The Honeymoon

When we first started planning our honeymoon, Lindsie had visions of the beach and tropical sunsets in Bora Bora. Pratik didn't seem all too excited with these plans, but ever the gentleman he let his bride continue to plan her dream vacation. Lindsie caught on to what was yet another selfless act on his part and began researching Pratik's dream destination, Prague, a place he's talked about going to as long as we've known each other. When she mentioned it to him and saw his eyes light up she knew, and thus our honeymoon plans were born!

We spent 10 days total in Europe-July 17-23 in Prague and July 24-27 in Salzburg. We had planned to go to Karlovy Vary while in the Czech Republic, but we had so much fun in Prague we didn't want to leave and thus cancelled that excursion. A person could spend a month in Prague seeing all there is to see. An entire day of our honeymoon was spent exploring Prague Castle and we still missed parts of it! When they say Prague is the “city of a thousand spires,” they aren’t kidding! We saw six churches and still didn’t even see every one.

Among the cool things we did see and do: walked across the Charles Bridge dozens of times, horse-drawn carriage ride, the Jewish quarters of Prague, ate Indian food from Indians who spoke Czech, Old Town Square, the Astronomical Clock, rode in a classic car that had to be started by winding it in the front, received massages in our hotel’s spa, bought 24 crystal glasses (which was hand carried on multiple flights by Pratik,) spent a Sunday afternoon in Kutná Hora outside of Prague, eating 2 dozen pralines from our hotel’s café, climbed hundreds of steps to get to Prague Castle (Lindsie was not a happy camper,) drank tons of orange Fanta (it’s better in Europe,believe us,) took a boat ride on the Vltava river, saw a concert put on by a Swedish choir, and the list goes on and on!

Our hotel was amazing! The Alchymist is a five star establishment that lives up to it’s rating! We slept in a gold canopy beds with cherubs at the foot and beautiful tapestry rugs, curtains, and bedding adorned our room. They left us a bottle of Czech champagne and fruit the first night, and a bottle of Cabernet the next with a birthday card for me! (How thoughtful that they noticed!) Though our hotel was small (it used to be a residence and has since been converted into 45 suites) it even had a swimming pool in the basement. We asked our cabana boy (yes, there was one) if he could turn on the jets. It was like being in a giant hot tub. The Poseidon on the wall next to the pool spouted water into the center. After swimming we strolled over to the spa’s juice bar and read Spanish Vogue…or at least one of us did! By the way, our hotel neighbors the American and Irish embassies in Prague. In order to drive past the embassies, you need to stop at a police check point at the street and let them do a quick search of your vehicle. Our driver told us that this check point is paid for by the American embassy for extra security! It just so happens that Franz Kafka used to live in the American embassy when it was an apartment building. Ironically, this is where he wrote his book “Amerika.”

Our honeymoon wasn’t just spent doing romantic things, it was spent seeing weird things that you would expect from the two of us, like the Franz Kafka Museum, the Museum of Communism (which is located above McDonald’s-oh the irony,) and the Ossuary (which is decorated with human bones from the Hussite Wars and the Plague.) Can we say “oh l’amour!”?

And can you believe that after all of that, we still had 3 more days to spend in Salzburg?? Our train ride to Austria was, shall we say, interesting. We arrive at Prague’s main station in a Mercedes. Considering that Prague’s train station is pretty run down, this must have been quite a sight. Our driver informed us that the train station is soon going to be renovated, and proceeded to help us carry our 5 pieces of luggage down the stairs and back up the stairs to the correct platform. How nice of him! Pratik started to observe the trains and their run-down condition. “Don’t worry,” Lindsie assures him, “I’ve been on many trains in Europe. Wait until ours gets here! Plus, I bought us first class tickets.” Then our train rolls up…in the same condition as the other trains. No air conditioning. For seven hours. To Salzburg. Even Pratik was not enjoying this “adventure” on our sweltering hot, vintage, smelly, supposed to be non-smoking train. It quickly put an end to our first-class getaway!

Our hotel in Salzburg wasn’t as fancy as the Alchymist, but it wasn’t bad! We had the Mozart room (which meant that there was a mural of Mozart on the wall) and Nutella at breakfast each morning—who can complain about that? In Salzburg, we went to Mozart’s house, the salt mines, on a boat tour on the River Salz, to the mountains in Bavaria, Koenigsee and Berchtesgaden (both in Bavaria,) the Eagle’s Nest (again with the “romance,”) ate Viennese “Sacher Torte” at the Sacher Hotel, the Salzburg Fortress (the most well preserved medieval fortress in Europe,) the trick fountains at Schloss Hellbrunn, and of course on the SOUND OF MUSIC TOUR! Though it wasn’t Pratik’s idea of a great afternoon, he did enjoy watching Lindsie sing along with the rest of the Sound of Music enthusiasts. Plus, it allowed us to have some time in Mondsee just outside of Austria at the Basilika Mondsee. This church was where the wedding took place in the Sound of Music. Today, they hand out complimentary bottles of holy water…in recycled Jaegermeister bottles. (No kidding…) We think that’s what they’re contributing to the going green campaign.

The weather in Europe was hot, hot, hot! Record temperatures scorched cities across the continent. Prague was the hottest part of our trip. Rain came down on our first day in Salzburg, but we were grateful for anything cool at that point. The weather in Salzburg, though warm, was mild in comparison to Prague. We even saw on CNN that people in Budapest were dying of heat exhaustion. Since we had toyed with the idea of going to Hungary, we were pretty happy we decided to stick with just a couple of destinations. While Salzburg was beautiful, we LOVED Prague and can’t wait to go back. It was just too good to be true! We’re happy Pratik got to realize a dream in going to Prague and that Lindsie just got to use her passport again! (And we’re happy to report that almost all of her old pages are full, just in time for its expiration next year.)

A lot of you gave us “honey money” to use specifically on our honeymoon, and we just want to express our gratitude for that! You know that we both live to see the world and because of your gifts we didn’t have to spare any expense-we got to see everything, do everything, and buy everything that we wanted on this trip. It was truly a relaxed and luxurious experience for the both of us and we’ll forever cherish the memory!

During one of our many strolls on the Charles Bridge, we both touched the relief under the statue of Saint John of Nepomuk. According to the legend, touching this relief will ensure your return to the city of Prague. Needless to say we did this more than once! We look forward to the day we return to Prague.