Beautiful Prague

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Arrived yesterday in Prague. This city is so beautiful, you'd hardly believe it....the Charles river runs through the middle, with bridges every few blocks, and ice-cream cake houses all along the banks. Its set up with wide walking paths beside the river, to catch a nice breeze (its been hot this week). I'm told that it's one of the only European capitals that was never bombed during world war II, because Hitler loved it here so much.

Our first night we did one of the many river cruises on the Charles for dinner with the teams and some of the parents, who have arrived now for the World Junior Ball hockey tournament this week. It was a gorgeous night and the buffet had lots of variety for everyone. After dinner we wandered through the historic square, and took some of the older boys to a smoke-filled casino. That's hard to get used to....all the indoor smoking.

Today we hiked up to the historic castle, Kralovsky Palac, still used for the Czech parliment. It takes about 20 minutes from the river up a pedestrianized walkway/steps, and the views are worth it. The first rendition of the church, St Vitus' Cathedral, was built in the 1100's.

We returned across the pedestrian Charles Bridge, busy with hawkers, musicians and portrait artists and back to the main square for a bit of lunch.

A whirl-wind 24 hours!

Now on to Pisek!

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