Our Summer Vacation, part 1

I think I promised a writeup of our Prague to Budapest bike trip. Now that I have some time to sit down and type it in... Thank you for your patience. It will appear in bits and pieces over the next few weeks.

So. We were doing the REI Adventures Prague to Budapest bike trip, from July 3 to July 11.
http://www.rei.com/adventures/trips/europe/praguebk.jsp

Amazingly enough, we had enough frequent flyer miles AND the dates we wanted were available. So we committed :-)

July 30...
All packed the night before. The bike dissassembly and packing went well - the new self-extracting crank bolts worked well, and made packing smoother. I took a picture of the bike all packed, and Photoshopped in orientation text, printed it out, and stuck it in the case for future reference.



My dad picked us up at 4am for airport delivery; and the helpful check-in person checked our bags all the way to Prague, even though she couldn't check us in for the Lufthansa flights from Detroit and Frankfurt. The bike suitcase weighed 49 lbs.

Had a Vienna hotdog with the neon relish in Chicago, then on to Detroit. We had a LOOOOONG layover in Detroit. We arrived in the old North terminal, and discovered that we needed to get over to the MacNamara terminal. Found the shuttle, then checked in at the nearly deserted Lufthansa desk (we were SO early). Once we got past security, the terminal became much nicer. We had to work out a meeting plan for the children at the other end of the trip (they were joining us in Michigan for a week at the family cottage afterward) - found an internet cafe and sent them email to meet us at International Arrivals in the MacNamara terminal, with directions on how to get to the terminal. Then window shopping and dinner at a Japanese restaurant. Watched the shuttle train ride back and forth along the upper level of the terminal.

Long flight to Frankfurt, but we did get fed twice. Then a long layover in Frankfurt. Very few places to sit. We hung out in a Kuwait Airways gate, dozing in chairs for about 90 minutes, then found a couple sets of unoccupied chairs and got some real sleep. I did, anyway.



Got some Haagen Dazs ice cream, then went to a long security line for our gate. My tiny little eyeglass repair screwdriver caused an awful lot of excitement...

Then a short flight to Prague, with a roll w/cheese spread and a candy bar as a snack, which is much better than anything one gets on a US domestic flight.

Entry into the Czech Republic was uneventful, except for Fitz's suitcase not showing up... Did the report, then went and found our driver, who was just about ready to give up.

Hotel Adria is very centrally located, by the Wenceslas monument on Vaclavske Namesti, which used to be the horse market.

Fitz had been paranoid, and packed a change of clothes and a set of cycling clothes, so he was ok for the first couple days, at least.

After checking in (it was early evening), we went for a walk, aiming for the Charles Bridge. We did find it, and were caught in a brief downpour.



After walking most of the way across the bridge, we walked back to the town square to watch the Astronomical Clock strike the hour:



Plus we saw a few interesting museums:



Prague has churches EVERYWHERE. Ornate churches, with statues and gilding. We then foraged for dinner (chicken burger from a street vendor); Fitz had a taste of the original Budweiser. Tastes better than the American version, but not much.

Back to the hotel, to attempt sleep...

All the pictures from the trip can be found here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/20084214@N00/collections/72157600975963805/