Czech Food and Drink

Angry Parsnip asked yesterday about Czech food.
And yes, it's wonderful and we ate lots and lots of it. Probably too much.
But I'll start off with the drinks...

Well, there's beer - lots of it and very good indeed according to the beer drinking part of my family. There is a Beer Museum - really a bar - where you can have a tasting menu of five or ten types brought to you in a wooden glass container. (Guess which is my drink!)

You can go to the Yellow Tiger where Bill Clinton drank with Vaclev Havel

and admire the decor unchanged for years and years (note wonderful beer brawl print.)

You can have swanky drinks  - I had a Bellini - at Hotel Pariz

or coffee severed with water and a tiny candy

and glorious cakes

elegantly served.

Here is a pig's kuckle waiting to be devoured

and pork ribs and potato pancakes and mashed potato and breaded cauliflower. You could do OK as a vegetarian here but meat-eaters will do better, I think.

This is a meal that defeated us - potato dumplings, bread dumplings, duck, sauerkraut, red cabbage, pork and ham all on one place.....wonderful stuff but we could have shared with each other...

After that we had to have a night off and ate Italian...

An inviting look into a charming rustic restaurant.

But here is the piece-de-resistance -trdlo - dough cooked over open coals wrapped round metal poles. Rolled in sugar and cinnamon and nuts and eaten as you walk along...

My daughter's idea of heaven.

Though I love food, I'm not really obsessed with it, so apologize for  the ho-hum photos. 

Prague Windows

No defenestrations here...
just the charm of a foreign city.

All these photos were taken in the old part of town.

This one at the Castle.

Up at the castle also. You can see the cathedral reflected above the charming lace.

In the pink

billowing

cheery

more pink

a bit gloomy for a flower shop...

more lace

I love street signs in foreign places.

The Bone Church at Kutna Hora

Beneath this rather charming small church about fifty miles outside Prague is an ossuary - a place decorated entirely with bones. See wikipedia here

Very halloween-y and a bit disturbing.

Written in the bones...

A bone chandelier.

A pile of the same...

Part of the family crest.

After that a change of scenery and another part of the town

with terraced gardens

St Barbara's Cathedral

and a restaurant with a garden and a wood pile

and a pail beneath the Virginia creeper.

Looking Up, Looking Down - Looking Everywhere

Everyone said we would love Prague...

and we do! Here looking down from the castle towards the old town across the red roof tops.

We need to come back when they're snow-covered. 

Some putti at the castle

and the towers so reminiscent of Disney films. A well marked WC - very useful where beer is as plentiful as water. A great pity that I never drink beer though the rest of the family love it.

The view from our hotel window.

More roofs from near the river  - you can almost see the working water wheel center right.

People walking across the Charles Bridge. So many images coming  at me at once. Compare and contrast with Vienna last year - both former Austro-Hungarian Empire, only two hundred miles apart, both prosperous and tourist-filled. Much to think about - and a great deal to eat.

The Joy of Trains

This post is to be filed under 'other places'. We are in the Czech Republic where my husband's family came from over a hundred years ago.

Here is Prague railway station in all it's art nouveau glory

where we are to set out on a small adventure.

These are the old ticket windows - the new station is below ground level and very modern Euro-chic.

The original lobby with Austro-Hungarian shields. 

Then the trains with links to all parts of Europe - so freighted with history.

Leaving the city behind

and the old snack bar, we arrive at Kutna Hora

where we discover a magical city 

that reminds me a little of a Tuscan hill town and I'll write more about tomorrow.