Czech It Out: Prague Castle and Franz Kafka

This past weekend I went on a tour of the Prague Castle and got to learn about a famous Prague writer named Franz Kafka. The castle was absolutely breathtaking. It is the third largest castle in Europe and it took over 500 years to build and was finally completed in the 13th century. Because it took so long to build, it has many different types of styles of architecture. At first I didn't realize how big it was. We also got to see some amazing views of the city from the castle, as well as the changing of the guards. Every hour on the hour the guards perform a very traditional and impressive change of position that gathers large crowds and tourists. On the way to the castle our guide also brought us past a monastery which was also cool to see. I definitely learned a lot that day, including not to eat in touristy areas. Our group got seriously ripped off, but it was a lesson for us all and to be expected. Anyway it was an altogether great day and I took a ton of pictures. The next day we went on a walking tour in Old Town learning all about the writer Franz Kafka. We really didn't learn that much about his work, but our tour guide showed us how much he influenced the city and the large impact he had. Although it wasn't the most interesting, we got to learn more about Old Town so that was still cool.