We woke up today around 7am. Breakfast was delivered to our room at 8:30. It was all on one tray and 2 plastic tote baskets. One basket had different kinds of bread and the other contained cereals, snack cakes, yogurt, jellies, butter, cheese, ham, instant coffee and tea. We also got a container of milk, OJ and a carafe of hot water. It was interesting to say the least and filled us up for our long day ahead. We started walking towards the astronomical clock in the main square.
We found a bank in the square to pull out some crowns to pay for the tour. We got there a little early, so we did a little walking around and picture taking. I stopped in a glass shop and got a matching necklace and bracelet made of glass beads. They had some amazing, but breakable things in there. They had amazing chandeliers. We walked back to the clock to see it at the top of the hour, but they had taken off the characters for renovations. So we didn’t get to see the big show. We met up with our tour guide to get started. Our tour guide was Omar. He was HOT. He was born in Prague, but he’s actually Palestinian and an atheist. What a weird combination. He was a great guide. We started out at the main square at the clock. The mechanism of this clock is the true art.
This clock measures much more than time. It measures what position the sun is in, the moon’s position, the month, day and time all on one dial. There is only one in the world and it was built in the 1500’s. We then looked at Mary’s Church.
The door to the church is the 3rd arched doorway of the business in front of it. The buildings were not built around the church; the church was built in the small space among the already existing buildings. Next to the church is the oldest building in Prague. The city has all the different genres of architecture: Romanesque, gothic, baroque, neo-classical and art-nuveau. We passed by St. Nicholas, a church, which is now a concert hall.
We then walked through old town for a bit and walked down a portion of the royal route where kings traveled on their way to coronation. We went to see the gunpowder tower,
which is one of the remaining gates that was once used to store the cities supply of gun powder. It is located next to the Czech national bank and another concert hall with a beautiful mosaic.
I think that was the Estates Theatre. We stopped into the St. James cathedral, which is a baroque style church.
We actually went into this church.
Omar told us the story of a robber who attempted to steal a jeweled necklace from the neck of the statue of the Virgin Mary. The story goes that the statue grabbed him by the wrist and would not let him go. The next morning the priest came to find the thief still there and they could not get the statue to release her grip. Finally, they decided to cut off the thief’s arm to show everyone that you shouldn’t steal from the church. Once they cut it off, the statue released it. They decided to make an example of him, so they hung the arm in the church. And it’s still hanging there. It was pretty gross; just a bone dangling there. Who knows if it’s a real arm, but I’m sure it got the message across to the people. This church also has the largest organ in Prague.
We passed by the University of Carolina, named after King Charles.
It is mostly re-modeled but there is still a part of the original school still standing.
We then moved on to the Jewish ghetto.
During WWII, Hitler had planned on making Prague a resort for the Nazis and whatever Germans were left. He also decided to gather up as many Jewish relics that he could and he wanted to create a museum of the extinguished race in Prague. Luckily neither happened, but now Prague has a marvelous collection of Jewish artifacts. The Jews were forced into their ghetto by the Christian churches, mainly because they were jealous of the Jews prosperity. They did not allow their children to go to any of the schools, but had no problem going to a Jewish doctor when they were sick.
We saw the clock that had Hebrew numbers instead of roman numerals.
We also saw the old Jewish cemetery and the oldest synagogue in Prague. After this we walked towards the Charles Bridge. We took a 30-minute boat ride across the river and through the canals on the other side, also know as the Czech Venice.
We got some great views of the Charles Bridge from the water. We were given beer and snacks on our boat ride. Once we got back to shore, we crossed the Charles Bridge.
We stopped at the statue of St. John.
This is the spot on the bridge where he was thrown into the river after being beaten to death. Apparently there was some strife between the royalty and the church. The king’s wife came to St. John to confess her sins in secret (she didn’t want her hubby knowing she was still practicing). The king found out and demanded to know what his wife had said. The priest refused and as a result the king had him killed. It was said that when they looked down at him after they threw him in, 5 stars encircled his head. Because of this miracle, he was canonized as a saint and is a major patron saint of Prague. There are two spots under the statue that people rub and make a wish.
If you tell anyone what you wished for, your wish won’t come true. We continued across the bridge and up the big hill towards the Prague Castle. We stopped for lunch before going any further. We ate at a midlevel restaurant that was so dark it was hard to see.
We sat at a giant wooden table and the place looked great. The food was yummy!
I had the roasted pork with dumplings and sauerkraut and Adam had the same except his pork was smoked. I never thought I liked sauerkraut, but this was da bomb. We got beer with our meal as well as desert.
">Desert was these little pancakes covered in powdered sugar and plum sauce. After lunch, we headed up to the castle. They have a royal guard at the gate like they do in England. They even have changing of the guard. I took a picture with them.
There have been additions to the castle, but the actual cathedral is still the most significant part of the castle.
We got to cut in line with another group that was run by the same tour group. It really pissed off this lady who was running another tour group and she yelled at our tour guide. She was scary, so we let her go ahead. We all ended up getting in just fine. This cathedral is gothic and has the largest Rose window in all of the Czech Republic.
We saw the tomb of St. John and it was made entirely of silver.
It was huge! We also saw the tomb of good king Wencelas who was killed by his own brother.
