Prague: Days 1-3

Day 1:

Our first day in Prague was a travel day, so we didn’t actually get into the city until mid-afternoon. Then, while trying to find our hotel, we got very, very lost. We probably took every wrong turn we possibly could and it was scorching hot. Plus, we were both carrying around 20+ pounds on our backs, which made things even more miserable. Once we finally did get to our hotel, we were so relieved by the nice, air-conditioned rooms with complimentary apples that we didn’t leave for the rest of the night.

Day 2:

In order to make up for the lack of sight-seeing on our first day in Prague, we spent all of the second day walking around the city seeing everything we could. We started out at Malostranske Namesti (the main square), where we saw the church of Sv Mikulas:

Next, we walked up this cute little street:

To get to the Prague Castle, which includes St. Vitus’ Cathedral:

And the Old Royal Palace (you can see it in the distance here):

After a quick lunch, we walked across Charles Bridge:

And found this really adorable square called Staromestake Namesti:

Finally, we walked down Wenceslas Square (apparently, Good King Wencleslas is from Prague, his crown jewels are actually in St. Vitus’ Cathedral, but they are hardly ever taken out), and ended up at the National Museum, which we didn’t go inside. We did sit by the fountains for a while, which was nice.

Day 3:

On our third day in Prague, we decided to take a day trip to Terezin, which was a concentration camp during World War II. The weather was gray and it drizzled for most of the day, which made for kind of the perfect atmosphere for such a somber place. It was a very humbling experience. The whole place just had this terrible, gloomy feel to it. Terezin wasn’t a death camp, but many of the people there died from the terrible conditions and a good part of those who made it through their time in Terezin ended up getting sent to die in Auschwitz. Here are some pictures from the day:

This is a picture of what a typical women’s dormitory would look like:

This was above the entrance to one of the sections of the camp. It was kind of a Nazi slogan that means “working makes us free” or something to that effect:

They had dozens of rooms that looked just like this where 50 prisoners would sleep:

While the Nazis were running the camp, they either cremated the bodies of the dead prisoners or buried them in mass graves, sometimes with over 600 bodies in one grave. After the liberation of the camp, the bodies were dug up and laid to rest in the national cemetery: 

Vienna: Days 1-3

We got into Vienna around 10:00 in the morning and were praying that we would be able to check into our hotel right away. Luckily, things worked out for us. We checked in, grabbed a quick pastry for breakfast, and headed back to the hotel for a nice, long nap. Beds are much more comfortable than lying places.

After our nap, we did some walking around the city. We walked through the museum quarter (which we’re planning to return to tomorrow to actually go inside), and a park called Volksgarten where we had a light lunch. Then we saw the Austrian National Library:

The Art History and Natural History Museums:

Parliament:

and the town hall, Rathaus:

When we were walking to find some dinner, we saw a woman selling apricots on the side of the street and they looked amazing, so we bought a box to take back to the hotel. They are delicious and we haven’t had good fruit in a long time, so they’ll keep us from getting scurvy too. Then we had dinner at a nice little café:

Finally, we walked through Stephensplatz, a shopping district with 3 H&Ms, in the background you can see Votivkirche, where Haydn was married:

The next two days of our stay in Vienna were dedicated almost completely to seeing the musical sights. Greg just about died with all of the awesome places we got to go. We started out by going to the House of Music, which had exhibits for all of the major composers who lived in Vienna. In these exhibits, we got to see things like Schubert's glasses:

And the last door Beethoven ever walked through:

They also had what we're pretty sure was Haydn's parrot (stuffed), who would say "Papa Haydn" and sing part of the national anthem. Greg didn't want to take a picture of that for some reason.

Next, we went to Mozart's house. This is the room where he composed The Magic Flute, 3 of his best piano concertos including the D minor, and a ton of other stuff:

After that, we headed over to Beethoven's apartment where he composed the 5th, 7th, and 8th Symphonies, the 4th Piano Concerto, Fidelio, and a ton of other stuff. Here's Greg with Beethoven's death mask:

The next day, we started out by going to Haydn's house, where he composed "The Creation" and also passed away. This is Greg with Haydn's clavichord:

Upstairs in Haydn's house was an exhibit dedicated to Brahms. Brahms' apartment was destroyed in the early 1900s, so the furniture that remained along with some pictures are now displayed in Haydn's house instead:

Next, we went to the Zentralfriedhof Cemetery where all these amazing composers now have their final resting place. Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Schubert, and J. Strauss are all buried within twenty feet of each other. It's incredible to stand in the midst of all these men who created the most beautiful music:

After the cemetery, we went to the house where Schubert died. It was a three room apartment that was completely new when he moved in (apparently the walls hadn't even fully dried yet, which wasn't very good for his health). The room Greg is standing in front of is the room he died in:

After that, we went to the Belvedere palace/museum (right before it closed) mainly to see "The Kiss" by Klimt. There were no pictures allowed, but Greg snuck this one (this guy would NOT get out of the way!):

Greg also loved the Schiele paintings.

Finally, to conclude 2 days of music tourist attractions, we went to hear Mozart's Requiem in Karlskirche, a beautiful church with great acoustics:

It was incredibly moving. I had never heard it in full, but I've wanted to since I first saw Amadeus back in 7th grade. We loved every moment of it, especially the Lacrimosa. It was probably the best ending to an amazing city that we could have hoped for. 

Frankfurt: Days 1 & 2

Apparently, we scheduled our trip to Frankfurt during the hottest two weeks of the year. I guess it doesn’t get that hot otherwise, so no one bothers to invest in air conditioning. Our hotel room was sweltering. We got into our hotel around 11:30 PM and spent the rest of the night sweating away.

