Our morning was long and uneventful. We passed the time talking, playing games and sleeping a little. We weren’t the only ones waiting overnight in the airport, there were many others who seemed prepared to do this on every leg of their journey – sleeping bags and all. After a while we headed back to the upstairs level where the check-ins are, and watched patiently as our check-in time slowly approached. Finally it came, and we were allowed to move through to the secure part of the airport – the part with comfortable reclining chairs that would have come in real handy over the previous eight hours.

The terminal we were leaving from was becoming familiar – it would be the second of three visits to the same row of seats. It wasn’t long before we were boarding the plane and heading to Sofia, Bulgaria. The adventure continues, because we still had no idea how to get from the airport to the bus terminal, and didn’t have tickets to get from Sofia to Varna (the other side of the country).

We met a woman on the plane that was making the same journey as us, so luckily we were able to find our way without much effort. We stopped in the bus station to eat lunch and I was surprised to find this:

One of my favourite beverages! Long since unavailable in Canada, but it is still very easy to get in Europe it seems – it’s a shame I only realized this after three weeks!

The bus arrived and we almost missed it – they thankfully waited for us and we were on our way. The trip was interesting for me, as I love the countryside views. The total trip across the country was around 5-6 hours if I recall correctly, and we arrived in Varna in the late afternoon. The woman we met on the plane was still helping us – her family that was picking her up from the bus terminal in Varna offered to drive us home as well – an offer that we graciously accepted.

We didn’t rest long. We decided to head out down to the shore and find a place to eat. It was quite an interesting strip, with sights like this not uncommon:

The food we ended up deciding on was delicious, and Desi’s aunt spotted us during dinner. It was a wonderful surprise as we hadn’t yet told anyone that we were back in town. By the time we finished it was dark, and time to head to bed – but one more stop first:

This is a cocktail bar that sits at the very top of a large hotel overlooking the city. We had seen it many times before and decided we might not have another chance to see the view on this trip – so up we went. I ordered an interesting drink and so did Desi. We sat and talked a bit as we looked out at this spectacular view:

We were both exhausted and ready for a good night’s rest, so we went back to the apartment for just that, on the way planning what tomorrow would bring.

This day marked the first day in our entire trip that I didn’t use my camera. There wasn’t much to take pictures of, however.

We awoke and had a great breakfast (and made some sandwiches for a later snack) and headed to the train station early. We didn’t have enough time to see much more of the city, and I didn’t want to convert any more money as we were about to leave the country. Desi took our remaining change and found us the best value for snacks for the rest of our journey, all but one cent. We would then board the train to Vienna, where the long wait would start.

Our plane left early in the morning to take us back to Sofia, Bulgaria. As we were arriving in the evening, we decided to stay up in the airport and wait for our check-in time. Time passed slowly. I remember falling asleep for a bit, and Desi played some games on my cell phone to pass the time as well. They would not let us check in when we got there (and all of the comfortable seats are passed the check-in point) so we spent most of the time at a McDonalds because they had padded seats.

At some point through all this, the new day started, which I’ll continue with on the next post. This also marks the last entry in our travel journal that Desi was keeping, so the rest of our trip may be a little scattered.

With a full day in Prague, we took a look at our map and decided on a few destinations. We had a great breakfast and made sandwiches to take with us (though I don’t think we were supposed to). The first place we wanted to visit was the museum that we missed out on the day before:

It turns out that admission was indeed free, but I had to pay for a sticker to use my camera (~$5 I think). We had no idea what to expect in this museum, so we were surprised to see the largest rock and mineral exhibit I could imagine. There were well over a hundred of display cases just like this:

I took quite a few photos here (many more in the gallery below), and as we were walking around I was zooming in on the photos to check and make sure they were sharp. As I was zooming in on a particular image, I noticed something shockingly familiar and went back and took another photo:

Yep, Nickel from Sudbury in a museum in the Czech Republic. I shouldn’t be surprised, as I’m told that Sudbury has some of the purest Nickel deposits in the world. Seeing this excited me, and also made me a little homesick. Desi commented that she thought the minerals were beautiful, and I would certainly agree. Many of the samples they had on display sparkled and shimmered with naturally complex geometry.

