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Published: August 1st 2012
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Day 23 - Prague
Yesterday was a tough day, as far as holidays go. It was not a tragic day, we were not plagued with some life altering event it was just a bad travel day. 18 hours on trains, cars, taxis, and transit to get to a hotel that was not open, only to hop back in a taxi to get to another one. This morning I was still feeling the affects of the travel day but Sydney was so good bringing my spirits up. She is so wise for a 13 year old girl, she is like a miniture budda or yoda.
The day in Prague, after Syd picked me up was great. We too a 7 minute tram from our hotel into the old city and it is, to say the least, magnificent. This is a town that is brimming with architecture, culture, style, and it is so lively. I noticed this yesterday when our train rolled in at 1130pm and there were still so many people out. Families were out, travellers were having a good time, and it felt so safe and relaxed here. I certainly felt safer on the streets of Prague at midnight
then I do at home in Edmonton.
Syd and I decided to take a very leisurly pace today. We would walk to all of the majr attractions at our pace, take breaks every 15 or 20 minutes and just soak in the sights and sounds of Prague. It was a wonderful day. OUr first stop was the main square of the town where there are magnificent galleries, hotels, tourist shops, restaurants, casinos, and just a bunch of people enjoying the day.
From the main square we wondered in and out of the streets kined with shops, food, statues, churches, monuments, astological clocks, on our way to the banks of the Jewish quarter. The Jewish quarter is a lot of fun. We had a Jewish rabbi come up to us and ask us if we were Jewish. I politely told him no and he thought from our accent we were American. I let him know we were Canadian, he let me know he was from Ohio and we had a nice chat about the Jewish district. It is a nice place with a cemetery, galleries, shops and a lively atmosphere. Syd and I decided to day we were not
going to go into to many places unless we felt like we just had to. We have seen so many cathedrals, and museums, and galleries, that we were just going to stroll today, so we did not go into the Jewish museum as there was a line and it cost money and we were hot and just wanted to keep strolling. We will probably wished we had gone into some of the places today, but at the time we were happy doing what we did.
From the Jewish are we rolled down the river paths to the Charles bridge. The Charles bridge is a nice piece of architecture with talented street artists, handcrafts people and other such people. It is crowded and hot, as there is no shade, but we enjoyed our time on the bridge. From there we watched some street performers until the Hairy Krishnas (I know I spelt that wrong, sue me, im to lazy to look it up or spell check) came. We have nothing against these very nice people, however we have danced and donated money to their cause in several cities already and did not want to get sucked into another Krishna line
dance today. Across the bridge there are nice shopping areas, more churches and a giant hill that leads to the Prague Castle. The Prague castle was very cool from the outside, but we did not go in. I am getting so lazy at trying to read signs in other languages to figure out the deal, and costs to get in, so we admired it from the outside. We have seen several castles and palaces on this trip and it is nice to leave a few things to do on my next trip to Prague.
From the castle we wondered through lesser town, old town and back to new town where our hotel was. Along the way we saw more churches, statues, played in some parks, splashed in some fountains, sat on benches and just enjoyed the very hot day. We stopped at most cafes along the way and the walk back took about 3 hours. I tried to convince Syd to go to a pipe organ concert at one of the churches but she just is not a classical music/pipe organ fan.... so bizarre.
On the way we stopped at a grocery store and picked up some dinner
and cooked it in our hotel kitchette. The food is quite different here and we struggle to choose items. We picked up cereal for breakfast but we ended up buy what we thought was milk but was really sour cream (really runny) in a bottle. We picked up a loaf of bread, a package of meat, Dannon yogurt cups, a dessert parfait, can of corn, laughing cow cheese wheel, bag of cereal and a jar of olives. The Dannon and the cheese alone at home would cost 10 bucks. I believe that the cost of these groceries at home would be in the range of about $25. It cost the equivalent of about 8 Canadian dollars.
We have a sports bar attached to the hotel we are staying in and Sydney allowed me to sneak out of the room for 45 minutes to enjoy a beer in the pub. It was a great experience to watch some olympics in a bar in Prague with a pint of Czech beer that only cost $1.75. The money here is a bit funny, the exchange rate is 22 Krowns to one Canadian dollar so there are large denominations of bills. I took
out $3000 Krowns for the day and the machine gave me 3 $1000. I pay for things like a coke with $100 Krowns and I only get change back. It makes me feel sad because it feels like a $100 bill. In fact it is about $9.
Prague was so much fun and I have now seen all of the cities that I put on my bucket list that I made in 2012. These were the must see cities as soon as possible as I have heard these cities to be the most beautiful and amazing cities in the World. These 5 cities were London, Paris, Barcelona, Venice, and Prague. Sydney has been to all of these cities as well, however she has only been to Barcelona in the dark so she does not have muh to say about it. Out of these 4 cities she has the following personal rank.
1. Venice 2. London 3. Prague 4. Paris.
For me I have the following rank of these 5 cities
1. Venice 2. Prague 3. Barcelona 4. Paris 5. London
I will place a caveat on the one and two ranking as such, it would
depend on who I was going with. If I was going with friends I would come to Prague ahead of Venice no questions asked. If I was looking for a romantic getaway, Venice is the easy choice. Venice is naturally beautiful in large part to the canals of the city, prague can not really compete with that. However, Prague I believe when you take the canals and sea away, is a much more entertaining and delightful city, I really so love it here and am so glad Syd convinced me to keep our plan to come here.
Our assessmnt of Prague
Kyle 10/10 - A must see city for everyone. Find a way to get here in your life time. Love the ladies 😊
Sydney 9.5 - There is lots of really architecture, and if you need a place to cool down, eat a Magnum McFlurry in the basement of the McDonalds at the end of the Charles Bridge. Love the gents 😊
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