Munich and Prague

Munich Day 1--We took a day trip out to the Nueschwanstein Castle about 2 hours away from town. We thought that we could just walk right up to the place and book our tour, but it happened to be just the day that 2 schools had also booked tours. The guy at the office was very nice and offered to get us (and 6 other people) to the castle by train and still get us a guide. It saved us around $40 to book it that way, so we happily agreed to go by train. The hike up to the castle was supposed to be "steep for a little bit". By that, the guide meant to say that it was like trying to climb up the side of a mountain for 30+ minutes. I'm definitely not in the right shape for that, pregnant or not, but I would say trying to do it while somebody is taking up extra oxygen and much needed blood cells from my body didn't help my cause! We did make it to the castle and it was beautiful! We hiked along a bridge and saw a pretty waterfall where some people were swimming down below. The tour ended with an hour long bike ride. Instead of torturing myself any more, I let Erik go with the group and stayed at the cafe drinking a coke and reading a book. The hour went by quickly. We were exhausted when we got back to the hotel and crashed for the rest of the night.

Munich day 2--We spent today walking around the city. We ate lunch at Hofbrauhaus. I'm sure it's more exciting at night when all of the drinking happens. It was too much food for lunch, though. There is a little place where you can read about the history of the restaurant. I think if I had to do it again, I would walk through the place and eat lunch somewhere else. Oh well. It was an experience. We ended the afternoon in the English Garden. It's like Central park with lots of things to see. There is a place where people can surf in the river, but we never found them.

Train to Prague--We had to take a train to Prague this night. We were quite proud of ourselves for figuring out how to get here. We were nervous because it seemed like the train didn't go all the way to Prague. We were right, and about an hour or so into the trip, one of the train attendants finally told us that we would have to switch trains into Prague. When we got here, we didn't have a clue as to how to get tot he hotel. We asked a police officer who pointed us into the OPPOSITE direction of where we needed to go! After wandering around for at least 30 minutes, I found a nice looking group of Czech people who walked us all the way to our hotel. It did make us feel a little better that it wasn't easy for them to find either!

Prague day 1--We are going to go on a city tour today starting at 2. I'm too tired to try an all day tour, so this one should do me just fine. We hope that if we can find some places that we would like to check out some more, we can do that tomorrow. The other option is to go to Kutna Hora tomorrow for a day trip before our train will take us to Krakow, leaving at 9 PM.