Egészségedre!

So, Egészségedre doesn't actually even mean anything in Czech...it's Hungarian for 'cheers' (thanks again to Rita for the language lessons!).

I had some fun photos compiled of stands throughout the city of Prague, so I decided I'd dedicate a full post to it.  There were lots of areas with fun jewelry, crafts, paintings/drawings, and other crazy knicknacks (often useless, but nevertheless fun to peruse).  Czech Republic is also known for puppetry so there are tons of puppets and laughing witches (no kidding) everywhere.  The witches would sit on brooms or benches, hanging from a string.  All you had to do was clap and they'd bust out in evil cackles.  Fun to check out when there were rows and rows of them in market stalls.

Just outside the defenestration building.

Cool landscape paintings and drawings of famous buildings in the city.

These are a couple stalls along the Charles Bridge (Karluv Most) - the bridge is one of the most recognizable Prague structures that I haven't even had a chance to talk about yet or show you pictures of, that's coming in my next posts...

More jewelry.

Lots of clocks of the Astronomical Clock from Old Town Square (I'll post pictures of this too in a later post).

Mmmm, yesss.  These are called Trdelnik - rolled dough that's wrapped around a metal bar, grilled, then covered with a sugar and walnut mix.  Dangerously awesome...I have Rita to hold accountable for getting me into them!

Yum, dough on the grill in the Old Town Square.

Russian nesting dolls all over the place.

And puppets of course.

 A view of one of the narrow streets full of small shops and tourists.

Back on Karluv Most, people getting their caricatures drawn.

More jewelry on the bridge.

This guy took apart watches and framed them, I thought it was a pretty cool idea actually.

Tchotchke's for sale.

A very typically Czech cookie that was pretty scrumptious.

One of the markets in town.  This is one of the better places to check out the laughing witches - you could literally walk down a row clapping and leave a wake of cackles behind you.

I really enjoyed spending days just walking along the main streets of Prague and checking out all the crafts - and of course finding a few pieces of jewelry to add to my collection.  I also had a chance to go shopping with Rita for some souvenirs (or parting gifts) for their new house in Budapest, since they're leaving the Czech Republic in a matter of weeks!

This was the store we targeted - where you can get miniature clay replicas of famous buildings around Prague.  You could even mix and match buildings to construct your ideal Prague :)  All hand made of course.

Almost any building in Prague you could want, you could find miniature-style here.

Rita constructing her ideal town...

Mix and match!

Cathedral from Prague Castle.

The miniature building and the actual building...

This part of town is just to the left of the Astronomical Clock in the Old Town Square.

With the clock in the picture...

Sadly there were a few buildings (the real ones) that were under construction the entire time I was in Prague, like to the left of the clock in the Old Town Square (above), so it was good to see what they looked like without scaffolding in front of them.  Stay tuned - next post will be about true sight-seeing in Prague!