train and first day in prague!

we woke up and grabbed some more of the delicious bread at the bakery near our hotel, and got on the train to prague. 

does your train station have a garden with real flowers growing in it? (no, i don't even have a train station...)

ryan took some really nice pictures of the german and czech countryside. 

i was reading. 

we got to prague, and walked to our hotel. it was a lovely place, and included breakfast, which was the best breakfast we had, and i'm telling you- GO TO PRAGUE. it's really beautiful and cheaper than other european cities and the food rules.  

here's the charles bridge...

and a close up. 

view from ON the charles bridge. this is where we discovered that the best views of famous bridges are when you are not actually ON the bridge...

this is trdelnik, which is the most delicious thing to eat for a mid afternoon snack, or breakfast, or at all. and there are lots of open air markets around prague near easter, and there's a trdelnik stand every 100 yards. so make sure you get one that is hot off the fire. 

they are rolled by hand, and then rolled onto these kabob type things, and rotating while baking over a wood fire. and they are sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon while baking, and then rolled in the topping again before you eat it. 

then ryan got a sausage and a beer, and i got mulled red wine and a gingerbread cookie too. 

that's the trdelnik stand. 

bread baked in molds. 

this is the prague astronomical clock, the third oldest astronomical clock in europe, and the only one still working. 

i want to live in the towers on the top. 

these guys just got married in prague. so romantic!

you can take a tour of prague in one of these. we just tour places with our feet. 

right?

we ate at a pilsner urquell tourist trap restaurant, and we got what we had coming. but it wasn't terrible, and it was the worst meal we had in prague, and it was still pretty good, so!

yum, czech beer!

i had mushroom and potato soup. so good. 

ryan had chicken broth with noodles and pieces of beef. 

i had sirloin in cream sauce with bread dumplings and it was super.... not my favorite. that's lemon, with red currant jam and sweetened whipped cream. not... not good. 

ryan had a whole bunch of meat: roasted duck, prague ham, sausage, a pieces of roasted pork, and bread dumplings, bacon dumplings, and 2 kinds of sauerkraut. he liked the meat a lot. 

and then i had frozen vanilla custard with hot raspberries, and you guys-- it was-- so-- goo. i can't even tell you. 

we went to KaDeWe, which we'd heard was a pretty fantastic food hall and department store. here is the outside: 

and here is the square in front of the store. my camera was dead, so i had to take all these photos on my iphone. please excuse the quality. first i saw a wall of jams, and i'm telling you guys-- there were seven shelves, with twelve types of jam on each shelf, and each one was a different type of fruit. damson, quince, four varieties of plum, orange, lime, key lime, kumquat, lemon and various mixtures of the above in marmalades, multiple varieties of blackberries, strawberries, raspberries, cherries, blueberries.... it was amazing. i did not take a photograph. there were a lot of people nearby. 

since easter was coming, there were huge baskets of hard boiled, dyed eggs. 

see, marbled, gold, rainbow, etc. 

ryan called the cheese counter 360 degrees of cheese. it was sorted by country. i loved, loved, loved it. 

these are the lettuces you can choose from for a salad... 

and about a quarter of the possible toppings...

GINORMOUS lobsters!

langoustine tails. 

peach and pistachio tarts. i decided to get a sample of petit fours instead: 

because, why wouldn't you?

we stopped for a mid shopping beer. 

it's really fun. 

the sausage spread...

keeps going...

and going...

and some truly black sausages, which-- eww. 

hams. ryan likes the spanish hams, and so do i. he saw some iberico ham here that was about $150/pound. WHOA. he did not buy that!

various aspics and salamis. also. eww. (not the salami)

ditto. 

our final spread. the peppers and olives are from the antipasto counter, which was amazing too! and i got a pecorino with truffles, a german muenster-type with mustard seeds, and a taleggio. and the eggs and extra tomatoes and stuff is for the train tomorrow. 

the rest of the spread. 

this is an apple beer. it was weird, but good. weird because on first sip it tasted like apple juice, very sweet, but by the time you swallowed, it tasted like regular beer. i liked it a lot. 

ryan and his golden egg!

and i didn't eat the petit fours till later: a key lime chocolate tart, a choclate eclair, a raspberry pastry thing, and a blackberry tart. DELICIOUS.