Prague

What a freezing cold day! In the morning, they put the weather forecast in the elevator. The forecast for the next 3 days in Prague is for a maximum temp of 4, 3, 4 with the likelihood of snow! What a bummer! It was so cold today. I haven't felt that cold since last time I was in Melbourne in the winter at the footy!

At least the rain was only intermittent today, and we were able to mostly keep dry. Today was mainly a walking day, so rain would have created big problems.Prague City in the background

Just a quick word about that "Romantic Tour of Prague" last night. It wasn't all it was cracked up to be! It was raining quite steadily last night, and we were supposed to go on a miniature train ride through Prague. But because of the weather, they put us in a mini-bus and we were all a bit jammed in. Then we went for a cruise along the river, but again it was too cold and wet to go outside, so we were all glad to get home to our warm hotel room. we had a really cute guide today, Karel - means Charles. I'll put his picture in because he was a lovely young man.

Prague Castle by night

Karel - our guide

Today we started out from the Castle (our hotel is right beside the Castle) and worked our way through all bits and pieces. Our first stop was to watch the changing of the guard. It wasn't quite like Britain, but it was impressive...


The pics are a bit out of order... too hard to change. You can get the drift...

Next we went to St Vitus Cathedral which is part of the Castle. Beautiful Church. Lots of lovely stained glass windows. We got to hear about a very popular Saint (Karel was a very good story-teller. Studied Performing Arts!) This Saint was called St John of Nepucek (I think!) Anyway, the King and Queen were having arguments - and St John was the Queen's confessor. So the King wanted the low-down on the Queen's confession. And of course, good St John wouldn't do it, so he was thrown in the river. The picture below shows his story. (Don't forget you can click on the pics to make them bigger!)

This is how they do Confession in Prague!

Then we continued on our walk down to the city centre, and cute Karel took us to "funny place". We didn't know what he had in mind - he said it was an example of Czech humour. Have a look at the pic to see what we all had a good laugh at...

We then went on to the town square to see the Astronomical clock which not only tells the time, but shows how the planets are aligned and the phases of the moon.
Then we had time to wander around the square and have lunch.
I forgot the mention too, we have yet another currency here in the Czech Republic. We are now using Czech Crowns. You get around 25 Czech Crowns to the Euro, so about 12 to our Aussie Dollar. Everything is very expensive over here... Our bus guide Claus, explained that not everyone has converted to Euros because their own economy is not strong enough yet. In order for the Euro to be a strong currency, all countries that use it have to abide by certain rules and have a depth to their finances, so it doesn't get dragged down by the less strong countries.

That's it for me now. I'm going downstairs to have a beer before tea. I have the luxury of free Internet access in my room again - sheer joy!!! Caught up on all the footy goss and read all my emails. I really do appreciate your feedback. When you're on the road it's good to keep in touch with those who matter to you!