Finally, a Pretty Prague!

Before leaving for Europe, when we told people which cities we were visiting a good number of them would stop us and say, "Prague is so beautiful" or "Prague is my favorite, it's so gorgeous" and even our supposedly unbiased tour guide described Prague as the "The prettiest city in Europe". However, after our first four days in Prague on the 'old' side of the city, we came away with different impressions. Whitney thought it was a run-down city with a couple neat historic things to see and although I was enjoying Prague, it was nowhere as beautiful as Amsterdam or Paris.
After our last day in Prague, we came away in agreement that Prague might indeed be the prettiest city in Europe. The book we had about Europe and the tour guide both casually mentioned that the Prague Castle is the top tourist attraction in Prague and warrants a visit. They did not mention that while the castle is gorgeous, that entire side of town (the castle sits on the opposite side of the river as central Prague) is filled with gardens, palaces, monasteries and breathtaking views of Prague due to its locatin on a big hill (think Pittock Mansion in NW Portland).
We went looking for our first stop of the day, the Wallenstein Palace but found the Czech Senate instead. The senate building was surrounded by a mini-labyrinth of shrubs that opened to a beautiful fountain and a pathway lined with statues that led to the building itself. For some reason they had a fenced in area where they kept around ten large owls. Next to the birds was a big dripstone wall that Whitney found beautiful and I found to be a little bit wierd. We left the senate area and walked around trying to find the palace, until Whitney pointed out that the picture for the Wallenstein Palace on our map looked very similar to the senate building we just saw. We realized we had just seen the Wallenstein Palace without realizing it because it wasn't written anywhere (in english anyway) that the senate actually meets in Wallenstein Palace.
We got some good exercise walking up that giant hill, and we rewarded ourselves by relaxing in the shade of a beautiful old monastery (right) and taking in the views of Prague. We walked around a little bit (Collin's euphamism for getting lost) because at that point we were off the edge of the map, but found ourselves back where we needed to be...lunch. We had our second traditional Czech lunch. Whitney had bratwurst and sauerkraut while I had a delicious pork chop with roast potatoes. The Castle was very large but surpisingly un-castle. It was fantastic for two reasons; St. Vitus' Cathedral and the gardens surrounding the castle walls. The actual castle walls had been replaced or at least filled in with tourist shops and overpriced cafes.
The cathedral was incredible. I would guess the ceiling was over 100 feet high and everywhere you turned there was incredible stained glass or a gold and silver statue. I won't write much about it because all of its magnificence was visual. Hopefully our pictures give you some idea of how beautiful it is. We then walked down the gardens that are a series of stairways and switchbacks in a 'chutes and ladders' sort of fashion, but surrounded by lavender, roses, grapes and other gorgeous plants. After descending, we walked through a really neat park where we saw a group of female Peacocks. Then we found our way to the Lennon Wall, which is where people "wrote freely" during communism because the wall was technically on embassy property. Next we walked over Charles' Bridge, the most famous and oldest bridge in Prague. There were tons of sketch artists on the bridge, all offering to draw flattering portraits or caricatures. As we stepped off the bridge, we realized that we had crossed the river away from the true beauty of Prague.
When we got back to the hostel, we were beat. We had a cheap dinner from the supermarket and watched the first 70 minutes of the Germany-Spain World Cup Semifinal game (which Germany unfortunately lost, so everyone should be rooting for The Netherlands in the championship). We wanted to get to bed early but it turned out that we were up late enough for me to sing "Happy Birthday" to Whitney a few minutes after midnight.
We felt cheated because we only got to spend one day seeing the real, beautiful Prague. I would reccomend it to anyone who comes to Europe and especially if you like old churches, towers, palaces and castles. (AND DON'T TRY TO PET THE DOGS; Whitney got violently barked at three times before she gave up on petting the pups.)

We are off to Vienna, and if it's as beautiful as everyone says it is, then we will have plenty to write about and plenty of pictures to share. Thanks for reading.