Friday 15th June– The perfect sunny day in Prague

Today began the first of our two completely free days in Prague (we have not seen Vicky, our tour leader, once). The morning was an easy one – Julie and I optimistically donned our first dresses of the tour, despite it being chilly outside, and headed off around 9am.

First stop – the bakery around the corner that our tour guide had recommended. This place was amazing, so many pastries, croissants, cakes, plus yoghurts and salads. I ordered an apple croissant and a strawberry and banana smoothie for breakfast. It wasn’t long before we were both vowing to come back to the place soon. Nom. 

       

After breakfast we headed over to the Starbucks in the Old Town square to wait for the free walking tour we had decided to go on (being entertained by the beginning of many brides and grooms getting photos taken throughout the day). I should mention that Julie and I had at this point spent the last hour incessantly raving about the weather. It was perfect – our first sunny day since this tour started, not a cloud in the sky, and I’m not sure if I can possibly describe how much it lifted everbody’s spirits. If someone had made a tally of the amount of times we said ‘sun’ during the day, well, it would have been a big number.

    

Soon our walking tour started (Sandemans New Europe Prague, remember that). We got split into small groups as there was a LOT of people. We lucked out with our guide, he was very funny and very interesting and knew an awful lot. The walking tour itself ran for three and a half hours, giving us a really great overview of what there is to see in Prague, plus a huge amount of Czech history. It is incredible how many different occupations and leaderships this country has had – there was  certainly a lot to absorb. We went through the Jewish Quarter, we saw opera houses, the Astronomical Clock and many many different types of architecture. I also had my first bagel with cream cheese. It was fair to say that by the end we were very satisfied that we’d done Prague very thoroughly, and much better than what we could have done on our own.

The original plan had been to do the company’s NEXT walking tour, but after three and a half hours we couldn’t really handle the thought of going on another three hour walking tour straight away. So Julie and I went off on an independent mission to get icecream and visit the castle on the hill (apparently the biggest ancient castle in the world). The castle basically covers to whole hill and is really more like a small village with a giant cathedral in the middle. We didn’t go into any buildings but had a very nice time walking around the area in the sun and admiring the view of Prague.

    

Eventually we walked back into the town again to meet Dan and Sarah for a marionette show at 5pm (but not before stopping and drinking wine in a cafe in the sun). I don’t have too much to say about the show – it was well done and cute and I’m glad I went, but because it was an Italian Opera of Don Giovanni, we had no idea what was going on at all. This wasn’t helped by the fact that I only realised at the end that two of the puppets were the same character. As such, staying awake at this point in the day was a big effort and we were glad to get moving again.

Sarah and Dan headed off by themselves and Julie and I went searching for food, eventually choosing a random restaurant in an alley way. I had roast duck with a side of salad which was yummy. We also polished off a bottle of wine whilst having many discussions about mortality, religion, relationships – you know, light topics like that.

Once dinner was over we went on a mission for dessert. We ended up at a bizarre cafe designed by the cubists, ordered two cheesecakes and finished another bottle of wine very quickly before being kicked out at 10pm. It had only just gotten dark – we loved sitting outside at 9pm and still seeing blue skies. And of course, it was still warm. That was a special moment.

    

After wandering around admiring the Prague buildings lit up at night… and the crowd watching the soccer in the main square we headed back to the apartment for a quick catch up with the other two girls here, before tipsily falling into bed – the perfect end to the perfect day in the perfect city,