Day 2: Prague [Czech Republic]
After our first day with the group, we knew we were going to have a great trip! Everyone was eager to make friends and enjoy Eastern Europe together and our guide Katka was as sweet as can be!
Today we had a walking tour with Jana [pronounced YA-na]. But first, we took the local public bus up the hill, which was MUCH better than walking it! The bus was very nice and held our entire group quite easily. We met Jana, who had also grew up in Prague and was excited to show us her home as we went through the Castle District of Prague. Some of the stops were St. Vitus Cathedral, the Royal Palace, and the Golden Lane. The architecture of the gothic cathedral was outstanding! We also enjoyed poking into the small, once homes, on the Golden Lane and see how people of the time lived in Prague.
Today we had a walking tour with Jana [pronounced YA-na]. But first, we took the local public bus up the hill, which was MUCH better than walking it! The bus was very nice and held our entire group quite easily. We met Jana, who had also grew up in Prague and was excited to show us her home as we went through the Castle District of Prague. Some of the stops were St. Vitus Cathedral, the Royal Palace, and the Golden Lane. The architecture of the gothic cathedral was outstanding! We also enjoyed poking into the small, once homes, on the Golden Lane and see how people of the time lived in Prague.
Jana lead us to the location to watch the changing of the guard outside of the Royal Palace. Afterwards both Jana and Katka were available to answer any questions we had to help fill our free afternoon. From their recommendation we wanted to try out a local brewery that also had great food! Our new friends, Ruth and Terry, joined us. We may, or may not have, sorta got lost on the way :). We did manage to find to find our way however!...Nicole managed to ask for directions, Terry and I, of course, "knew where we were". [ok, not really]
The food was great and the unpasteurized house beer was even better! We meandered down the hill and stopped in little shops on the way. Mike managed to pickup a European license plate to hang up in his garage [he's a huge car guy!]. We went back across the Charles Bridge, where Nicole picked up a new hand-painted magnet for our fridge :)
We had fallen in love with Prague already and continued on to the Jewish quarter to stop at the walking tour locations listed in the Rick Steves' guidebook. We wished we had come a day earlier just to be able to spend more time in the Jewish Quarter. The museums were fantastic, they informed you not only of the history, but the current tradition and importance. We learned so much and Mike picked up a Yamaka (you are given them when men walk into the synagogues.) We could have spent all day, but we powered through and headed to The Communism Museum.
This is where we learned we knew very little about communism, but it was fascinating and set down a base layer of information. Katka had recommended the Communism Museum as a place to get some familiarity with how things were during those periods and a little more history on some of the public figures as well. Nicole and I were a little too young to be around for some of these events, but a little too old to catch them before they were infused into textbooks. So we had some Communism catching-up to do!