Strolling Around Mala Strana and Old Town

Prague Day 9 - Strolling Around

Our last day in Prague, so we decided to take it easy and just walk around and see what we see.  We went back down to the Old Town area and found the Basilica of St. James.  Another huge, baroque church.  What was lovely during our visit was that the organist was practicing so we had an impromptu concert as we looked at the church.  We wandered further down towards the river, poked our heads into the Rudolfinium, a big concert hall, and then crossed over the Cesky Bridge to the Mala Strana area on the other side.  There we wandered down to the water where folks were feeding a flock of swans.  It was lovely and mild today, in the low 50s and very sunny. It was very pleasant walking around.  Then we wandered down little cobblestoned streets off the main thoroughfares, looking in shops and admiring the beautiful buildings.  I had my daily  hot mulled wine.  We poked in a variety of shops and then had lunch in a little cafe near the Malastranska Square.  My lunch dessert was my beloved Trdelnik, my last of this trip.  After lunch we continued exploring the little streets near the river and found the church of St. Mary Under the Chain, the oldest church in the Mala Strana district.  The name refers to the chain that used to stretch across the river at the Charles Bridge to stop ships that were making their way upriver to make them pay taxes.  After we left the church we wandered some more and came upon the John Lennon Wall.  This is a wall full of graffiti, that during the communist era in the former Czechoslovakia was a place where those who yearned for freedom from communist rule wrote graffiti during the day, using lines from Lennon's songs and the graffiti would be painted over at night by the authorities.  Since the Velvet Revolution in 1989 the graffiti has been left alone and the result is a wall that is a riot of color.  Just around the corner from the wall is the John Lennon Pub the entrance of which is constructed to look like the entrance to the Yellow Submarine!  As we came around the corner from the pub, we crossed over an inlet and on the bridge we saw hundreds of padlocks.  Apparently, in Europe, since the turn of the century, it has been customary for young lovers to put a padlock on bridges and similar monuments with their names and marriage dates (or engagement dates) as an expression of their love and their intention for their commitment to be unbroken.  They put the lock on the bridge then throw the key into the water!  I had to laugh as I saw one padlock that was a combination lock!  I wondered if that couple decided to hedge their bets!!  We saw another batch of locks a little further down close to the Charles Bridge.  After that we walked back up to the Malastranska Square and caught the Tram back to our neighborhood.  We wandered around up here for awhile, since this was the first time we've been in this neighborhood in the late afternoon.  The place was hopping with activity, unlike at night when we've walked to our favorite restaurant for dinner and everything is closed and quiet.  At this point we are in the throes of packing.  We plan to return to the local restaurant that we like so much for dinner.  We have an early departure from here tomorrow morning, and are fervently hoping that the mass flight cancellations going on in the US today will have abated by the time we hit Detroit tomorrow.  Today's pics include a shot inside St. Mary Under the Chain, me in the cafe where we stopped for lunch, the Lennon wall and the restaurant that has been our favorite eating spot.  We're hoping for traveling mercies tomorrow!  And we will have to steel ourselves for the frigid temps after the much more mild weather we've enjoyed here!

Karlovy Vary

Prague Day 8 - Karlovy Vary

Today we took a bus tour to Karlovy Vary, a beautiful spa town in Western Bohemia, near the border of Germany and the Czech Republic.  This time our tour was heavily populated by Russian tourists, with a number of Germans and only a handful of English speakers.  Our tour guide did the whole tour in three languages - Russian, German and English!  It was amazing to listen to her switch back and forth between all three as she narrated the tour!  

Karlovy Vary is the home of the famous Czech crystal known as Moser crystal, founded in 1857.   It is elegant and the finest crystal, used by kings and queens (including the Queen of England, we were told) and heads of state and very wealthy people the world over.  The museum has some spectacular pieces of engraved crystal, truly breathtaking.  We stopped first at the factory, saw the museum where we learned how the crystal is made and then had a fascinating tour of the factory itself.  It was mesmerizing to stand and watch the glassblowers making the various pieces.  It was nice in the factory area because with all the ovens going it was warm!  I came away with a whole new appreciation for the work that goes into even the most common vessel, like a wine glass!  If I ever win the lottery, I'll come back and buy some Moser crystal, but thats what it would take!  

