Exiting Eastern Europe

With our trip coming to an end, we chose to keep it mellow for the day rather than run all around catching local buses and trains. This worked out well as we woke up to a day of drizzle that continued with showers all through the night. For the most part, we were blessed with great weather during our vacation and welcomed the rain for a change.

After another breakfast at our pension, we headed into town to catch the 9:30 Sunday mass. On our way to town we were able to hear the clock tower bells ringing for ten minutes announcing that church was about to begin. We were obviously able to follow the standard format of the mass, but the only word that we were able to understand during the service was “Amen.” It was ok though as it gave us the opportunity to give thanks for a safe and healthy journey through Europe and ask that God watch over us during our journey home to the states. Teah received a blessing during communion from the Czech priest that we hope will keep her quiet during our long flights back home.

The rest of the morning was spent at a local art café where we hunkered down from the rain drinking our coco and cappuccino. Around noon we set out to make a reservation at a restaurant that was too busy for us to eat at last night and thought we better get our names on the list ASAP. Unfortunately our dinner plans for this second round didn’t work out either as they were booked for the whole evening. Who knows, maybe they were just discriminating us due to Teah… no, she is too cute! Since the restaurant was the number one recommendation we received, we decided to stay and eat lunch there instead. The assortment of grilled meats with a baked potato and dumpling was delicious as was the chicken drumstick that we ordered as an appetizer.

We walked around the town shops for the next hour and revisited the castle for a tour of the massive garden that is approximately 1-mile in circumference. Even in the drizzle, the walk was quite pleasant and we found the garden to be our favorite of all the castles. This was unexpected as the castle as a whole is much less elaborate and famous than those in the more prominent cities that we visited. The garden had the traditional patterned flower and rose gardens but also had some beautiful parks with huge colorful old trees and a large pond to anchor the far end of the property.

After our botanical stroll we grabbed some chocolate treats from a local bakery and headed back to our bed and breakfast. Our afternoon was spent relaxing, visiting with the property owners, and preparing our bags for our journey home. 

For dinner we walked twenty minutes back into town and hit up another one of our host's recommendations. Sam ordered a stuffed chicken breast on jasmine rice and Jennifer ordered polenta with grilled veggies. We shared the dishes and like all our other meals, we were very satisfied.

Our trip was great and we are sad to be packing for home. We hope that we don’t have any trouble catching our standby flights back to LAX, but if we do, we will make the best of our time in Prague or wherever else our flights take us. We hope you enjoyed following our journey as much as we enjoyed sharing our travels.

The Semingsons

Budweiser in Budejovice

Woke up refreshed after a good night’s sleep and headed downstairs for our breakfast buffet. We enjoyed yogurt, granola, and pastries before taking our coffee with us into the foyer to figure out some details regarding our return flight home. After spending a couple hours working on travel plans, we were ready to venture out for the afternoon to the nearby city called Cesky Budejovice, the regional capital of South Bohemia. Excited to get going on our day’s adventure, we jumped on the next local bus heading out of town.

 Our first stop upon arriving in Cesky Budejovice was to the only nationally owned brewery in the Czech Republic, Budweiser Budvar. This name may sound familiar to many of you as the Anheuser-Busch owned Budweiser, but the two beer companies are actually completely separate. The Budweiser that so many Americans drink was actually an imitation of the Bohemian beer and legal disputes continue to this day concerning rights to the brand name. The original brewers in Cesky Budejovice were German and their literal translation of Budejovice is Budweis… hence the origin of the name Budweiser.

We arrived at the Budweiser Budvar Brewery just in time for a group tour of the facility. Our Czech tour guide led us to various parts of the brewery and provided commentary about the history of Budweiser Budvar and the brewing process.

Sam’s favorite part of the tour was when our guide led us to the cellar that was 35 degree fahrenheit (hence why Teah is all bundled up in some of the pics) and we were offered a tasting of the beer before it gets filtered and sent to the bottling plant. We both were impressed by the flavor but already knew it was tasty as it wasn’t our first Budweiser Budvar during our travels. For you American Budweiser fans at home… this beer is hands down better and actually has flavor compared to the American watered down stuff.

