As we were about to try to fall asleep on the plane, the person in the row behind us told us that the Aurora was visible from the window. We opened our window to see the most amazing view of the lights dancing outside. This was my first time seeing the phenomenon and it was absolutely spectacular. It felt like we were flying right through it. My pictures are very blurry and just do not do it justice.
We landed in the early afternoon on Saturday and new we needed to find things to do so that we would not crash early. Since we could not get into our room yet, we left our luggage with reception and headed out to find some lunch. We decided to head back to Divinis, which we wrote about in our last Prague post (A Week in Prague). We had a spectacular lunch while trying to keep each other awake :). We headed back to the hotel and were finally able to access our room for a shower! We then headed around the corner to a thai massage place which was lovely, but also I have to admit that I napped a tiny bit. Oops! Next we went to a Banksy exhibit, which was very well done.
After that we grabbed some pizza for dinner and then headed across town to do an escape room. The room was Alice in Wonderland themed and very well done!
On Sunday, we decided to visit a town outside of Prague since we’ve already hit most of the major tourist attractions in the city. We hopped on a bus to Karlovy Vary, a town in the mountains known for its mineral water springs throughout town that are supposed to be drunk for their healing powers.
You are supposed to purchase a special ceramic mug with an integrated straw (available at ALL the souvenir shops around town), and then fill and drink. The water is naturally sparkling, and varying degrees in temperature. To me, the taste was so awful that it made me gag. I was only able to taste from 3 of the springs before I quit. David meanwhile drank from all of them!
The architecture in the town is just beautiful! We spent the morning walking around and locating the springs, some of which are located in these amazingly beautiful and intricate colonnade structures.
In the afternoon, we took the funicular up the hill to the Diana lookout for an amazing panoramic view of the city. At the top, there was also a mini-zoo with the most adorable piglets!
Rather than take the funicular down, we decided to walk down, in the direction of a well known landmark – the Jeleny Skok, a statue of a mountain goat. After following the signs for a while, our anticipation building, we eventually found the statue, which was actually not even actual-sized, but very cute!
We continued walking around until it was time to catch our bus back to Prague. It was quite a challenge to fight the jet lag and stay awake for the bus ride, and we had a quick dinner before we headed back to the hotel to crash.
For the rest of the week, David worked from the Outreach office while I worked full time in the EST timezone from our hotel room. I don’t think the hotel cleaners appreciated me turning them away every day!
On the last morning, I finally had time in the morning to take a walk through the city before starting work. I wondered through the Old Town Square and across the Charles Bridge.
On our last night in Prague, we met up with a colleague of David’s who was currently on vacation in the city, and went to a “cave restaurant” – one of apparently a few in the city! The restaurant is downstairs and decorated to feel as if you are in an underground cave. We had a fabulous tasting-menu meal.
On Saturday morning, we woke up super early to get to the airport for our 3-flight travel day to Big Sky Montana, which will be our last week away from Highwind.