Then we went into the town, which is known for its hot springs, believed to have healing and restorative powers, and the many elegant, expensive spas that were built on those hot springs.  People come from all over the world for really serious spa treatments, involving the mineral waters and other treatments, many of which last for 3 to 4 weeks at a time.  This is not a place you come for a one hour treatment, this is serious healing work!  The hot springs are all over the town so as you walk along you can stop at any of the spigots that are everywhere and help yourself to some hot, mineral water.   People come along with water bottles or cups to fill up and drink up.  The water is hot, about 50-60 degrees centigrade and fairly salty, although smooth in texture as you drink it.  Many people buy little beakers which are ceramic, and look like flattened tea cups with a handle that acts as a straw that you drink the water through, thereby saving your teeth from stains from the minerals in the water.  This town has been visited by many famous artists, musicians, intellectuals, heads of state throughout its history.  We saw the house that Mozart stayed in when he visited, and another in which Goethe lived at various times.  The place is quite popular with Russians we noticed.  Not only were they the majority of our tour group but everywhere we went in the town the signs were in Russian as well as Czech and German.  Little to no English visible anywhere!  

During our free time we stopped into the Church of St. Mary Magdalene, which is a beautiful, baroque church.  I've included a picture here.  There was to be a concert there this evening so while we were visiting we heard the musicians practicing for tonight.  Brass music was playing from the balcony and the soprano was warming up at the same time!  We walked all over the town, which is pedestrian traffic only -cars not allowed in the main area, which is nice.  I tried the waters at several different spots.  The picture included here is one of the spigots near the big geyser in the middle of town.  The geyser shoots way up  in the air and they pump the water into  the spigots along a walkway where the water has had a chance to cool. As it comes up from the earth it is way too hot to drink.  By the time it moves out to the various spigots nearby, it is a drinkable temperature!

Karlovy Vary is also known for sweet wafers called oplatky wafers.  They are a very thin, sweet cookie/wafer (actually they look like large communion wafers!) and they come in a variety of flavors.  They are popular in the spa towns to neutralize the flavors of the mineral waters.  They are delicious, so I bought a box each of chocolate, vanilla and cinnamon.  Just hope I can get them home in one piece!  They are pretty delicate.    I noticed people buying them in large quantities.  They are quite a hit and only available in Karlovy Vary and one other spa town.  

By 5:00 we had to return to our bus for the two hour drive back to Prague.  We were let off at the  Old Town Square, where the Christmas market was having its last night of events (feast of the Epiphany today!)  I had my daily dose of mulled wine and my trdelnik as we walked back through the Old Town Square towards home.  We stopped into the famous Tyn church where they were just finishing the Epiphany Mass, so we caught the last few minutes of that as we headed home.  Having had my dessert first, I then got a kielbasa from one of the street vendors for my dinner.  We had a big lunch at one of the hotels in Karlovy Vary so I didn't need much of a meal this evening.  

So tomorrow is our last day. We are still figuring out what we want to do with our last few hours in Prague!  

Jewish Quarter

Prague Day 7 - Jewish Quarter

Today we did the Jewish Quarter in the Old Town.  The common tour is a collection of Jewish historical artifacts and Judaica spread out over 4 old synagogues that are now museums, rather than places of worship, the Jewish Cemetary and the Ceremonial Hall that houses a lot of Jewish religious ritual items.  We walked to the Jewish Quarter through Old Town, stopping first at an open air market and then walking back through Old Town Square which was hopping with activity.  There was a jazz band playing in the square so we listened to them for awhile before proceeding on towards the Jewish Quarter.  When we got there we joined throngs of people on the same route as us, which is pretty much the standard route for seeing the Jewish quarter.  We started at Pinkas Synagogue which is now a memorial to the Czech Jews lost in the holocaust.  Despite the hundreds of people crowding into that site, there is an eerie silence as everyone is mute before the reality of what it memorializes.  The synagogue walls are covered with the names of Czech Jews who perished in the concentration camps. They are listed alphabetically, first by village or town, then by last name within that village or town and give the date of birth and the date on which the person was last seen alive.  Apparently Madeleine Albright's grandparents are listed on one of those walls.   On the third floor of the synagogue there is an exhibition of drawings done by children who were interred in the Terezin concentration camp.  In that camp, those prisoners who were not immediately killed were allowed to set up a children's program in the camp, providing them with some modicum of education.  During that program the children were encouraged to draw pictures depicting their experiences of deportation and camp existence and also their hopes for the future.  The pictures are heart rending to say the least and each is accompanied by a picture of the child who drew it with their birth and death dates.  Most of these pictures are done by children who were 7, 8 or 9 years old at the time.Of the 8000 children deported to the Terezin camp, only 242 survived the war. 