In the chapel where his tomb is, is the door to the chamber where the crown jewels of Prague are kept. There are 7 locks and someone different holds each key. They say that anyone who puts the crown on that is not ordained by God to rule, will die within one year of putting it on. One of Hitler’s cronies decided to try it on for size before he stole it. About 8 months later, two alliance soldiers assassinated him. The soldiers went into hiding but were ratted out. Before the Germans could kill them, they took their own lives. We went outside to view the back of the cathedral as well as the Byzantine looking mosaic on the side.
It is made of thousands of pieces of Czech glass. We then saw the oldest church in Prague, built in the 500’s.
This is where our tour ended. We walked back towards the main square, back across the bridge
and then stopped in a gift shop for some souvenirs. We saw a rose garden that was still blooming.
We walked back to the hotel for a quick refreshing nap and then headed to our favorite restaurant for dinner. We sat upstairs this time.
This time it was bratwurst for Adam and lamb for me. Tonight we’ll be packing up for the flight to London tomorrow.
We checked our luggage and went towards our gate. The security screening is at each gate instead of one main security checkpoint. We had time to sit around for a while, so we checked out a duty free shop and then just waited to board the plane. We flew on Czech Air which is partners with United. We got free beer on the flight and lunch. We got to have one last Gambrinus before we landed in London. We knew our way around the London metro this time and found our way back to our same hotel. We got a room with two beds this time. It was strange and had no room because they squeezed a queen bed on one side and a double on the opposite wall. We checked our email and then headed out to take a double-decker bus tour. 
We just happened to catch the last bus that was going out that day. We started at the Victoria station and passed through all the London attractions. It was hard to hear the tour guide because we were on the top level and it was cold and windy.
I didn’t get to take many good pictures because of the movement of the bus. 
I wasn’t that into London anyway, so I wasn’t too let down. After our bus tour, we were freezing cold and we were hungry as well. We settled for a place called The American Steakhouse. I thought they’d have some good steak, but I forgot all about the fact that this country has had an issue with mad cow disease. Maybe that is why their steak sucked! I ordered medium and I got well done. It was the thinnest rib eye steak I’ve ever seen. If it weren’t for the French fries, I’d have been pissed about my sucky meal. Adam had these fish bites, which were basically fish stick nuggets, but they were still better than my steak. We got back to our hotel and went to bed early because we had to be up at 4 am to catch the shuttle to Heathrow. Again, I’m not impressed with London at all. It has some interesting history, but other than that it’s just too similar to the U.S.
We’re ready to go home. It’s been an amazing 2 weeks, but after un-packing and packing every couple of days and dragging our stuff all over Europe, we just want to go home and relax.
We actually had our passport checked at the German/Czech Republic border. We got a German stamp and a Czech Republic stamp as well.
Once we passed Dresden, we were riding along the Labe River. We were riding along the river valley and the trees were in full fall colors. 
The view was spectacular. We saw quaint little German towns with the old German style homes. 
We saw a castle up on a stone cliff with a bridge carved out of the stone. 
We arrived in Prage around 1:30 in the afternoon. We were a little flustered in their train station. The Czech Republic is still using Korunas instead of the Euro, so we had to exchange our money before we could even attempt to purchase subway tickets. We still couldn’t figure out the ticket machines because they were all in Czech. Adam had seen a guy asking if we needed a hotel room and he had a brochure for the hotel we were staying in. He saw him again and he asked again, but we told him we had a room we just need a ride. He offered to take us to the hotel for 350 crowns. He actually worked for the hotel. Adam was worried the whole time that something bad was going to happen. I had been told about these hotel pushers by Angela, and I wasn’t worried at all. I didn’t tell Adam about this until later. They basically have people working for the hotel to recruit people to stay there. The hotel pays them for people they bring in. I’m sure since this guy wasn’t getting any bites on a hotel room; he decided to make some extra cash to take us. We had read that taxi drivers like to rip people off. This guy was honest and very friendly. We lucked out again. Our hotel ended up being in a good central location. It was very nice and clean and had a nice comfy bed like Berlin. There is a sex store across the street named Erotic City. 
Our room here is the biggest one we’ve stayed in so far. 
I took a quick shower and then we headed out to find something to eat. Right at the end of our street was an authentic Czech restaurant. 
We saw the menu and pictures of the food and we said “hell yeah!” The name of the place was Pivnice Skorepka. We are staying on Skorepka Street, so we know what that is, but we need to figure out what Pivnice means. 
We ordered some beer, Pilsner Urquell for me and Gambrinus for Adam. 
I ended up really liking the Gambrinus so for my second beer I got one of those instead. For an appetizer, we ordered a meat tray. It had slices of some kind of pork and came with some mustard and horseradish. There were pretzels on the table and we shared one (little did we know that we’d be charged for it later, just like our guide book warned). 
For our main course, Adam ordered the roasted duck with potato dumplings. I had the Wizards treat, which was a chicken and beef goulash with fried potato pancakes. Adam’s also came with these plums wrapped in bacon; they were strange but good. The food was amazing and we want to come back to try more things on the menu. Adam actually had room for desert, so he ordered some ice cream covered in caramel and walnuts. I had a few bites, but I could have exploded if I ate more. This was the most filling meal we’ve eaten in a while. The Germans and the Czechs know how to eat! After dinner we waddled back to our hotel and took a nap and ended up being lazy and laying around watching TV. We watched part of the European MTV awards, which was in German. Weird. Tomorrow we are going on a 6-hour walking tour around Prague. We get to go on a boat and eat at a medieval restaurant. We are looking forward to the day ahead. Breakfast is at 8:30!
