PRAGUE

Prague was a great break for us.  We have had so much WWII history over the past couple of weeks it was nice to be in a town that we could just walk around and enjoy.  And, that's exactly what we did. 

I know there are many museums and galleries that we could have visited, not to mention a castle, but we really needed some down time so our visit to Prague was strictly external.  Luckily we had bright blue skies for the majority of our stay so being out and about was pleasant and we got some good walks in.

In addition to our walks we also found a good gym and were able to get a much needed work out in.  We also found a terrific cinema that showed American movies so we went twice.  It was really a treat as we haven't been to the movies since London!


Anyway, here are some of the sights.  Above is a shot from the Old Town Square.  


And, to the left is the clocktower at the entrance to the Charles bridge.






We had some of the best fruit here.  We couldn't get enough of it!  Raspberries, apricots, peaches, pears, figs.  Mmmmm, it goes on and on.

Here's another shot from the Old Town Square.  The buildings were very interesting with scenes carved, or worked, into the stucco.  There is a very interesting mix of Romanesque and Gothic architecture in this town and the buildings are all painted in various pastel shades.  Quite charming.









This is the Astronomical Clock in the Old Town Square.  It's the oldest running clock in Europe.  It goes through a ritual every hour on the hour and you wouldn't believe the hoards of tourists who cram around to see it.  Actually that's one of the things we got really tired of - all the tourists.  It seems that you never see any locals.  Everywhere you turn it's one huge group of tourists after another.







 Prague is such a draw that I think there were more tourists here than any other place we have been.  I hate getting "people" in my pictures but, as you can see, in Prague it couldn't be helped.












We went to Cafe Imperial one day for lunch.  It was just a couple of blocks from our charming apartment.  There are actually many Art Deco buildings in Prague but this is one of the most famous.  The walls are Art Nouveau ceramic tiles and the ceiling is all mosaics.  It dates back to 1914 and Franz Kafka was one of many writers who frequented it.  We had a terrific Czech meal of duck confit with potato dumplings and schnitzel.  Yum, yum.

Our last day in town we crossed the Charles bridge, famous for the artists, musicians and vendors who entertain and sell to the tourists, and visited Mala Strana (Lesser Town).  The view from the bridge of the Vltava river, as you can see in the photo above, is really beautiful.

On the other side there is actually a small island that has the river on one side and a small canal on the other that separates it from Mala Strana.  It reminded us of Venice in a way.

Here's a picture from the island back across the river to the Old Town.

One of the tourist sights in Mala Strana is the John Lennon Wall.  In the 1980's for some reason people started covering it with Beatle's inspired graffiti and in the late 1980's the Communist Regime found it extremely irritating as young Czechs starting writing grievances on the wall.  The movement that the students followed was ironically called "Lennonism".  Because the wall is owned by the Knights of Malta and is private the authorities couldn't do much about it.  Not much Beatle stuff is left on the wall - it continually changes - but here is Dale in front of it.  

After the wall we hiked up the many, many steps (had to be 100 at least) to Prague Castle.  While we didn't go into the castle the grounds were very pretty and the views expansive.

And that was our time in Prague.  I'll leave you with one more shot of the canals.  Notice all the locks on the bridge.  It really was like Venice!