Farewell Prague (Already?)!

Hello Prague. Goodbye Prague. In many ways, those four words and their brevity feel like the six weeks we spent in the Czech Republic. During our time there, we only posted one entry to our blog and that was just one small event.

Prague is one of the most beautiful cities that we’ve seen (and that’s getting to be a lot of cities). There are many things to do in Prague, but what makes it so magical is its ever present, yet unassuming beauty. In fact, we became so accustomed to being surrounded by spectacular buildings that we often had to remind ourselves to simply stop and look up at the architecture around us. The Old Town Square is a vast space of cobblestone surrounded by the fanciful steeples of Tyn Church, painted art nouveau buildings, The Old Town Hall, the Church of St. Nicholas and several pricey cafes. A statue of Jan Huss floats in the square, surrounded by vibrant tulips. But the reason that we visited the square everyday was none of these things. It was the horse-drawn carriages, or more specifically, the “Or-sies!” as Luke so affectionately yelled with each sight of them. The Charles Bridge and Prague Castle require special mention, especially when seen at night, illuminated in all their splendor. We never tired of strolling along the river at night with the imposing Prague Castle lit up in the distance.

When we arrived in Prague on March 18, it felt like winter. In fact, it was snowing sideways! But in the six short weeks we were there, we experienced that wonderful transition from winter to spring. We saw trees and flowers bud and then bloom. The parks at Letna and Petrin Hill provided huge, lush green spaces and amazing views of the Vltava River and city below.

We were lucky enough to have both sets of parents/grandparents and (Uncle) Nate visit us in Prague. It was great sharing our Czech Republic home with them. One great thing about grandparents is FREE BABYSITTING – and although we didn’t take advantage of the opportunity enough (they might disagree), we enjoyed hitting the town a little on our own.

Matt’s Thunderbird experience in Prague was excellent. He was very busy with group projects, but he had plenty of downtime to enjoy life away from school. In fact, we all went down to a beautiful town called Cesky Krumlov with Matt’s classmates. They didn’t know what to think of having the whole Austin crew plus the Casabians on the bus heading back to Prague. It is hard to believe that one year of school is done – only two more trimesters to go!

We have included a sampling of our vast collection of pictures from our time in the Czech Republic. We hope you enjoy. Next stop: Stockholm!