After leaving the Pinkas synagogue you enter the old Jewish Cemetery, which was first established in the 15th century and in which Jewish residents of Prague were buried through 1787.  Since the Jews were mostly in their own ghetto for most of their history in Prague, all Jews had to be buried in that cemetery, so the graves are sometimes 10 people deep.  Due to the small area and large number of graves the stones are all tilted and askew and falling over each other, as the ground is very uneven to accommodate the 100,000+ people buried there.  After leaving the cemetery we entered the Ceremonial Hall where there is a fascinating exhibit detailing the activities of the Jewish Burial Societies that were responsible for tending to the sick and dying in the ghetto and for taking care of all burials.  The hall explains in detail the burial and funeral practices of the Jewish ghetto, with lots of artifacts and photographs. 

Then we went into the Klausen Synagogue which contains a lot of religious ritual items pertinent to Jewish life.  There are beautiful torahs, torah covers and spindles and crowns, kiddush cups, seder plates, tools for circumcision, prayer shawls, and lots of other artifacts of Jewish life.  There are old copies of the Torah and Talmud, scrolls with the Book of Esther and other Purim celebration artifacts.  That was a really interesting exhibit and much of the silver bowls, plates, cups, Torah spindles and crowns were beautiful works of silver inlaid with jewels.    Then we went to the Maisel Synagogue which is now the museum that tells the history of Jews in the Czech lands from the 10th century on.  Finally, the Spanish Synagogue caps the experience chronicling the history of Jews in Prague and the Czech lands from the 19th through 20th centuries.  The Spanish Synagogue is billed as the most beautiful synagogue in Europe and that accolade is well deserved.  It is spectacular to behold.  

The Jewish quarter is in a part of the Old Town that is full of absolutely beautiful Art Nouveau buildings that are gorgeous to look at, full of statues and ornate windows and entryways.  Just walking through the neighborhood is a treat in itself.    After viewing all the Jewish Museum sites it was nearly 3:00 so we stopped for a rest and bowl of soup and by that time is was too late to see any more sites, since everything closes by 4:30 this time of year.  So we walked back to the apartment through Old Town Square, where I had my daily ritual dose of hot wine.  This vendor actually disclosed that is was a French cabernet of some sort.   All I know is that it is lovely, particularly on a cold and rainy afternoon.  We came back to the apartment and rested awhile before going to dinner, back to the same place we went last night.  The food there is good, cheap and its very close to our apartment which was appealing given that it was raining pretty steadily so we were not in the mood to wander about outside.

Tomorrow we have another day trip out of town, to Karlovy Vary, near the German border.  Early up and out as the bus picks us up at 8:20 at the apartment!  Included here are a couple of pictures of the Pinkas Synagogue with the walls with names inscribed, a shot from the old Jewish cemetery and one of the Spanish synagogue.  Pictures are not to be taken in most of the Jewish museum sites so a couple of these photos were sneak shots that I managed to slip in when the caretaker types weren't paying attention!

