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View of Prague Castle
Seen from our apartment I reserved a private van for our transportation this morning that woiuld take us over to Prague. Splitting the cost of a private van between 6 people was cheaper than buying 6 individual train tickets. Our driver picked us up at 9:00am for our 3 hour drive into the Czech Republic. We drove south through the former East Germany and into the green countryside of Bohemia. Pulling into Prague, I was very excited as this marked the first time I have set foot into one of the former Communist countries of Europe. Driving around town trying to find our hotel, I was in awe at all the beautiful architecture and cobblestone streets. However, one of the first things that you couldn't miss was the huge number of tourists. Our driver had to take a series of backroads and detours to get to our hotel as many streets were blocked or closed. We wouldn't know until a few hours later that this was due to a huge run that was coursing through the city including right in front of our apartment. Our apartment at The Bohemia Apartment was in a great location, right on the Vltava River with an awesome view of
Prague Castle and just a few minutes walk from the Old Town. We waited around for almost an hour for a representative from the apartment to finally show up and give us the keys. As we were settling in, we started to hear the sounds of cheering from the street. Looking out the window, we started to see a few runners make their way in front of our apartment. Eventually, we went outside to begin our exploration of the city and by now runners were coming down the street in huge numbers. We sat curbside to watch some of the action, and it was just a continuous see of people making their way through. After we eventually got bored with watching the runners, we made our way through the narrow streets of the Old Town to find the Old Town Square. We wandered around admiring the awesome architecture of all the buildings but it wasn't very difficult to find the Old Town. All we had to do was follow the hordes of tourists and in no time we were there. We first stopped and checked out the Astronomical Clock. It was nothing terribly exciting and reminded me of the Glockenspiel
in Munich with a bunch of puppets peeping out of some shutters, very underwhelming to say the least. However, the nearby Old Town Square was just stunning. It was easily one of the most prettiest squares I have ever visited with the fairy tale like spires of the Tyn Church combined with the great ambience of all the tourists and street musicians. We even came across some buddhist monks in their traditional bright orange robes. We all just stood in the square for a few minutes soaking everything in and realizing how lucky we are to be able to travel and see things like this. Afterwards, we had a late lunch at one of the overpriced restaurants in the square before continuing on our exploration. We crossed the Vltava River and enjoyed spending some time along the riverbank admiring the swans before exploring more back streets. Eventually, we made it over to Kampa Island where we discovered a small evening market with stalls selling foods and beer. Due to our late lunch, we didn't eat dinner so we wandered through the stalls checking out what was being offered. We all ordered a few things and met at one of the
tables to share everything between the 6 of us. Churro bought us all some traditional Czech burcak which was partially fermented wine. Not everyone liked it but I eventually finished mine before trying some trdelnik, a sweet cylindrical pastry covered in sugar and cinnamon. We all eventually renamed these Czech Churros. After we filled ourselves with snacks and more beer, we slowly made our way back to the hotel crossing the famous Charles Bridge. I wasn't really in the mood to do anything tonight but just sit back and relax in the apartment. However, everyone else still felt like going out for a drink. After a long day of travelling and walking around the city, I needed an early night to recharge for tomorrow.
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