Karlštejn and Amerika

Wendy and I woke up bright and early as always and took the tram to Prague Castle. We stopped for "breakfast" at the place where Wendy promised was "the best ice cream in Prague." It was swirled strawberry-banana frozen yogurt. Although it may not have been the best in Prague, it was really delicious. Next we arrived at Prague Castle to explore the areas that we hadn't the day before. We went in a very old chapel located behind the giant cathedral.

Then we went to Golden Lane, which was a narrow street with a rich history. 

Now it has shops and small exhibits on it, but originally, alchemists lived there and people would get there fortunes told there and such. I would also add that the entrances to the shops and exhibits are small stone entryways and it is very difficult to see how small the entrance is when you are wearing a hat described by Vidal as "I saw your hat before I saw you." Anyway I hit my head twice on the doorway. Wendy took a nice picture of me in pain.

They also had an old jail that we got to go into. Then we headed off to meet Wendy's mom at the mall so she could drive us to Karlštejn. On our way though, there was a stand selling trdelnik with ice cream, strawberries, and bananas and Wendy told me this would be the last time that we'd be able to get trdelnik and thereby convinced me to get some. So before 10 am, I found myself having eaten some vanilla ice cream, strawberries, bananas, and an ice cream cone with these flavors, not to mention the actual trdelnik. So back to Karlštejn. This is the 2nd most important castle in Czech Republic after Prague Castle. Although it was surrounded by touristy shops, the castle was really impressive from outside.

I went on a tour of the castle and although the insides were not nearly as lavish as the castle we went to with Erica and Vidal, this castle was much older (14th century) and was built by Charles the 4th who is very important in European history and therefore the tour was centered on history rather than the actual sites to see within the castle. I saw a writing room, two rooms filled with paintings of the castle, a chapel whose wall paintings were nearly all gone, a smaller chapel whose walls were covered with jasper and thereby preserved, some rooms containing items from the times the castle has been attacked or remodeled, and finally one grand chapel. The wall of this chapel were covered in paintings of saints and stones. The ceilings were gold and Venetian and Czech glass. This room was very pretty. But alas there were no pictures allowed on this tour. 

Afterwards we had lunch near the castle and I had chicken risotto which was incredibly tasty, with mushrooms, white and green onions, spices, and more. Then we went on to Amerika. Amerika is sometimes called "the Grand Canyon of the Czech Republic, " but Wendy says that only people who have never been to the real Grand Canyon say that because this is so much smaller. We got to look over a cliff and view the canyon from above. At the bottom there was a lake which looked a lot like some oasis. It was an amazing shade of blue-green and it was very clear. the surface dazzled in the sun and although it wasn't very big, it was impressive.

Then we went back to Louny. We met Wendy's grandparents at a garden which they own. They grew cherries, blueberries, apples, strawberries, zucchini, cucumbers, and more. We were treated to some freshly picked blueberries and cherries which were delicious. Today they decided that we'd have traditional Czech food eaten on Christmas, so we went back to Wendy's home and had chicken schnitzel and potato salad made by Wendy's mom and it was amazing. I have not been hungry since like last week but I just keep eating because everything is so good.