Czech Jews killed in WWII inscribed on the walls of the second oldest synagogue in Prague, an an ancient Jewish cemetary. 

Yesterday, we began the day with a 1pm concert at the Lobkowitz Palace on the grounds of the castle. The palace is owned by a man from Boston, and contains two floors worth of his family's ancient history and artifacts - a bajillion paintings, tableware, an armory and...the original manuscripts of several scores, including Eroica and Handel's Messiah! The exhibit also contained instruments from the time period, which were fun to look at. No pictures were allowed, but we got some anyway...and got in trouble (not only for taking pictures, but Kai got yelled at for whistling...she was mean!). The concert consisted of an hour of chamber music for piano and viola, and was really quite good.

We moved on the the Dvorak museum, which was WELL worth the $1.50-or-so entrance fee. It gave a good history of the composer and housed a ton of his personal items. The exhibit finished off with a really random room where you could complete a picture of Dvorak with just his head as a starting point...there was a box filled with other people's drawings. Our group's included a Dvorcorn, and Dvorak as a pretty flower. There was also a listening station with ridiculous remixes of his music, including a reggae symphony...I still don't understand the point, but it was amusing!

We finished the night with dinner at a brewery that's been in operation since the 1400s, complete with AMAZING food and honey wine, chandeliers made of glass beer mugs, and an accordion player. From there we moved on to a 2.5 hour "jazz" cruise on the Vltava (also known as the Moldau), that was really more like a blues cruise...but who's counting? The music were great, the sights were wonderful, and it was a great way to wrap up our visit to this wonderful, wonderful city.

I'm not sure how Salzburg and Vienna are going to out-do Prague...but I guess we'll find out!