Another highlight of the tour was walking through the bottling factory that has a bottling capacity of 40,000 bottles an hour. Even though it was Saturday and the factory was not in action, we were still impressed by the size and vast amounts of machinery necessary for the production of the Budvar Beer.

After completing our tour of the brewery, we headed over to the town’s main plaza, which is one of the largest town squares in Europe (we could have sworn that each country we have been to has made this same claim). The large central fountain and the beautiful buildings that surround the plaza immediately impressed us upon entering the town square.

Hungry from our beer tour and walk into town, we grabbed a traditional Czech bite to eat consisting of fried pork and two different types of dumplings. We washed the meal down with a couple of large beers and headed over to an ice cream shop that we scoped out during our hunt for a tasty lunch.

All filled back-up, we made our way to the bus station where we hopped back on the local bus to Cesky Krumlov. Our bus let us off near the center of town, so we strolled over a couple bridges and found a cellar restaurant that was recommended to us by Peter. We walked down a narrow spiral staircase 2-3 levels below grade and found ourselves in a cavernous-like restaurant. The food quality was just as good as the ambience and we were quite happy with our host’s referral. Sam ordered pork tenderloin with grilled veggies and Jennifer chose a “Krumburger” (tasted like meatloaf, made of pork and beef) over a bed of lettuce. To top the night off we walked up to the town’s Catholic church, grabbed a chimney sugary treat for each of us, a bottle of wine, and headed back to the hotel to relax.

 

Checking out Czech One Last Time

After we both logged our morning runs we showered-up, packed our rooms, and went out for our morning cappuccinos before our noon Czech bound shuttle arrived. Our driver showed up timely and we were quickly on our way out of Austria toward Cesky Krumlov. The drive was great as we were the only ones in the car besides a solo Australian traveler headed in the same direction. We all took little catnaps along the way making our three-hour drive pass in no time.

Our driver brought us straight to Penzion Onyx, our bed & breakfast for the next two days. We were greeted right away by the owner Peter and given a thorough overview of the accommodations and city offerings. After stashing our bags in the room and having a quick snack, we headed out to explore the town.

As you can see, Cesky Krumlov is a photographer’s paradise. By no means, do our photos reflect the beauty offered by the impressive scenery, but I’m sure that if we had more than our snap-n-shoot camera, Ansel Adams would be rolling around in his grave with excitement. The town is essentially based upon three small “islands” that are bound by a river that literally snakes its way around each land formation. Surrounding the town is a beautiful green thick lush forest that rolls through the infinite hillsides.

Today we quickly browsed the town’s castle (protected by a couple of bears) and walked the streets hoping to more thoroughly explore Cesky Krumlov in the morning. After familiarizing ourselves, we stopped by a riverbed café for a drink and dessert but after seeing the food around us decided to also order a meal to share. We chose a traditional pheasant meal that was accompanied by three different types of potato side dishes mixed with various grains, beans, and spices. The meal was astounding and Jennifer was pheasantly surprised at how good her bird tasted. We capped our dinner off with Czech cake that was a essentially a cross between a blueberry pastry and cheese cake.

The evening was capped off with a bottle of wine back at our B&B and some friendly conversation with our host Peter. Sam had his match for a talker as the two kept each other busy jabbering well past Teah’s bedtime. In addition to some friendly conversation, Peter was kind enough to assist us in planning our departure from Cesky Krumlov and what would serve us best for getting back to the states.

We are looking forward to another lovely day in Cesky Krumlov and getting to know this quaint town much more intimately tomorrow.

