Siblings in the Czech Republic

For our final leg of our journey, we left beautiful Austria and headed into the Czech Republic via a hired van without air conditioning.  Thankfully, we had a pit stop half way into the five hour journey in Cesky Krumlov.  This is a small town overflowing in Renaissance and baroque buildings. People were renting kayaks and spending the hot afternoon floating down the Vltava river that runs through the town.  With our limited time, we explored the narrow lanes and made our way to the Cesky Krumlov Castle.

Cesky Krumlov may now be the most pretty place in Europe, in my opinion. 

A small town surrounded by rolling hills.

This is the castle, high above town. 

 After a nice lunch and a stroll, it was back into the hot van and onto Prague. Shea and I had been there in the winter. Arthur has been there a dozen times (he was actually there the week before we showed up in Vienna). It is a city that is forever charming with it's world class beer, cobbled lanes, extraordinary historic buildings, and quirky sites.

Main Square. 

The astronomical clock that I have yet to see go off.  Maybe next time...

 We walked up to the Castle (and then we walked a super long way around the castle) but the lines were too long to go into the Cathedral.  Instead, we explored the interior parts and admired the buildings.  The boys all became enthralled with the gargoyles. And what better way to view a gargoyle that's high up on the buildings? Use the zoom lens and take a picture!  There were over 20 pictures of gargoyles for me to go through by the end of the day.  Here are some of the more interesting ones!

Man with No Hands.

Barfing Lady.

Flying Fish.

The views from the castle are spectacular!

 When it was time to leave, we again, took the long way. We did stumble onto this beauty though. Behold, a Roomba for your yard.

This little beauty will cut your grass while you watch with beer in hand!

Then it was time to drink. Arthur is really good at drinking four beers at once.

 Ange and Dave convinced the rest of us to take a segway tour. I was really against it at first. Everyone looks stupid on a segway.  They don't go that fast. How comfortable can the ride be on cobble stones?

I am so glad Ange convinced us. I don't care how stupid you look on one, they are amazing! I will always do a segway tour, if one is available.

Dave getting the hang of the segway. Out of the five of us, guess who wiped out and cut up his leg? This guy!

Arthur was a bit hesitant at first too. Like me, he has been converted to the segway ways!

It takes about 2 minutes to get the hang of these machines.  Then you are hooked!

I still believe no one looks cool on a segway.  

Beautiful Prague. Our guide took us to a bunch of great photo op spots.  

We segwayed up the the Castle and took off our helmets for this beauty shot. 

Ange was so happy! The only downside of the segway is after the tour, you are stuck walking like a chump.  

After all that work standing on a machine that moves you from place to place, it was time for a drink. This was our tally of beers at Lokal.  

We did walk to the Jewish Museum.  In an old synagogue is the list of all the Jewish people who lost their lives during WWII.  It's quite somber to see the names on all available wall space. 

Arthur found this restaurant for us. Amos!

Another beautiful shot of Prague.

The Charles Bridge.

This is a statue of two men peeing. Dave had to get in on the action. 

Shea had to out-do Dave by pulling his shirt through his fly hole and pretend to pee. 

We also visited Prague's narrowest street. It has street lights outside of it to let you know if you can walk through or if people are coming from the other direction. 

After all this fun, who would ever want to go home?  Well, unfortunately, we did.  Arthur left for Canada with his family a few days later. Ange and Dumb Dave came back to London for a few more days before they flew back home to see Arthur again.  Shea and I rested after all the family travelling we had been doing since June.

It was a wonderful experience to travel with Ange and Arthur and not have to fight for space in the minivan or listen to Too Hot To Handle on cassette.  We don't often find ourselves in the same room (or country) so it was fantastic to take advantage of our time together and drink our way through a few countries in Europe while seeing some spectacular stuff.