Good Tuesday morning!!! Nicole and I are very excited to share our vacation pictures with everyone today! And I’ll start with this statement, “no, we did not post every single picture!” In fact, we actually limited our pictures on this post. Well, kinda limited! On September 19th, we boarded a plane and crossed the pond on our way to Prague! We had our suitcases packed full and our camera bags in tow! After about 18-19 hours of world travel, we pulled into our hotel late Thursday night. The Art Deco Imperial Hotel was a beautiful place! Here are a couple of images of the outside of the building.

Curious about that blur in the picture? That is one of the many rail cars in Prague. The rail car system looked like a fantastic public transportation system! Below, you’ll see two pictures from the inside of the hotel. First, on the left is a device that confused us at first. We could not for the life of us figure out how to turn the lights on in our room! It turns out that you have to place your room key in this device to be able to turn on the lights or television! On the right is a picture from the library in the hotel. The entire inside of the hotel was decorated very nicely!

This next image is a picture of the street our hotel was on at dusk.

On our first day, Nicole and I, along with our friends Larrion and Sam, traveled to Prague Castle to see the sights. Aside from being a beautiful castle/church/entire area, the view from Prague Castle was amazing!!!

The next two images give you different view of Prague Castle and the surronding area. Seriously, this city is absolutely beautiful!

Another very popular monument in Prague is the Astrological Clock Tower. This is probably the most complicated clock in the world! When the clock strikes on an hour, the skeleton pulls a chain ringing a bell and then the clock gets to work! There was always a large crowd gathered to watch the clock each hour!

Prague wasn’t the only beautiful sight…there was also my lovely wife Nicole! How cute is she?!?!

Another must see in Prague is the adeptly named “Dancing House.” This building was designed by Frank Gehry to have the appearance as if they are dancing together! Some call it the “Fred and Ginger” house. The buildings really are super cool and made for some fun pictures!

After walking all around the city on our second day in town, we went to see La Boheme at the National Theatre Opera! We had some pretty killer seats! Our own private balcony booth!

After we had our fill of La Boheme, we walked around the area near the Opera house called Wenceslas Square.

On Sunday morning, Nicole and I ventured outside of the city of Prague to Chesky Krumlov, a medieval town with a castle located about two hours outside of Prague. We hired a private tour guide to take us there, and he was amazing! Nicole and I really enjoyed learning the history of Prague and talking with someone who lived through a communist regime.  (Czech Republic became a democracy again in the early 1990s.)

On Monday morning, we took another excursion outside of Prague to Kutna Hora. We were joined on this side trip by Larrion, Sam, and Kammi! We all loaded up in a van driven by our guide and had a blast! Kutna Hora is just another beautiful town with an interesting history!  Kutna Hora was first and foremost known for its silver mining.

But Kutna Hora is more than just a beautiful city with a history of silver mining. You see it has one of the most…hmm, how do I say it…interesting/crazy/unimaginable/awesome/creepy/cool churches in the world. When you pull up to the church all you see is a small church with a surrounding cemetery. But when you step onto the grounds this is what you see next…

THE BONE CHURCH! (I couldn’t resist giving that picture a funky edit!) Some 40,000-70,000 individuals are said to have bones decorating this church.
This next image is of the Bone Church chandelier. It has at least one of each bone of the human body incorporated into it. To capture this picture, I actually laid on my back in the middle of the Bone Church. It wasn’t until we were in the van on the way back that I was told that what I laid down on was a crypt!!! NO ONE TOLD ME!!! (SHUDDERS!)

Now Nicole and I have decided to refer to Prague as “the new Paris!” In fact, Prague is for lovers! They even have a lover’s bridge where couples show their unending love by placing a lock onto the bridge. And OF COURSE, we did it, too!!!
A stone’s throw away from lover’s bridge is the Lennon wall. This wall used to have a mural of the Beatles’ John Lennon, but it has since been covered by graffiti showcasing John Lennon-inspired quotes and pieces of lyrics from Beatles’ songs! Couples also write their names and dates on this wall. We thought it made for some amazing images!

And, to end the blog, here are some nighttime pictures of Prague, including a kissy pic of Nicole and I. We started the nighttime kissy pic tradition in Sydney, Australia, and we continued it in Prague with the Charles Bridge as the backdrop!

For the final blog image, a pano of four images that I put together of the Charles Bridge as seen from a tiny island in the Vltava River. We may have already ordered a canvas of this image!

Thanks for stopping by and checking out our vacation images! Check back on Thursday because we’ll be sharing pictures of an old friend who is turning two years old!