Tag: lesbian travel

Highlights of Prague

On By JC ThrashIn Travel

On the morning of our first full day in Prague, we shake off our jet lag and hustle by foot to the city center to meet up with our tour guide. Sandeman’s New Europe tours take place in many cities across Europe and are completely free. The tour lasts three hours and, in my experience, the tour guides are friendly, knowledgeable, and engaging.

We missed the start of the tour, but after running up to another guide, she was able to point us in the right direction for us to catch up. The tour took us through major landmarks of the Old City: the Astronomical Clock and the Old Towne Square; Church of Our Lady Before Tyn; view of Prague Castle; the old Jewish Quarter and Jewish Cemetery and more. Prague has a fascinating history, the the guide covers the Bohemian history, Austro-Hungarian Empire, Nazi occupation and WWII, the Velvet Revolution and fall of communism and Soviet influence. The tour was incredibly interesting, and a great introduction to both the history of Prague and beautiful sites around the City. A great day one activity!

Petřín Gardens

The area of Petrin Hill is basically a massive park full of gardens. You’ve got the Seminary Garden, the Rose Garden, Kinksy Garden, and more. An outdoorsy nature-lover could spend a whole day wandering here (and we about did). To top it off, there is the Strahov Monastery and BREWERY. Beautiful park, and I also get to drink delicious beer outside? Am I in Heaven?

After enjoying your beer, you can also walk around the grounds and inside of Strahov Monastery, which is also pretty incredible. You’ll have to snag one of the handouts to read about the artwork and displays in English, as the signs in side are in Czech.

In addition to enjoying the nature throughout these many gardens, you’ll also be heading up a steep hillside, so don’t forget to look around to get the occasional stunning view of the whole city (and wear comfy shoes).

I couldn’t choose just one picture of this area, so… here are several.

Speaking of the beautiful outdoors and beer, this brings me to Letna Park and the beer garden.  Overlooking the river and the city, this outdoor beer garden is lively with tourists and locals alike. The whole park is worth enjoying, too; you’ll see other tourists but mostly locals with their dogs.

View from Letenský Beer Garden

Prague Castle

In the evenings, admission into the Prague Castle grounds is discounted, and definitely the way to go. For my wife and I though, we spent most of our time exploring the Royal Gardens. There are tram routes, but if you want to walk to the castle, prepare to get a good workout and enjoy some spectacular views! Here is one from the walk up to the castle.

View of the City from the walk up to Prague Castle

Better than Prague Castle is Vyšehrad, Prague’s “other” castle.

Vyšehrad has large grounds that are lovely to explore, especially in the fall. If you luck out with good weather like we did, you may spent all day in the area! From the top of the fortress wall, we enjoyed breathtaking views of the city, and it is totally free to explore the grounds.

We did pay a small fee to explore the hidden passageways and underground corridors, complete with a huge underground hall with monuments (how did they get those in there?!) – I believe it was about $3 per person, and the tour lasted around 45 minutes. Pretty cool to see, as this fortress dates back to the 10th century.

View from Vyšehrad
a little beer break at a café on the Vyšehrad grounds

The Food

One of Prague’s signature dishes, Svíčková was the most incredible meal… one which I probably had, in some version, nearly each day. The vegetable cream sauce was always a little different, and the quality of the beef and bread dumplings (knedlíky) varied slightly, but from the large, crowded restaurants to the small, dark pubs- it was always damn delicious. The creamy vegetable sauce was always the best part, and as I’m writing this I’m drooling and determined to find some in the States as soon as possible.

Prague Lez-Travel Rating:

As I wrote in “Color of Prague”: Two rainbows. Though, our experience did vary based on location we were in. We did a beer crawl in the Vinohrady neighborhood, a younger, hip, and not too touristy area, which probably would have earned three rainbows. In general, we’ll go with two. The only funny looks we got were, I believe, from other tourists (of course from the guy in the Bama hoodie), but we didn’t see much example of gay pride or gay culture.

prague pub crawl

On By JC ThrashIn Travel

The day of the Vinohrady beer crawl, we slept in, got a late breakfast and espresso, and hopped aboard the tram to head to Prague’s neighborhood: Vinohrady.

