Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Prague & Budapest - Day 4- Czech Republic- House Hunters: Castle Edition

One of my favorite things that we try to do whenever we have the opportunity is get out of the city we’re visiting for a daytrip. The beauty of doing that in Prague is that we got to go castle hunting! We started off heading back up to the castle district by subway and grabbing a car from Hertz there.  First stop was Karlstejn, where you parked down the hill and walked up to the awesome sight. Perched atop a hill, it looked like a forbidding stone castle you would expect to see in this region. With all of these castles, you really need pictures so we’ll try to get them up at some point soon!


An hour and a half later, we arrived at Hluboka which was much more of a fairytale type castle, with lighter stone, turrets, etc.  We actually ended up parking a bit of the way into the park, so we got to take a nice forest path to arrive at the castle which made for a lovely unveiling. Grabbed a quick bite outside at the castle café and enjoyed the small gardens that were in the front before jumping in the car to head to our real/final destination.



Cesky Krumlov is the idyllic Czech town that is actually a UNESCO heritage site, which likely explains how it remains so picturesque.  It truly looks like something out of a Disney movie, in the best way possible. With a beautiful and large castle on the hill with a decorated cathedral steeple and towers as well as a great little town with a winding river below, it’s easy to see how this was a recommendation we were given.   We spend the rest of the afternoon walking through the castle grounds, through the various courtyards, past the church, past the moat with bears (poor bears!), as well as through the town itself. Really quite charming and we finally got to try the Czech pastry Trdelnick which is basically a hollow piece of dough with cinnamon on it (really tasty as if there was any doubt). Once we had climbed up and down each of the narrow streets, we jumped back in the car for the two and a half hour drive back to Prague.

 
 

Though it was our first day without a ton of walking, we were still tired so grabbed an easy dinner outside on one of the squares to unwind before packing and getting ready to leave Prague.  A truly wonderful start to the trip and I’m so excited we have been to Prague now!!

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