Vacation: July 17th

On Monday Cindy, Jirka, Jakub, Trina, & I hopped onto one of the city trams & traveled into the city center of Brno. They got us as far as the tourist information center when Jakub decided that he had had enough of all the traveling & site seeing that he had been doing the past few days. So after pointing out a few points of interest on the map, Trina & I were left to discover the city center all alone. Don't worry we were very brave big girls... and Trina's great sense of direction was very helpful. Cindy made sure to point us toward a yummy pizza place for lunch. When I asked the waiter if he spoke English, he asked me if I spoke German. So I ended up using the little German I remember along with pointing at the menu to place our order. After seeing some wonderful sites, we safely made it back to Cindy's where Jirka finally got to pull out his new toy to grill some chicken for dinner.

A view down a street in Brno.

Mahen Theatre. This was our starting point into the city center. I can't believe I didn't get a picture of the trams that took us into town. I just read that this was the first theater in Europe to use Edison's light bulbs.

Namesti Svobody (Freedom Square). This is the main city square... and wouldn't you know it... there's construction going on. It's just one more reason why I know I have to visit Cindy again.

Another photo of the city square. I noticed that the buildings in the Czech Republic seemed to be very old or very modern. Notice the buildings on each side of the white building.

Petrov (Cathedral of St. Peter & Paul). This was an absolutely beautiful cathedral. We went inside & just sat for a few minutes. Once again we weren't allowed to take photos of the interior but I will say it was stunning & awe inspiring.

Even Lady Luck loved the Cathedral

An up close photo above the main entrance into the cathedral.

Surprise, that's Trina taking more pictures of the cathedral. Here camera's battery died shortly after this & she took over taking pictures with my camera.

The pink building is the Capuchin church & crypt. If we had been feeling a bit more morbid, we could have gone in to see the bones.

I thought this was funny. I just can't escape country music?!

The entrance to the Old Town Hall. The tourist information center is found here along with....

The famous Brno Dragon and wheel. I realize that the dragon looks a lot like an alligator... go here for the story of the Dragon. And here for the story of the wheel. They are both entertaining

And I had to share this one. This little boy was just too adorable. But it just shows you that kids are the same all around the world... when you start to let them dress themselves you never know what will happen.

For the science geeks out there, I forgot to mention that on Sunday we drove by the actual gardens in Brno where Gregor Mendel did his genetic experiments with pea pods. You can go here to see some photos. This is a great site for general info of Brno... and there's a web cam too.