Our day in Prague started early -
Overnight Train early (that should be a saying). We rolled into Prague at 6:15 am, and joined the frigid Prague (an aside: Prague literally means "Mother of Cities") air shortly thereafter on our way to our hostel. Erin did a terrific job navigating, presumably because she was better-rested than James. We arrived at our hostel to find it closed up, and there was at least an hour-or-two before we could get in. Luckily, there was another hotel across the small square that offered a breakfast buffet for a, while not cheap, at least somewhat reasonable price. We ate our way through our waiting time, and James even took some bread for a later-on walking snack.
After checking in, we headed back to the breakfast hostel to join the free tour that left at 10:30 am. Our tour guide, Michael, was a German native that had moved to Prague permanently due to some outstanding gambling debts. He later modified his explanation to include falling in love with a Czechoslovakian woman, and being unable to leave his heart behind. Regardless, he was an enthusiastic guide that clearly cared about the city, and quickly led us to the heart of Prague: the Old Town Square:
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| Our Guide Michael and Prague's Central Square, along with the Church of Our Lady before Tyn. |
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| One of the first Hussite Churches in all of the Czech Republic. |
The Old Town Square had a checkered history of political and religious infighting, but did host a renaissance of sorts in the very late 1500's, when then-King Rudolph II invited artists, philosophers, scientists and especially astronomers, including the effervescent
Tycho Brahe, to Prague to live and study. This also coincided with the construction of the very famous Orloj ("Astronomical Clock") in Old Town Square that was absolutely swamped with tourists during our visit:
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| The world-famous Astronomical/Astrological Clock. |
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| A close-up of the Clock, demonstrating both "Western" and "Czech" methods of keeping time. |
Our tour group meandered throughout the city, making stops for pictures such as the following of the characters from the opera Faust (and not, as Michael reinforced, one of the Hogwarts' Dementors):
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| The "not" dementor, Faustian statue. |
Surprisingly, we had asked one young woman in our tour group to take a picture of us in front of this - and she refused! She later held up the entire group for 20 minutes because she wanted to order something that would take too long to prepare, even after being warned by our guide. Here's a shot of our favorite tour companion:
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| Erin smiles next to our tourgide and in front of our tour. |
After the tour group finished up in front of Prague's National Theatre, we had the opportunity to see the props and lighting still in place due to the shooting of Tom Cruise's next Mission Impossible movie:
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| The Prague National Theatre. |
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| One of the rigs used in filming Mission Impossible 4. |
Michael then agreed to do a Tabitha video - along with the entire tour group! Needless to say, this is the largest group we've had involved with our Birch Run connection thus far:
After leaving the group, we paired up with Malorie and Veba, two young women originally from the US that were also touring Prague. We started our afternoon walk by crossing the beautiful Karlův Most (the "Charles Bridge") on our way to Pražský Hrad ("Prague Castle - the largest castle in the world) and St. Vitus Cathedral. We walked, and walked, and kept climbing.
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| Veba, Malorie and Erin smile in front of Prague Castle. |
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| James and Erin on the bank of the river, also in front of Prague Castle. |
We eventually made it to the castle, entering on the west side and continuing through to the Cathedral.
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| James, half-way up the summit on our way to the castle; Prague in the background. |
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| The front of Prague Castle. |
Once our tour was completed, we left our new friends and gave them our e-mail address. We headed home, stopping at the grocery store some food, and settled in for an early night in anticipation of tomorrow's trip to Vienna, Austria.