Prague Castle, The Infant of Prague and Concert

Prague Day 6 - Castle

Today we did the Prague Castle.  Now that we are old hands at the trams we even figured out how to transfer between them and cut down the walking a little bit.  We went first to the Castle and toured the four main sites which include St. Vitus Cathedral, the Royal Palace, St. George's Basilica and "the Golden Lane."   The Cathedral was magnificent with some breathtaking stained glass and plenty of baroque paintings, statues, ornate tombs of bishops, a beautiful chapel of St. Wenceslas,tombs of Bohemian kings and queens and the like.  I loved the stained glass window done by the artist Alphonse Mucha.  There was also a beautiful, huge Christmas display of Bethlehem with figures depicting Bethlehem at the time of Christ's birth.  All the buildings and figures in the display are carved from bread!  The "snow" on the trees is confectioner's sugar!  I've included a picture of it -  amazing to look at how detailed the figures and buildings are.  When I first looked at it I assumed it was wood,until I saw the explanatory sign.  Then looking closely you can see how they've taken loaves of bread and carved them up into this enormous mini-village!  The chapel for St. Wenceslas is really beautiful too and I was lucky that it was not really crowded when I was passing through so I was able to actually see it, which I gather does not always happen.  After the cathedral we did the Royal Palace, which the Czech governments throughout its long history ruled the country and conducted legislative business.  Then we went through St. George's basilica, which was refreshingly simple after all the baroque style we've been seeing so far.  On our way from there to the Golden Lane, a small little medieval lane within the castle complex where goldsmiths and guards and others who used to work for the castle lived on the grounds, we stopped for hot beverages (mulled wine in my case) just to thaw out.  Even though the temperature is mild (low 40s) we were freezing as none of the buildings in the castle are heated and after walking around for several hours we were very cold.  We walked through the Golden Lane and saw the little bitty "house" where Franz Kafka wrote several of his books and then we left the castle.  We walked down into the Little Quarter where we found a place for lunch - hot soup and beer - to warm up and rest a bit.  After lunch we stopped in to see the statue of the famous Infant of Prague in St. Mary the Victorious Church.  There was a mass going on at the time, but that didn't  stop anyone from visiting the statue. We then went up to the museum where they have all the many ornate outfits that have been given by dignitaries and heads of state to the church for the Infant statue.  They were amazing to see and they come from all over the world.  Oddly enough, today the Infant was not wearing any of the fancy garb!  Pilgrims from all over the world come to pray at this site and there were plenty of them there today.  The church sells all kinds of Infant of Prague religious kitsch - replicas of the statue, rosaries, medals, the whole works!  After we left there we wandered over to St. Nicholas church, but it had just closed, however we learned that there was to be a concert in there at 5 so we bought tickets and attended the concert.  It was a great program - organ, a flute quartet and a soprano whose voice was spectacular.  The concert was only 70 minutes long which was about all we could take because the church isn't heated and so sitting still listening to music was lovely except that we quickly began to be frozen to the bone!  The musicians were playing with their coats on!  It was a lovely concert with works by Mozart, Bach, Handel and a number of Czech composers, including some really lovely Czech Christmas songs.  I was really glad we had stumbled upon the concert.  The church of St. Nicholas is a riot of baroque art and architecture with enormous statues of bishops and the fathers of the early church everywhere, a cherubs and angels carved into and onto everything.  It has a huge marble pulpit also laden with cherubs and an enormous, gold St. Nicholas over the main altar.  After the concert we decided to return to our apartment to warm up a bit and rest before finding somewhere for dinner over in our neighborhood.  We wanted to get away from the tourist areas and back into regular neighborhoods which turned out to be a very good call.  We had our best meal in Prague at a little place just a few minutes away from our apartment.  I had grilled beef fillets with vegetable ratatouille, a large stein of beer, and a delicious dessert of hot apple slices wrapped in cinnamon pastry and dusted with sugar with whipped cream and raspberry sauce for dipping.  It was heavenly!  The food was really good and I had all that for $20 including tip!  So after that long day I am pretty tired. Tomorrow we plan on doing the Jewish quarter.  

The pics today are the Mucha window in the cathedral, the bread figurine Bethlehem village, the Infant of Prague and a couple of shots of the Church of St. Nicholas where we attended the concert.    

Strahov Monastery and Loreto Church

Prague Day 5

Today we headed over to the other side of the Vltava River with the intent to visit the Prague Castle.  We also wanted to visit the Strahov Monastery, so following the suggestion in one of the guide books we took the tram to the monastery first, as it is further up the hill than the Castle and we intended to then walk down to the castle.  However, we became so engrossed at the monastery that we never made it to the castle.  That will be tomorrow.  The monastery is still an active order of the Premonstratension  Order, originally established in Prague in the early 12th century.  The monastery grounds are quite extensive and include a church, a library, several museums, the monastery itself which is part museum and part active monastery, gardens and vineyards and a brewery and wine cellar. At the monastery, we first visited the church which is named for the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  The church was originally built in the 12th century, rebuilt in the 13th after a fire and rebuilt several other times until the 18th century when its current, very Baroque style was employed and retained to this day. The interior is extremely ornate, with gorgeous frescoes on the ceiling and a lot of gold gilt trim and statues of saints and angels.  After viewing the church we wandered around the grounds and looked out over what were once vineyards towards the Castle.  It is a spectacular view. Then we went to the Museum of Miniatures, where there are the most remarkable works of art in teeny, tiny miniature forms.  There are teeny little paintings on bits of ivory or stone, which you can only see with a microscope.  The most amazing pieces include little metal cars built on a mosquito leg, a "camel caravan" built inside the eye of a needle (no kidding- you look through the microscope at the eye of a silver needle and lo and behold, there is a teeny tiny little sculpture of a procession of camels.  It looks like they are made from some kind of soft metal.  Truly mind boggling!)  There is also a strand of human hair on which is written the Lord's Prayer.  There are a couple of figures built into half of a poppy seed.  The entire collection has to be viewed through powerful microscopes and I cannot imagine how the artists actually managed to make those works of art.   