The next morning, we walked back to the train station and spent quite a while booking a bunch of tickets for the next several places we’ll be going. It took up a lot of our day, but it’s nice to have it done.

When we were done with that, we decided to do another little walking tour through the city. We walked down alongside the river along this cute path with trees whose trunks look like camouflage. It was very nice.

We made our way to a cute little plaza with all these adorable buildings. 

We found out that Goethe’s house was nearby, so we followed the signs there, but when we got there it had already closed. Too bad. I love Faust.

Next, we got dinner at a cute little café that had some amazing desserts. Greg ordered some ice cream that looked like spaghetti.

After dinner, we hurried back to our hotel so that Greg could watch the World Cup Final. I watched too, just not as intently. He even took a picture to commemorate this part of our trip: 

On day two, we took a riverboat tour on the Rhine where we saw at least a dozen castles. They would just randomly pop up all over the place, most of them in really good condition. It was a very relaxing way to see a lot of cool stuff.

The tour took almost the whole day, so after it was over, we went back to the train station, got dinner, and waited for our first overnight train to Vienna. Since we’re already in Vienna, I’ll tell you about that trip now:

We were planning on booking beds for the trip, but we found out that reserving them would cost about $150. However, we found out there was something in between a bed and a seat (the lady who helped us called it a “lying place”) that was much cheaper, so we got that instead. When we got into our little compartment, the seats looked a whole lot more like seats than beds. Also, there was someone in our compartment who didn’t have a reservation there, which made it a lot more crowded than we would have liked. Luckily, he got off at the first stop (about 1:30 in the morning). We figured out how to recline the seats, which made them a little more comfortable too, but it wasn’t a very restful night. Luckily, we only have one more overnight train. 

Interlaken: Days 1 & 2

Interlaken: Days 1 & 2

Interlaken is a little town where a lot of tourists who want to see the Alps stay. Like the rest of Switzerland, it’s adorable. We really enjoyed our time there. The first day, we walked around a bit and had some delicious pizza for lunch. After that, we decided to take advantage of one of the beautiful lakes we saw on the train ride over. We took a bus to Lake Thunersee and spent the rest of the day lounging around there. We rented a boat and Greg rowed us around for a little while. The water there is an amazing color and the landscape is just gorgeous:

After rowing for a while, we decided to take a little dip (the water was freezing!) and then read in some chairs by the lake. It was very relaxing. Do you like my cute tan line?

On our way back to our hotel, we ran into some missionaries! One of them went to BYU before his mission and had seen Greg’s concert there, so that was kind of cool. They were really nice and it was fun to talk to them while we waited for our bus.

I am sorry to announce that for dinner that night, we had McDonalds. Everything in Switzerland is ridiculously expensive, even the mediocre food. We knew we would be spending a lot of money the next day on tickets into the Alps, so we wanted a cheap dinner (something that isn’t even possible in Switzerland, even the value meals at McDonalds were twelve bucks).

However, it was all worth it because the next day, the Alps were incredible. After taking a short train and bus ride, we took a tram up to this tiny little town in the mountains called Gimmelwald. It’s very secluded and almost something out of the past, but it’s beautiful.

We hiked from Gimmelwald to the next town called Muren, where we caught the tram again and headed up to the top of the Schilthorn. On the top of this mountain is a revolving restaurant where we ate lunch and got a panoramic view of all the amazing-ness surrounding us. It was incredible!

This is also the location where one of the James Bond movies (Her Majesties Secret Service or something like that) was filmed, so we got to watch a little excerpt of the movie.

After heading down the Alps, we stopped at Trummelbach Falls. It’s this amazing waterfall running through a mountain. They have lights and paths inside the mountin so you can walk through and see it at different points. It was amazing how much force it had.

After seeing the waterfall, we headed back to the train station where we got a quick dinner before catching our late night train to Frankfurt. We already miss Switzerland. 

Bern: Days 1 & 2

Our guide book told us that Bern was the most immediately charming of all the Swiss cities. Charming is a great word for it. For those of you who don't know, Bern is the capital of Switzerland. It actually doesn't feel like the capital of a country at all though. It's a very small, quaint, beautiful town. We love it here.

The first full day we had here, we walked through the city in its entirety. We got a map with a little trail on it that it suggested we take, so we did that. The streets are all adorable and almost every apartment building has a cute little flower box in every window. On our stroll through the city, we saw a few beautiful churches:

A plaza with fountains:

Two old men playing a game of chess (we caught the end and when one guy one, they just left in separate directions without saying anything. Kind of funny):

Einstein's home (where he began work on the theory of relativity):

the bear pits:

and some incredible views like this one:

Also, an X6. I totally want one:

After our tour of the city, we came back to the hotel for dinner where Greg ordered schnitzel with noodles. I think I've had the song stuck in my head ever since.

Today, we went to the temple. Amazingly enough, we didn't have any trouble finding it and the temple workers there were so sweet! We heard about 4 languages being spoken: French, German, Italian, and English. The session was in Italian, but they gave us head seats, so we could understand everything. I also brought along our family names. It was really cool because we were doing work for people from Switzerland while in Switzerland. Definitely a great experience and a beautiful temple.

After the temple, we grabbed a quick lunch and then headed back to the hotel for a short nap. Then, we went to the river to dip our feet in and read our books. It was lovely.

Our feet are getting awesome tan lines. It's pretty sweet.

Bern is beautiful. We love it here.