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Published: July 11th 2011
Segways!
The family went for a 1 hour Segway Tour -- but even the guide admitted this was just an excuse to explore Segways and not really a great way to see the city. We had fun, though!Our last day in Prague and we still hadn’t made a visit to the Prague Castle. Our plans for the day included a tour on Segway scooters and a visit to Castle Quarter. The Segway tour was a bit impromptu but the kids had identified it as an option the previous day and we had promised to try to make it happen. We were offered a one hour tour at noon and seemed unlikely to complete any significant sightseeing before that so we resolved to visit the castle post-Segway. We took a short walk back across the Charles Bridge to Little Quarter in the late morning and saw a few areas we had missed on our previous visit, but then headed back to Old Town Square to meet up with our Segway tourguide. Lauren and Andrew had previous Segway experience from our visit to Rome two years ago, but the whole family was able to comfortably maneuver pretty quickly out of the gate. The tourist areas in Prague are congested with pedestrians and cars, so we were quite happy to have a guide to lead us on a reasonable path through the city, though his ability to point out and explain
Andrew would be a defiant pigeon
Andrew learned to enjoy sitting on spikes intended to keep away pigeons while in London last year. He reinforces that behaviour in Prague. the sites was somewhat lacking. We took a spin through the Jewish Quarter, across a bridge and through a park on the other side of the river and then back on the Legions’ Bridge and through Wenceslas Square before returning exactly one hour later to Old Town Square. We all had fun but can’t recommend this as a way to actually see the city. We took note that the responses by onlookers were quite mixed – many people were clearly intrigued or amused, but nearly as many were clearly disapproving of intrusive Segways on city sidewalks. Following our tour, we headed back across the bridge and climbed much of the way to the castle before stopping for a tasty lunch at one of the cafes lining Nerudova Street. We continued the climb up the hill to Castle Square and proceeded through the gates featuring battling giants and through a courtyard to St. Vitus Cathedral. The cathedral is a breathtaking sight from outside and (if possible) even more so from the inside; the impossibly high ceilings and spectacular stained glass windows are awe-inspiring. We lingered for awhile at a particular stained-glass window by the artist Mucha, described in some detail in
Finally at the Castle
The family stands in Castle Square outside the Castle complex our guidebook; the guidebook author was clearly taken with Mucha’s art, and we made a mental note to investigate further when time permits. We completed our tour of the cathedral, passing the tomb of John of Nepomuk and found it completely believable that the tomb contains a full ton of silver as the locals claim. From the church we made our way to the old castle where we toured a series of rooms and saw the famous “defenestration” window where some unpopular leaders were quite literally thrown out of office. We had a quick visit to the Basilica of St. George (very beautiful, and with a significant amount of information available to tourists who could read Czech) before stopping for an ice cream snack and heading back in the opposite direction in search of the “Museum of Miniatures.” The notion of a series of art exhibits so small that they needed to be viewed by microscope was very compelling to John and he led the family on a long hike in search of the museum which was eventually located but (sadly) had closed for the day. We returned to the castle grounds and made our way through the “Golden Lane”
John at Castle Entrance
Statue of fighting giants on the gates in background. – Our castle tickets were checked (really?!) to allow us entry to this quirky street which is now essentially a series of gift shops. Its claim-to-fame appears to be that Kafka lived in one of the houses for a short time – now just a box with books for sale. After walking quickly down the street, we escaped from Castle Quarter back towards the Little Quarter. Andrew expertly sorted out how to take the tram home. Over parental objections, he deftly determined where tickets were sold, which tram to take, and that tickets could be validated using a machine his keen eyes spied on a passing tram. While we all know he was highly motivated by the desire to spare himself the walk home, it was an impressive feat which was appreciated by all, since it actually was a fairly long walk home. After a brief rest at our apartment on this, our last day in Prague, we headed out for dinner and found a recommended restaurant outside of Old Town Square. We had a lovely final vacation dinner and again enjoyed the lively scene with music in the square as we made our way home.
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