After the miniatures we went over to the monastery building and spent several hours wandering in there.  There are exhibitions in the cloisters showing the history of the monastery and the order, and then an amazing gallery of paintings, all of which had been confiscated and hidden by the communist governments that ruled Prague from 1948 through 1989.  These paintings, mercifully were not destroyed and are now being brought back out of storage and restored and exhibited.  Lots of gorgeous Czech art, but also paintings from all over Europe that had been tossed away for decades.  We spent a very long time going through that gallery as the work was beautiful.  At that point we were a bit tired, so we wandered over to one of the many cafes on the grounds for goulash in a bread bowl and the monastery brew of beer.  I had "wheat beer" which is unpasteurized and all natural.  It is cloudier than regular beer for that reason, but it tastes delicious.  After our "light" lunch we went to the monastery library, which is absolutely gorgeous and houses thousands of volumes of theological and philosophical works.  

After we finally left the monastery grounds it was getting late so we went across the street to the Loreto Church where there is a holy shrine, the Santa Casa (Holy House) believed to be part of Mary's home in Nazareth that somehow wound up in Prague!  It is a pilgrimage site for those who are setting out on the great pilgrimage to Santiago de Campostela.  Those from the Czech Republic who go on that pilgrimage start here at the Loreto church.  The shrine itself is a small house inside a cloister.  It has a famous Black Madonna and Child and contains a beam believed to have been in Mary's home in Nazareth.  It is extremely ornate, with lots of angels and cherubs and a very baroque style to the paintings.  In the treasury are kept a whole collection of liturgical items including a monstrance that contains 6220 diamonds embedded in gold rays that surround the round center where the host would be kept.  It is truly a stunning site to behold.  

After we left Loreta Church is was dark so we walked around a bit in the neighborhood there and then got the tram back down the hill and got off near the Charles Bridge.  We wandered through the shops in that area which was filled with activity.  We had dinner at a little restaurant near the Charles Bridge and then walked back over the bridge and through the Old Town Square where we saw the Astronomical Clock chime 9 PM.  Every hour on the hour the clock goes off and doors open at the top while a procession of the 12 apostles (little statues thereof, of course) process by two little windows and two figures on the side of the clock chime bells.  Then the clock chimes the hour and it does the 24 hour clock so for 9 PM it chimed 21 times!  The Old Town Square is still full of Christmas festivity with a beautiful big tree and a market selling all kinds of goodies.  I had my trdelnik of the day there to fortify me for the remainder of the walk back to our apartment.  We got back about 10 PM.  It was a full and most interesting day.  Tomorrow we're heading back over there to actually get to the Castle, which is the "must see" sight in Prague!  At least at this point we have pretty much figured out the trams so we know what we are doing as we make our way over there.   The pics are a shot of the monastery grounds, a shot from one of the interior ceilings in the monastery, the Black Madonna at Loreto Church and the astronomical clock.

