We woke the following morning with a little (but not a lot) more optimism about Prague, and headed out for a walking tour of the city. We rode to the Prague Castle and walked around the former royal palace and its surroundings, including
St. Vitus Cathedral, which is not the most impressive cathedral I've been to, but definitely a unique one.
We decided to take a 15-minute break at a nearby gift shop so people could take pictures and buy postcards and such, and this is when we encountered our first potential thieves, posing as a family of four tourists and attempting to steal from a couple of the girls in our group. Sneaky, and definitely a better tactic than the "you speak English?" gypsies that frequent Checkpoint Charlie and Notre Dame.
We continued on, walking past the
St. Wenceslas Vineyard which offered beautiful views of the city, and down toward the
Charles Bridge where we stopped to touch the various places on the bridge which supposedly offer good luck, and then headed to the other side of the city.
From here, we wound our way through the streets and beautiful buildings, until we ended up in
Old Town, about five minutes before the hour, in time for some kind of fanfare, which turned out to be a dinky clock show and a trumpet player who comes out at the top of the tower and plays a super hokey song. In other words, relatively anti-climactic.
At this point, we had the rest of the day to ourselves (it was just after noon) so a handful of us sat down to lunch at a restaurant on the square. We had the option of going to the
communist museum but Elia and I opted out (her because she wasn't interested, me because I'd rather have been drinking Pilsner). This is where we first experienced the "Prague Way" - in other words, getting charged for everything (even a side of ketchup or hot sauce) and the in-your-face boldness of servers who unabashedly demand tips and even remark when they feel their tip is "not enough". WTF. I was definitely turned off to this part of the culture.
We had some hours to kill, so we met up with Jesse and an indecisive Tanya, who was advised not to go off alone due to 1) pickpockets and such, and 2) her Berlin stunt of disappearing earlier in the week. She didn't want to go back to the hotel just yet, so she stuck with us and wanted to look in a gazillion different souvenir shops. Finally, we suggested she get something to eat, so we all sat down at a cafe and had some beers while she ate a late lunch. Afterward, we had a little bit more time to walk around and take things in before meeting up with Alyssa, Amy, Lynn and Sara to go to a concert.
The seven of us made our way to the
Church of St. Salvator to buy tickets for a chamber ensemble performance that evening, then grabbed a quick drink before heading into the church. It was an hour-long set of works by Pachelbel, Bach, Mozart, Vivaldi and other famous works and we had fantastic seats right by the quintet.
When the concert ended, we started walking back toward Old Town and found a mediterranean restaurant, where we decided to get dinner together. The food was some of the best we had in the Czech Republic, and the music playing inside was all English pop and dance hits, so we took a moment to have a Lady Gaga dance party...
The dinner was leisurely, but toward the end, I realized that the World Cup game (USA versus Ghana) was about to begin, so Jesse and I cut out early to go back to the square and watch, while the others went shopping. The game was great, except for that final goal which bummed me out, but I'm still proud of the U.S. team for making it that far.
Once it ended, the seven of us asked our server the best place to get a taxi. He asked if we'd ever taken a taxi in Prague and when we said no, he warned us, saying "you'll get stolen". I admit I was slightly freaked out, until I realized he meant that we wouldn't get kidnapped, but rather ripped-off, unless we were smart. He quoted a price of 100 crowns (the equivalent of 4 euros) per person and suggested nothing more than that.
At first, the taxis refused to take all seven of us, but when we agreed to pay 600 crowns to the driver, he agreed, insisting that Elia get down in the back so the police didn't stop him for having too many people. Although I would think the police would be more likely to stop him for driving like a crazy! I don't think I've ever feared for my life that much while in a car, but his crazy driving was pretty on par for the rest of the drivers in Prague, and he got us to our hotel in less than 10 minutes (which would have been about a 40-minute walk).
Elia went to bed at this point, so I took a shower and then went down to the lobby to use the Internet and catch up on all the drama happening with the groups. Finally, just after midnight, I went to bed as well, as we had to be up early to head out to
Kutná Hora.
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