Brandon O'Brien

Sunday, October 12, 2025 @ 6:53 PM in 2025 Oktoberfest Trip

I didn't get to bed until around 1 in the morning, so I tried sleeping in but still woke up around 7:30. I finally got up around 8 and brushed my teeth and got a little work done. Anton and I headed out for breakfast and then an aimless walk around old town. We went to a breakfast place not to far from the AirBnb where I ordered Shakshuka (poached eggs with tomatoes and peppers) along with a coffee. The meal was pretty filling and probably a lot more food than I actually needed.

We came back to the AirBnb and met up with Ben, who ended up going to sleep much later than us since he was up talking with Casper. After hanging out for a little bit, we went out and met up with Casper for a cup of coffee before he got in his car to drive back to Poland. Afterwards, we did a little more aimless walking around but finally walked through a few big buildings with huge atriums/arcades.

We were pretty close to the Church of Our Lady of the Snows and it looked gigantic so we found the entrance and popped in. The altarpiece was incredibly ornate and the arches and windows were huge. By now it was getting close to 2pm and we were starting to get hungry so we found a ramen place that had really good reviews and decided to go there for lunch. It was called Takumi Ramen Quadrio and had some amazing lychee lemonade and delicious ramen. I got a spicy chicken one and it really hit the spot and was much easier on the stomach than traditional Czech food.

We still had a couple hours to kill before Anton needed to catch his train, so we tried going to one brewery but it ended up being closed. We found another nearby called Pivovar U Tří růží. We tried their red, dark and pale lagers which were all great. We ended up having two rounds there before finally heading back to the AirBnb so Anton could grab his bag. We're all pretty tired of drinking now so two beers was more than enough for today.

It's almost 7pm now. I ran out a little bit ago and got Dakotah a small toy car from a local Czech children's store. We're going to head out in a little bit to get dinner which will probably be from a place that makes focaccia sandwiches. Tomorrow is another huge travel day. We're catching a ride to the Prague airport at 7:30am then getting on a 9:35 flight to Munich where we have about 6 hours to kill before our international flight home. We're going to store our bags at the airport and take a 25 minute bus to Freising, just outside the Munich airport, to Weihenstephan where we plan to have one final beer in Europe before heading home.

The rest of the night tonight will be showering, packing and going to bed early so we're ready for all the travel tomorrow. This has been a really fun trip, even if the weather hasn't been the greatest. We've been able to visit a lot of really cool breweries, try some amazing beer and eat some incredible food. I think the amount of time we spent in each city was pretty spot on, without ever really feeling too rushed.

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Tags: prague

Posted from: Czech Republic

Saturday, October 12, 2013 @ 6:58 PM in 2013 Europe

Day 108

Last night everyone stayed up pretty late talking, eating snacks and drinking the free wine produced by the hostel owner's grandpa. It's really nice to be in a small hostel full of fellow travelers instead of giant groups of people.

I didn't set an alarm this morning and got up around 9am, ate and then hung out at the hostel for a while. The forecast was calling for rain all day which is why I wasn't really in a hurry. When it looked like it wasn't actually going to rain I went out and started to walk around Florence.

Florence itself is pretty big but most of the big sights are within the old city walls and within easy walking distance. The closer I got to the Piazza del Duomo, the more and more people were out. By the time I got there it was basically wall to wall tourists everywhere. I walked around the leather markets where there were more massive amounts of people, then headed over to the Ponte Vecchio (the famous old bridge) and again, tons and tons of people.

It was a big mix of huge tour groups, people randomly stopping or changing direction in front of you, people trying to get photos across extremely busy walkways, street vendors trying to sell you stuff, mopeds and bicyclists flying all over the place and police and other random vehicles making their way through the streets.

I was thinking about getting a leather jacket here since Florence is supposed to be famous for its leather work but all of the stalls in the leather market had the same stuff and the stores just seemed to be filled with pushy sales people. If I had a better idea of what I was looking for it might have been easier but instead I didn't want to deal with the mess.

In order to avoid some of the crowds I walked up a big hill overlooking the city called the Piazza Michelangelo. It had some great views of Florence so I hung out there for a little while before heading down. On the way down I ran into one of the guys from the hostel who told me about a really good gelato place up the street. Since I hadn't had any gelato in Italy yet I decided to go get some.

I had some kind of dark sesame flavor and another flavor named after their establishment. I ate the gelato by the river then plowed my way back through the crowds to get to the grocery and then back to the hostel.

I answered some emails and read a little while before making dinner. A few new people showed up at the hostel so tonight I'm sure we'll have another good wine time.

The weather tomorrow is supposed to be really nice but I really don't want to deal with more tour groups and clogged up streets so I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet.

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Tags: daily journal, italy, florence

Posted from: Italy