Cesky Krumloff in Southern Bohemia

Prague Day 4 - Cesky Krumloff

Today we took a bus trip to Southern Bohemia to the medieval town of Cesky Krumloff.  This little town is just a few miles from the border with Austria.  The old part of the city is a web of tiny lanes beneath and leading out from the castle.  The castle tower is beautifully painted in various colors.  The Vltava River winds through the town in an S shape.  We walked through the town stopping at various places of historic interest including a former Jesuit College that is now a hotel, and a beautiful Gothic style church with an ornate baroque interior, St. Vitus' Church.  There are lots of winding little lanes filled with restaurants, shops, small hotels.  There are lovely views out over the town and to the Austrian hills in the distance.  The Czechs are known for puppetry, having once been famed for their marionettes and puppet shows.  We stopped into a marionette museum where we had a chance to try out some of the puppets. They were a lot heavier than I expected and I realized quickly that it takes no small degree of skill to manipulate them!  We had lunch in a lovely, small little tavern with a huge grill where the meat was being cooked just as we entered.  The building was once the town prison!  The ceilings were very low and it had the ambiance of an old medieval cellar tavern.  The food was hearty and plentiful.  (See picture!) We had a huge grilled pork chop, with sour cream, mustard and horseradish garnish, a baked potato, a bowl of soup and a large stein of Czech Budweiser beer (the drink of choice over here and NOT to be confused with the American beer of that name which bears no resemblance whatsoever to the Czech variety which predates it by many centuries and tastes infinitely better!)  They also served us cake for dessert.  Our tour group included people from Greece, Japan, Malta, Russia and Australia so we very much enjoyed chatting with our travel companions from all over the world.  Our guide was a native born Czech from Prague who speaks seven languages!  On our tour she was doing all the commentary in both English and Russian, switching back and forth between the two seamlessly, with occasional comments in Czech to the driver.   She wore a big, fur hat and reminded me of something out of Dr. Zhivago!  We had a little free time to wander after lunch and I got my first daily dose of hot mulled wine.  The weather was quite mild today, and the sun came out when we were in Cesky Krumloff, although it was very overcast here in Prague.  We left there about 4:30 and had a two hour drive back to Prague.  When we got back here, we decided to forgo dinner, since lunch was more than enough food, but I couldn't resist another hot mulled wine and trdelnik on the way back to the apartment!   Czech food is hearty, very heavy on meat and potatoes and not much in the way of vegetables.  It would be very hard to be vegetarian here!  And one big meal is more than sufficient for me on any given day.  (Besides, those trdelniks are so good I'm fine with having them be one meal a day while I'm here.  Can't get them anywhere else so I'm enjoying them while I can!)  

New Year's Day 2014 Prague

Prague Day 3

Today I didn't wake up till 11:30 having not gone to bed until 3:40 in the morning and then not being able to sleep because the booms and explosions of fireworks continued right next to our apartment until 4:30 AM!  So we didn't leave the apartment until nearly 1:00.  We walked over to the river, near the National Theater where we had tickets for the opera for the evening. It was amazing how well the city had cleaned up the debris from last night!  They must have had crews working all night long because it was truly a mess when we returned home last night.  We checked out the opera house and then decided to walk across the Legii bridge to the Castle side of the river and walk along the river up to the famous Charles Bridge.  On our walk along the waterfront we saw swimmers, in wetsuits, swimming in the middle of the Vltava river, right near the locks!  They had spotters in kayaks nearby, but they were swimming around like it was middle of summer!  Must have been a Czech version of a polar bear plunge!  We found a lovely little restaurant - Dvorak Restaurant - near the Charles Bridge and decided to have our main meal of the day there.  It was lovely.  Hot mulled wine to start, rack of lamb with veggies and potatoes, and I had a nice Czech red wine with the meal.  We decided to hold off on dessert, which was a great idea, as we learned later!  We then walked back over the Vltava River on the Charles Bridge which was teeming with visitors and is lined with artists on both sides.  When we got back to the other side we walked back to the National Theater for our opera.  We saw "The Bartered Bride" by Smetana.  It was a great opera, light, entertaining, and easy to understand as they put superscript above the stage so you can follow the dialogue which really helps a lot.  The National Theater is a beautiful 19th century opera house, ornate, guilded, full of paintings on ceilings and walls, very opulent.  During the first intermission we went outside on the balcony and saw enormous crowds gathered at the riverside for yet another fireworks show.  We missed it as we had to be back inside before it began and by the time the opera was over the crowds were gone (thank goodness!) After the opera we went across the street to a cafe which had an enormous selection of desserts, cakes, and confections.  So instead of supper we had dessert!  I had a crepe with vanilla and caramel ice cream, and covered with caramel sauce and sprinkled with confectioners sugar and nuts, and inside a variety of fresh fruits.  It was delicious!!  We then walked some of it off on our trip back to the apartment.  Its going to be an early night tonight as we are going out of town on a tour tomorrow and have to be ready for pick-up at 8:20 in front of our apartment.