Visiting the Must See Places in Prague in A Day and Half

Since we were in Berlin, it was not difficult at all for us to visit Prague. The distance is about 350 KM from Berlin to Prague, about five hours by train. Since three members of our team never visited Prague, we decided to go there for a couple of days. We were initially upset by the loss of my husband's wallet but we were greatly relieved after making all these phone calls to prevent any frauds or anything being stolen from potentail thieves.

We could still enjoy ourselves in Prague - the capital city of the Czech Republic. Since we only had a day and half in Prague, we acted as tour guides for our friends and made accommodation booking for them as well. We were in Prague for about a week in the summer of 2018 and we had a great time travelling with our son. There were a number of places where we enjoyed visiting. Charles Bridge, the Palace, Prague Castle, the Town Square were a must see for us. Therefore, we took our friends there and they had a blast as this was their first time visiting Prague.

We went to many bridges in different cities, and Charles Bridge was one my favourites. There are many statues mounted on both sides of the bridge. To be exact, there are thirty of them and each one tells a different story of a saint or special person. Besides busy looking at these statues, we were also looking at all the vendors selling arts, hand made jewellery, artwork and enjoying street musicians playing their music on the bridge. It definitely was a lively and vibrant place!

The Town Square is only a short walk away from the Charles Bridge. The last time we were there, we saw many young people sitting in groups on the floor chatting away, discussing arts, politics and other topics. I was captivated by the energy and enthusiam in the square at the time. But this time, we didn't see any of that. It could be we were there at a different time?

From our hotel, it was about a 15 - 20 minute leisure walk to the Prague Castle - the historical seat of the Czech kings, and the current seat of the President of the Czech Republic . It was worth the visit with many interesting and grand buildings to visit.

One of the things we did was climbing to the top of the south tower at the st. Vitus Catedral and catching a bird's eye view of the entire castle complex. Amazing view and an excellent exercise climbing the 287 steps! Love learning about the history and the legends about the Czech Castle! RT, Prague, Czech Republic 062024

What to do After Losing Your Cell Phone While Travelling in a Foreign Country?

We have been travelling in Germany for the past week. We travelled from Berlin to Prague via the fast train. As soon we got off the train and walked into the Prague station, I saw the panic and fear in my husband's eyes as he realized that he lost his cell. He was in a panic mode as he had so much infomration on his phone and we were in a non English speaking country.

The following was what we did and I hope that this will help our readers in the future should he/she lose a cell phone while travelling. 1. Go and report to the Lost and Found office close by - My husband and Ken went to report it to the Prague train station's Lost and Found office. But it was around lunch time, the office was closed. We thought we would go back when it reopened later.

. 2. Find a quiet place to figure out what are the most important calls you will need to make and important things you need to do. Since we were at the Prague station, there were thousands of travellers passing by each day and it was extremely busy and noisy.

We found a quiet spot, calmed ourselves down and figured out we needed to make some important calls to stop potential thieves from stealing money and important data from our cell phone.

3. Call your banking institutions - Roaming is expensive while travelling. Often when we do make calls from overseas on our cells, we will be put on hold for a long time. Therefore you need to figure out which calls are the most important to call first.

The first thing we did was calling our banks in Canada and reporting the loss to them. The bank personnel informed us that they would block the bank app so that no one could access our bank accounts from the app. registered on our cell phone. That was a big relief once when we were sure that no one could access our bank accounts even if they picked up our cell phone.

4. Call your credit card company - Since S. has been using a number of apps connected with payments from his credit card on his phone, the next call was to the credit card company. After calling the credit card company, we were put on hold for a long time. But this call must be done so that whoever picked up our phone could not order anything or make any purchases from our cell phone apps. The Credit Card personnel informed us that they would lock our card number so that it could not be used any further. We didn't want to report the card as stolen as a new card would be sent to us. Since we were travelling and didn't want the new card to arrive at our house in our absence, locking the credit card number was a good option for us.

5. Stop someone from stealing information from your cell phone – My husband uses a few social media apps to communicate with family, friends, relatives . In these exchanges, there might be some important personal info, therefore, we requested that these apps and info be deleted from the lost cell phone. Our service provider assured us that they would lock our phone and prevent anyone accessing any information in it.

After we made these calls, we were relieved knowing that our banking, credit card and personal info would be secured and not to be fallen into the hands of any stranger happened to have found our cell phone.

We were also blessed as we were travelling with our friends and one of whom with a cell phone plan called Roam Like Home. This plan allowed him to call anywhere in the world as if he were calling from home in Canada. We borrowed his phone and were able to make all these calls quickly without costing us an arm and leg paying for roaming charges. Again, we saw God’s grace in an unpleasant situation where He still looked after us. RT Prague, Czech Republic 06062024

Wartburg Castle, Germany - Martin Luther's Hiding Place Where He Translated the Bible

We stayed at an Air B&Bfor two nights. Our team of five took turn turn sharing a devotional passage each morning on this trip. Today was Yans turn to share. After his sharing, we had breakfast at around 830a.m., at another neighbourhiod cafe. On our second day visiting the Erfurt/ Eisenach area, we visited the Wartburg Castle - the second most visited tourist attraction in the state of Thuringia after Weimar. From Eisenach, it didn't take us too long by train and a bus to reach the Wartburg Castle.

Wartburg Castle is situated on a steep hill. After getting off the bus, we needed to climb a few stairs to reach the castle. While the rest of our teammates were able to climb up the stairs without any problem, Ken and I felt the strain half way up and we had to stop and rest in order to catch our breath. If a senior is visiting Wartbury Castle, he/she will need to pace themselves for the stairs here as we found it a bit challenging for us.

The Castle, orginially built in the Middle Ages in the 12th century, is an excellent monument of the feudal period in central Europe. Because of its beautiful medieval architecture, historical and religious significance, the Wartburg Castle was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1999.

However, the Castle is known all over the world because of one famous short term resident- Martin Luther who was hiding from religious prosecution and was sheltered by Frederick III of Saxony there from May 1521 to March 1522. It was during this period of exile at the castle where Luther began his German translation of the original Greek New Testament. Hence, the world knows of the Wartburg Castle as the very place where Martin Luther translated the New Testament Bible into German.

Our itinernary was tight and fully packed on this German trip. We wish we had more time at Wartburg Castle allowing us to take the tour inside this famous place. Unfortunately, we only had an hour there. We admired the scenery outside the castle buildings and its surrounding environment imagining what life was like during the 12the century. We were happy that we learned some important church history at Wartburg and visited the place where Martin Luther translated the bible into German! How interesting was that! RT Wartburg Castle, Germany