Prague - Aug 7th

We got going a little earlier today to try and beat the crowds. It was a nice walk over to Prague Castle as the Old Towne Square was almost empty with the restaurants still closed and the tour groups not organized yet.

The Charles Bridge was surprisingly empty including the vendors that usually set up on both sides of the street. (Check out the castle over my left shoulder) The walk up the hill to the castle took us past the Academy of Music where we heard through open windows several pianist practicing. The guards wouldn’t let us roam the halls unfortunately.

We got our tickets and joined the tour groups with the Japanese in front and the Germans behind us to see St. Vitus’s Cathedral. Coolest part was the Mucha stain glass window (see Aug 5). We then took a walk around the rest of the court yards and saw St George Basilic, the oldest restored building, and then the monestary right next door which has been made into a well designed art gallery. Every article in the gallery is by a Czech artist which we have never heard of yet I felt many of the paintings, sculptures and furniture could hold its own in almost any other art gallery I have seen.

Next, as Lisa found in the tour book, we caught the noon changing of the guard complete with band, swords, rifles, and precision dills. My video didn't turn out but you can see someone's who did here.

Next we were amazed by the size of the Old Royal Palace where supposedly they did indoor jousting complete with horses. The view of the city is amazing from here, I guess that is why all of the Bohemian, Moravian, and Hapsburg kings grabbed this chunk of land. The Story of Prague Castle is a great history of the museum with cool relics but it was very over whelming. I got burned out after 45 minutes or so. We caught the Golden Lane, the Vineyard, and the Torture Tower and then figured out why they allow the full price ticket to be valid for 2 days. We plan to hit the rest of the stuff tomorrow along with the Kafka Museum and the Wallenstein Gardens.

We found the way over to the Royal Garden and as we entered we saw a couple of birders handling about 10 different raptors. They let another American hold a tawny owl and we talked to the girl holding a ….Falcon. Another guy took a falcon out for a walk. He would walk about 100 ft and then whistled and the bird would swoop to the next tree. Pretty cool.

Dinner started with a Budvar Pilsner with a sausage appetizer at a Czech restaurant that we found going down the hill. We decided to the the Lonely Planet guide book and decided to find Dezni over near our hotel. Turns out that it is a kosher restaurant and not half bad at that. So I finished off my night with Pilsner Uquell and a Mongolian beef sandwich.