We continued to walk around the museum, and discovered enormous animal exhibits – hundreds (in some cases maybe in the thousands) of species of birds, reptiles, mammals, etc. Here is one small corner of the bird exhibit:

Most of the animals represented here looked like they were once living and now are stuffed specimens. They also had a wonderful human history exhibit with artifacts from the beginning of civilization up to a few hundred years ago. A few musical instruments, too!

After we had our fill of the museum I gave my camera sticker to another visitor that was just entering, and headed off to see the city. We wanted to visit the Prague Castle, so we hopped on the metro and got off at the closest station. “Close” probably isn’t the best word, it was still quite distant so we simply started walking in that general direction hoping we would get there eventually. The streets on the way there looked something like this:

many of the streets were lined with gift and souvenir stores, and we took the time to visit a number of them looking for gifts. In hindsight it might have been smarter to wait until the end of the day to buy things, but it didn’t matter – we were still having fun.

We happened across a church at random in a small intersection, so we headed inside and were presented with this outstanding architecture:

We spent some time here admiring the details, and even ventured upstairs – one of the only churches we were allowed to do this. We noticed a few interesting things, including graffiti dating back to the early 1800s carved into the woodwork, and the amazingly beautiful organ:

We continued our climb, higher and higher as we looked for interesting things. It turns out we were a little off course, but we were rewarded for our adventure with this view:

We sat at a restaurant and took in the sights for a bit, and I ordered a beer to continue the series (this time it was Pilsner Urquell). There were wildflowers around which had attracted a number of bees to our table so we didn’t stay long. Before we left, we made sure to commemorate our exhaustive hike with a portrait:

How with the giant cathedral at Prague Castle back in our sights, we headed in the proper direction. As we approached the castle grounds, we noticed some ornamental guards standing near entrance ways. Take a look at that bayonet on his rifle, definitely intimidating!

We finally arrived at St. Vitus Cathedral, one of the most visible landmarks in Prague. The inside of the church was simply massive, easily one of the largest we had seen:

After a quick rest here admiring the stained glass artwork, we decided that the walk home would likely take the rest of our energy and began heading back to our hostel. While trying to find our way out of the castle grounds, we made a few wrong turns and found a beautiful garden walkway with a great view of the city:

We finally found our way, and headed back along the same path we had climbed. We used some of the exchange places along the way, and when I did the math it was clear that at some point we had been ripped off. Not by much, but enough to be upsetting. However, the exchange place was uphill in the opposite direction so we decided to cut our loses and keep heading forward.

By the time we took the metro back to our hostel, we had just enough time for dinner and headed to rest as the sun was setting. One of the most tiring days in our journey, and one of the most memorable.

It was another early morning for us, leaving our hostel just past dawn and making our way to the train station. We were a little early, but that’s far better than being late. Our train would take us directly to Prague without any transfers, so we could relax.

The scenery between Berlin and Prague was beautiful, and our route took us along a riverbank for much of the way (which I believe is the Moldau / Vltava river) which looked something like this:

Another view from the riverside:

Desi caught up on a little sleep and I believe worked on one of her beautiful drawings during this journey. I also spent some time napping, and a bit of time up and around the train car trying to find good photos (like the ones above). The blue skies didn’t last, unfortunately, and when we arrived in Prague the weather was turning against us.

We found our hostel relatively easily (Prague had a great subway system), which didn’t have an elevator; We were had to climb 5 or 6 flights of stairs to get to our room. This was no small feat with the weight of our baggage, but we managed. The hostel was selling postcards made by the receptionist, so we supported the local artist by buying ours there.

By the time we were able to venture around, the rain started. We grabbed a quick bite to eat at a nearby MacDonald’s and hoped the rain would pass us by, which it didn’t. That didn’t stop us completely, as we walked quickly to a nearby church to try and snap another fisheye photo for the series:

This church has signs up saying that photography wasn’t allowed, but it was too much to resist. I grabbed a quick photo as we were waiting for the rain to lighten up a little outside, and headed on our way.

