Hopped the train

Last week we hopped a train to Prague. Our last bit of holiday before I start work. Will's birthday celebration. See friends. Enjoy the close proximity of European countries.

We stayed at Mosaic House again. They always take good care of us!

It rained quite a bit, but that never stopped us before.

Perused the local art.

While in the Czech Republic, we decided to take a couple days to see somewhere new. So we headed to Karlovy Vary (aka Carlsbad). It's a big spa town. You may have heard of it from James Bond's Casino Royale. This is the place.

The hotel on the right in this picture is the Grand Hotel Pupp (aka Bond's casino).

It's quite nice! It's where Brad Pitt and Robert DeNiro stay when they come for the film festival here each summer. It's also where Russian maffia come for holiday or other activities. I think we saw a few Russian mobsters. One guy actually looked like James Bond - swagger and everything.

We didn't hang out much at the Grand Hotel Pupp (actually pronounced "poop"). But we did meander the streets at sunset.

See lots of Chinese tour groups. (No, I didn't use the opportunity to practice my very poor Chinese, but I could still pick out a few words as I walked by. Not so bad, if I do say so!)

And tried the local mineral spring water.

Karlovy Vary has a lot of natural springs with medicinal "healing" mineral waters. So we tested it out... The thing to do is buy these little cups and fill them up as you wander the town from spring to spring. So we did.

Tastes like nickels and dimes. Disgusting! I don't care if it's good for your health, I couldn't get down more than a sip at each spring. But it was fun trying!

As Will said on the train ride home, "Well, that was one of many trips." Looking forward to it!