Playing in the Rain in Vienna

Woke up to the pitter-patter of rain on our hotel window and decided to nix our run and instead have a lazy morning resting in bed. Rolled out of bed a few hours later deciding that today’s weather made the perfect day for visiting the Kunsthistorisches Museum, housing one of the world’s finest collections of historical relics and paintings. All bundled up, we stopped into a café and enjoyed our daily cappuccino and croissant before finishing our wet stroll over to the museum.

The Kunsthistorisches Museum was commissioned by the Emperor of Austria-Hungary to publicly house the fine art collection of the Habsburg Royal Family. Construction of the beautiful structure began in 1872 and was completed in 1891. Walking the building itself was nearly worth the price of admission as it was constructed to the highest standards including the sandstone façade, lavish marble, gold-leaf ornamentation and beautiful ceiling murals.

 

Our tour started with a really impressive collection of Egyptian artifacts. This was probably Sam’s favorite part of the museum as he enjoyed seeing the immaculately preserved sarcophagi built of stone, wood, and other materials. It was quite amazing how much detail the Egyptians put into their burial tombs.  

After the Egyptian room, we walked in a chronological matter to see some impressive statues, reliefs, and other random items from the Roman and Greek era. In addition to the finely sculpted busts (both shoulder and heads as well as bosoms) and full size statues, we really enjoyed seeing the everyday tools and ordinary items that were displayed. These included hair clips for women and cutting tools for around the house.

At this point in our trip we were getting a little burned out of taking pictures and to be honest, what are we going to do with a bunch of photographs from inside a museum. I guess we should have asked the crazy tourists who were taking pictures of nearly every piece they came across. With that said, we will describe a few more of the highlights but sorry, no more pictures in the museum.

After seeing the museums ancient collections, we walked up the beautiful marble staircase and were overwhelmed with gallery after gallery of paintings. Some of the most famous works we saw were by Raphael, Rembrandt and Velazquez. The paintings were very lovely but after walking the collection for a couple of hours, we were ready to make it back outside and see if the weather cleared. 

To our delight, we were only hit with very mild periods of sprinkling and quite comfortable temperatures as we made our way back to our hotel. Along the way we stopped by a street cart for a tasty Turkish Durum Wrap Doner Lamb Kebab that couldn’t have better matched the appetites we built-up through the course of the late morning and early afternoon. As we were walking back devouring our wraps we stopped to shoot a couple pictures at the Austrian Parliament building. 

We hung out in our hotel for a few hours resting up and having another little picnic of wine, cheese, salami and hummus. Reenergized for the evening, we headed over to the neo-gothic Imperial Hall in Beethovenplatz for our Vienna musical experience. On tonight’s agenda was a Mozart and Strauss performance accompanied by opera singers and ballet dancers. 

The same architects who built St. Stephen’s Cathedral and the Vienna Town Hall (pictures in yesterday’s blog) designed the beautiful Imperial Hall that housed tonight’s musical performance. Like so many of the spaces we visited throughout Vienna, this structure was one where even if you didn’t enjoy the music you could just swivel your head and be impressed by the design and detail of the impressive building.
 

 Fortunately however, the musical performance was outstanding. We were a little hesitant about the show since we bought the tickets from a vendor in the park dressed up in Renaissance garb, but I guess that is the typical way most tickets are purchased. Our other big concern was Teah and how she would handle her first concert. Our nerves concerning her making noise and disturbing the audience were a waste as she behaved better than we could have hoped. As a matter of fact, the Germans next to us, the Swedes behind us, and the Lebanese that we met at intermission were pleased that we brought Teah to the show. Sam went to go get some champagne at intermission and when he came back Teah was in the arms of a Lebanese woman who saw Teah and quickly asked Jennifer “could I hold her?” The whole experience was great and what better way to wrap up our time in Vienna than to enjoy classical music in a beautiful concert hall next to the Beethoven Plaza.

 

Our night ended as we walked through the city center grabbing an ice cream to share and making our way back through the narrow streets to our hotel. We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Vienna and we are excited for tomorrow’s journey to Cesky Krumlov in the Czech Republic.