Showing posts with label prague. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prague. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

A Few Pictures From Recent Travels

Well, I've said that I'd post a few pictures from the travels, so here they are. These made the cut from the 200 hundred or so that were taken as a nice summary of the trip.


St. Goar along the Rhine in Germany from the Rheinfels castle.



The central square in Olomouc, Czech Republic. A very nice little city that is totally off the tourist map.



The Prague Castle.


The library at Strahov Monastary. A great visit - I wish I had a picture of the dodo. Oh well.

Friday, August 04, 2006

Nothing Lasts Forever

Well, my ‘weekend’ break in Prague will be cut a bit shorter than initially planned (no surprise to me), so on Saturday it’s off to Olomouc again for a day. Then back across the country to another site on Sunday.

Prague has been wonderful. I spent yesterday walking around by the castle and in Hradčany then down across the bridge into the old town. The castle is so crowded that it’s hardly worth it – since I’ve been there before I didn’t stay long.

I visited the Strahov monastery and library – this just might be the best thing I’ve visited so far. It is incredible to see a library where 400 year old books are nothing of particular note since there are rooms full of books much, much older. This visit is all the more timely since I’m currently reading The Name of the Rose by Eco; I was inspired to read for an hour or so in a park shortly after the visit. At least as interesting (to me) as the books was the collection of dried/preserved animals. Have you ever seen a dried stingray? They look utterly alien – it was way cool. Even better than the stingrays was the dodo bird – yes, they have a dried dodo bird on display. Very weird looking.

In the evening I did a pub walk with one of the local tour groups. It was nice and good to interact with people. There’s just something about drinking in 600 hundred year old basements. As I said, it was great fun.
This will probably be the last entry for a week or so as I begin work again. Hopefully the next entry will be my review of The Name of the Rose and probably a few pictures from the trip.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Ahh…Prague

Well, work has continued to be very busy, but now I finally get a break – for the last 3 weeks, I’ve only had about 1 day off and the typical work day has been somewhere between 10 and 14 hours long. So, this is a much needed break.

After a week over in laid-back Olomouc, where it was hot; and a few days in a small, way more laid back village kind of near Plzeň called Mirošov, where it was pleasant (even cool); I’m now in crowded, hectic Prague. Don’t get me wrong, it is immediately clear why this is such a popular place, but it is a big change from the rest of the Czech Republic.

I’ve been to Prague before – about 8 years ago (back in the college days) some friends of mine and I traveled through for a few days in January. The city was relatively empty, very cheap, laid-back, and simply a wonderful time. Well, Prague in summer is crowded and expensive compared to what I recall. I had a nice meal this evening on the main square – yes, I expect it to be relatively expensive there, but the price still surprised me. I could have eaten very nice meals in Olomouc for a week for the price I paid at this café. Of course, the price was for the setting, not the product, and it’s very difficult to find a nicer setting.

So, for the next 3 days I get to hang out in Prague. It will be fun and a needed break, but a bit lonely. It’s nice to make the wife a bit envious, but her company here would make things much better.

On the spec-fic front, it’s also frustrating. It looks like I’ll miss Jeff VanderMeer’s appearances here in Prague by just a couple days. Any regular readers out there going to be in Prague this week? First round is on me.

Well, bare with me as I continue with the travel blog – reviews will come again, I promise. I just need some reading time. I’ll also post a few pics when I get back to the States and can download the photos from my camera.
Ciao!

Monday, April 24, 2006

Travel

One of the many things I enjoy is travel. Sometimes it's for work, more often, for fun. Anyway, I've found that I enjoy blogging about it. It doesn't fit into the 'mission' of this blog, but I don't care, I can post what I want on this blog. So, below are the entries that lend more to travel tales.

Europe
Hawaii

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