The Real Disneyland
Sunday, July 17, 2005
Sunday 17th July
Today we went on the ‘Ultimate Tour’ of Prague which combined all the best aspects of Prague. We meet our guide at the ‘Astronomical Clock, & after an explanation of what was to come we headed off down the road to the river, where we boarded a boat for a 1 hour cruise up the Vltava River, & get a commentary of what we saw. The guide had a very monotone voice though, so we looked at the sights instead & ended up talking to a Canadian girl Karina who is living in Sweden for a few months. She had a few days off work so flew to Prague for the weekend – that is so cool! Anyway, she started telling us all these amazing places that we have to visit & fortunately we had been organised enough to bring pen & notebook for exactly this sort of occasion, so we wrote all these places down! After the boat ride & refreshments Karina left us (she just did the boat ride) & we headed off to the Jewish Quarter of the Old Town. We found out that for 500 years until the mid18th Century there was a wall built around the Ghetto & the Jewish people were not allowed to leave – much like the West Berliners in more recent history! From here we walked around the Old Town & had various sights pointed out to us. We then walked across the Charles Bridge which is just the most amazing ‘medieval’ bridge – just as you would imagine! It had fortification towers at each end, statues all along it & is just amazing. We then caught the tram up the hill to the New Town, where we had our lunch stop. After a 3 course Czech meal we headed off to the Prague Castle – this is the most gimonstrous collection of buildings you can possibly imagine – you walk through the guarded entrance, walk through the courtyard & through another archway where you think it ends. But no, this is the archway into another courtyard (& when we say courtyard we mean a cobbled area about the size of a rugby field, complete with fountains, statues & everything else you would expect to find in a nobility residence. After a quick peak through the castle cathedral our tour ended at the top of the hill looking out over Prague. It is a beautiful city. As part of our tour we also got free tickets to the Old Town Ghost Trail. We decided to go on the 8.30pm one & found that Karina was there as well. We started talking & decided it wasn’t dark enough so thought we would hang out at until the 10pm tour instead. Found a little out of the way garden bar which was lovely & quiet. Ahh, just whet we needed after a 6 hour walking tour & another 5 hours hanging out in central Prague!! The tour at 10pm was much darker so can imagine was heaps better, then finished at a bar in the middle of the Old Town. Hung out here with Karina for another 3 hours or so & had a fantastic night! We hope to catch up with her when she moves to Wales in September.
After seeing Prague by day & by night I have decided that I now know where Disneyland gets it’s inspiration from for it’s castles etc – Prague is absolutely magical!
My God its easy to drink way too much in Europe, its ridiculously cheap. So far most nights have been just hanging out in pubs or clubs… What a life a.
posted by Maarty @ 2:41 am,
2 Comments:
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At Tuesday, 19 July, 2005,
said...
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I am very jealous!! And the weather looks amazing!! We are having great weather as well (i think we went above 8 yesterday!!)
Miss Ya Both,
Tabz -
At Tuesday, 19 July, 2005,
said...
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awesome stuff, and you are seeing stuff that we never got to when we were there in 78. I remember the astronomical clock, now that you mention it, but we never got to Prague Castle, I remember our guide pointing it out up on the hill overlooking the city but I think it had not yet been opened up for tourists at that stage, or something. Or perhaps it was in use by the secret police and other government apparatchiks that were still oppressing the local citizenry. Sounds like an awesome place to see, though.