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Published: June 25th 2008
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Wednesday 11th June Tents down quickly again and onto the bus for a bit of a drive into Prague. Soon drove back into drizzle again, and the countryside outside noticeably changed to communist style buildings! Were told to expect delays at the border, but Czech Republic has now joined the EU so border controls are very relaxed - road tax system a little confusing as he kept my £100, although he’d only asked for about £57. He said we could get it back when we left Czech Republic. Didn’t like leaving it, but Freddie had heard was a strange system, so we had to trust that this was correct! So, no need for passports, but we’ll need them at the hotel so kept them safe (bus areas getting increasingly messy - don’t want to lose them!). Yes, tonight is a HOTEL (URL?), sheer bliss! We find it easy enough, but the road is blocked off, so have to find our way round a one-way system to get to it. Once in, don’t seem to have record of requests (e.g. packed lunches/meeting room/dinner at 7pm), but are able to do them, which is good! Quick check-in (once we decide to leave passports),
7pm dinner, find room for meeting. Head out into the town for first night, a few try the Czech beer, I’m just out for the company! Head back to luxury of own room/own shower and wireless internet included in the room!
Thursday 12th June An early start from the hotel, after a great buffet breakfast. We find our way to the Hotel Golf where we pick up Vaclav, our guide for the morning tour of Prague. It’s a pretty intense tour - Vaclav says we are a slow group, but we feel quite like we’re running round Prague. Freddie and John take the coach to the Stadium to park up, takes us a while to find each other again, even with the walkie-talkies! Meantime the group have been to a good place to see a vista of the city, before we head down the hill towards the Castle. Not catching much of the information (or the sights!) as making sure that people keep moving and haven’t lost anyone! Head into the Cathedral, posing for a group photo in front of the fountain. Beautiful stained-glass windows, and quite a few things to look at. Head down the hill to an
area where people can go to the toilet (long queues in the ladies!), and have a stop so people can have their sandwiches. Continue through a number of streets, including a kind of grotto gardens, before we head over the Charles Bridge (plenty of vendors there). Vaclav points out the red metronome we need to head for to find our way back to the coach - that seems straightforward enough. We head across another courtyard to find the Old Town, where we find the famous astronomical clock, just before 2pm - when we see the 12 Apostles turn around. I’m a bit underwhelmed, but now I’ve seen it… along with a wedding couple - she’s wearing the most interesting dress! We see a couple more bits of the old town before Vaclav leaves us, taking the few people who want to go on a boat cruise with him. The rest watch Glenn perform breakdancing before we find a café… plenty of beautiful looking cakes. Liz and I share honey-cake which is marked as a local speciality (36 Crown, about 30 Crown to £1). We all try each other’s cakes, and the honey is definitely the best! Onto the market, where
can see marionettes, etc for sale, find my cloth badges for about 50 crown each, then find another in a shop which says “Czech Me Out” so go for that too! Head back towards Charles Bridge, into a few other shops, and back towards the coach along the river-front. Find the bridge (yellow poles) and steps to metronome easily enough, but there’s a park in the way. At one point Vaclav had said head towards right/across park, so we headed that way and waited for the coach. All were there on time… except Fiona and Gisella, who we waited for for 25 minutes, prayed for and then had to leave. Our hotel is not too far away by train, so we just hoped and prayed they’d find their way back (as they had obviously not found the coach). We got a text to say they were on their way to the train, and they arrived about 45 minutes after us, so not bad. The evening was a great one where we talked about lost & found and thanked God for bringing them back safely to us in a strange city!
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