Our next stop would be the Czech National Museum, as indoor attractions were now at the top of our list. When we arrived at roughly 6:30, we learned that the museum closes at 7. This was a mixed blessing however, because the museum has free entry on the first Monday of every month, and that would be August 3rd. We resolved to come back tomorrow, but not before getting a few photos of the streets in front:

As the weather wasn’t improving, we decided to head back to our hostel and call it an early night, one of the first on our adventure. It’s a great thing we did, as the next day would be one of our most tiring. As we were preparing for bed, I took one last photo out our hostel window of the street below:

Our day started in Brussels, where we woke up early and started our day before the sun was up. We needed to book hostels in both Berlin and Prague, so we wanted to borrow one of the computers to do this. Both were in use, one simply by someone who was sleeping so we woke that person and tried to use it first, but the internet access seemed broken. We asked the other guy, who said he would just be a moment – he had his wallet stolen including all his money and credit cards. Seems like the warnings in the train station were worth their weight! We weren’t able to book anything for Berlin because they needed to be booked further in advance, but we got the names of the hostels and headed on our way.

We arrived at the train station with time to spare, we we wanted to buy some souvenir chocolate but the stores were closed. We found where our train was supposed to be and waited. When it arrived, we still had 10 minutes, and Desi thought we should have some food for the train. A great idea, so she ran off to buy some sandwiches and left the bags with me so she could hurry. It turns out the chocolate shop opened at 7, and it was now 7:05 so she was able to grab some chocolates on her way back and we got on the train with time to spare. So far, the morning was going well! Five hours until we would be in Berlin.

The trip was uneventful but beautiful, and when we arrived we completed our “standard routine” of finding maps and postcards. Once that was out of the way, we grabbed brochures for different hostels we narrowed them down by price and I started calling. We found one that was fairly close and at a good price, so we set off to check in. We ended up walking in circles for about a half hour (a very long half hour with all our bags), but finally found the bridge we were looking for:

We checked in and were given some direction for a few landmarks, the closest of which was the Berlin Wall. The area of the city was a little run-down, and there were some very poor areas that looked almost like gutted buildings with seemingly homeless people spending time there. Still, I think we felt much safer than Brussels. The wall was actually right near the train station and easy to find:

Parts of the wall looked like this, full of graffiti and vandalism. Some sections were fenced off and given to artists to show their art or messages, and was quite colourful:

We continued from here to the Alexanderplatz station, which was close to more landmarks:

The church you see there is the Berlin Cathedral, which we arrived moments too late to enter. I asked politely a few times but was returned with a strict “no entry, come back tomorrow”. Tomorrow wasn’t an option, so we moved on. We did get a passerby to take a photo of the two of us in the area though which I think turned out great:

We headed in the direction of another interesting building, which looked historical. On our way there through an alleyway we encountered a booth for admission – apparently there was an event happening. Music, beer vendors and street food vendors which we decided to check out. I tried a beer here but we wanted something more substantial for dinner so we didn’t stay long. The beer I had was supposed to have two refills, but I instead asked to keep the glass. When I said we were visiting from Canada, the owner came and brought us two more glasses to take home as souvenirs. We were somewhat shocked at the generousity and politeness – a welcome surprise!

On our way to find a restaurant we found a rose garden along the riverside, where we found this little guy:

We ate dinner at a small restaurant with a great outdoor patio and atmosphere. The food was delicious and we left completely full. On our way home the sun had set, and here is a photo from near the restaurant as we departed:

We took the train to the nearest station to our hostel and crossed the same bridge we started on:

We walked a little faster through the poor areas near our hostel as the streets weren’t well lit, but there was no worry. We arrived at the hostel and were both quite tired once again. We settled in for a good night of sleep with our minds reflecting on today and looking forward to tomorrow’s adventure in Prague.