It was a quick ride on the tram to get a few neighborhoods east. Though previously in a more touristy part of the city, we found ourselves surrounded by young Czech people in a vibrant town square.

Our first stop was the Prague Beer Museum. Perhaps a bit of a tourist spot (first time we paid more than two USD for a beer!), but had 30+ Czech (or elsewhere) beers on draft. Here, we experienced more of a variety than anywhere else (if you read ‘Color of Prague’: you definitely couldn’t walk in and say “two beers please” without a lot of clarifying questions).

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Storms: Provincetown, MA

On By JC ThrashIn Bikes & Hikes, TravelLeave a comment

Hoping to spend Memorial Day weekend in Provincetown, MA, we combined our love for outdoors with a desire to save money and booked a campsite at Dune’s Edge campground.

It’s not ideal… it’s very chilly the first night and the campground does not allow campfires due to fire risk in the dry, windy pine forest. What is camping without a campfire?

Campsite: the beginning

But, the visit is to enjoy time in the town during a weekend celebrating young gay women in addition to enjoying nature, so we throw on as many layers as we can find and bike into town.

We lock up and head to JD’s, because, for some reason, sitting outside seems desirable to us in the 34-degree weather (fortunately, they do have warmers). A friend had given me the inside-scoop that one can order Saki sushi from JD’s for cheaper than at Saki!

From our spot on the porch we can see others walking the streets along the main strip of the town. I’m disappointed how few lesbian couples I am seeing, and hoping those numbers were to increase throughout the weekend (they do).

By the time we leave it is wildly frigid. We don our multiple layers and light jackets and bike back to the campsite, shivering.

Campsite: completed

Last time we camped, it stormed overnight. We both woke up to a crack and a thud – but as we soon realized that whatever tree or tree branch snapped did not crush us, we rolled over and went back to sleep.

In the morning, we woke up and pulled on our shoes and unzipped the tent and saw how alarmingly close the massive tree branch was to our tent – about two or three feet from where our heads rest.

So when the thunder and lightning begin at Dune’s Edge in Ptown, this thunderstorm-loving couple got a little more nervous than usual. Fortunately, Dune’s Edge has much smaller trees, so we believed if a branch broke, we would survive its impact.

The lightning, this time, was what was alarming, and the cracks of thunder so loud I was sure no one could possibly be sleeping in the campground. As I had learned as a child, I started counting the seconds between the flash of light and crack of thunder, telling myself we would run to the car if it got much closer.

I asked my wife “are we safe?” and after a somewhat uncomfortable length of hesitation she said yes, she thought we were safe, if the storm didn’t come closer. Well, we did survive the storm, and woke up to a bright and sunny day with a significant raise in temperature, a pleasant 60-degree cape day.

We spent most of our mealtimes at the campsite, grilling steak and fish. Our grill was one of our best wedding gifts, usable at home and portable for camping.

The first night we had steak, and used the leftovers for steak n’ eggs. We have a French press we use while camping for quick and easy coffee.

The second night, my wife made swordfish with just salt, pepper, and lemon as the seasoning. I had not had swordfish before! It was divine on the grill, especially with some roasted summer squash and zucchini.

In the future I can perhaps comment more on establishments within Provincetown; we spent less time in the town than we expected, and more time grilling at our campsite and biking the Dunes. And it’s an amazing place to bike – but not for the faint of heart. Surrounded by ocean on three sides? It must be flat!, one might think… not so. But the paths link the two main beaches to the town, with rolling hills and sand on one side, and a relaxing ride through the woods on the other side.

Lez-Travel Rating:

It’s gay heaven. Every queer person should travel to Provincetown in their life, and be amazed. It’s perhaps the only place in the world (for now…) that gay people outnumber straight people. And it’s magic. To feel for the first time like the majority is a feeling hard to describe.