What a difference a good night's sleep makes!! We were actually happy to crawl out from under the duvets, have breakfast at the hotel, and join our group tour "The Ultimate Tour" at 10:30.
Our tour guide was Blanca, a round, jovial woman, who clearly enjoyed showing off the beauty and the warts of her city.
We started in the Wenceslas Square and walked on to Old Town which is separated from New Town by "Ditch" Street, formerly a large sewer ditch in long ago times. Old town is amazing...we, from the US, don't know "old" since our country is so new in comparison to the old in Europe. The amazing astronomical clock is in the old section. Please google it to see its long history. The clock is one of only 3 in existence and I believe the only one that has been maintained and still operates.
After a brief stop in the Jewish section, we walked to the river to board a river boat for a short trip to get views from that perspective and traveled under several of Prague's wonderful old bridges including the famous Charles Bridge.
After the water trip, we returned to the Jewish section to get some history on the few remaining original buildings still there. The Jewish cemetery is interesting... it is very small and has had to accommodate new residents by stacking new ones on top of old ones. Most of the gravestones of both the old and the new are on top and create a crazy scene of the remnants of the people who once lived and died there.
We proceeded to a Czech restaurant for lunch, the name of which you don't need to know, since the food was below average and the atmosphere the same.
A walk across the Charles Bridge was next, very crowded, but still enchanting. At the other side of the bridge, we left the group who were headed for the Prague castle. We had already toured there and the weather was cold enough that we opted out of another visit.
With great fake bravado, we boarded one of the trams (street cars) and headed for our hotel area. As we crossed one of the bridges, the trams and traffic were stopped by a big demonstration about something...what, we never found out. The police finally cleared the tracks and we were on our way. As we were about 3 stops from our destination, there was some kind of "tram jam" and about 5 trams were stuck in an intersection. Everyone got out, including the drivers. We hoofed it the rest of the way after googling directions on Wayne's cell phone.
Then it was NAP time until 8 pm when we went out for dinner at a traditional Czech restaurant. The goulash was delicious as were the Czech dumplings, and Wayne's Czech kabob was equally good. Food here is quite inexpensive as is almost everything, if you stay away from tourist traps.
Tomorrow, we will drive to several little towns within a 50 km radius of Prague. Thank technology for GPS....we haven't been lost yet!!
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