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Anthony went to the local grocery store this morning for some breakfast supplies. Czech corn flakes (somewhat different from home), bread, salami and cheese. We finished off our final load of washing and set off to see the sites of Prague.
While walking through Wencelas Square I saw some Segway's in action and suggested to Anthony that touring on a Segway might be more fun than walking with our tired feet (I hit a record step count yesterday of 18,232 and my body was acutely aware!). To my surprise he agreed, so off we went to book a tour.
We decided on the 90 minute tour that took in most of the sites and then we had a training session. It was pretty straightforward, you just needed to use your body to manoeuvre: lean forward to go forward and stand straight (or lean back) to stop. Easy! Famous last words. I had a few incidents!
My most exciting event was when I was stopping next to a grassy incline. The Segway wheel slipped on the grass and took off again which meant I jumped off and then it run over my foot and hit me in the shin. Very glamorous!
Back to the tour. We took off through Wencelas square towards the historic old town square where we stopped to see the medieval Astronomical Clock. This square featured various architectural styles including the Gothic Church of Our Lady before Týn, which has been the main church of this part of the city since the 14th century. Prague Orloj is the medieval astronomical clock located on the Old Town Hall. The clock was first installed in 1410, making it the third-oldest astronomical clock in the world and the oldest one still in operation.
The Baroque St. Nicholas Church is another church located in the square, while the tower of the Old Town Hall offers a panoramic view of Old Town.
After leaving the square we headed off through the ritzy shopping street where Anthony stopped to photograph some Rolls Royce's. While one was the standard white, the other two were awful, a Baxter blue and a light teal.
We also stopped to see the old Jewish area. My research on Prague led me to discover that during Easter 1389, members of the Prague clergy announced that Jews had desecrated the host (Eucharistic wafer) and the clergy encouraged mobs to pillage, ransack and burn the Jewish quarter. Nearly the entire Jewish population of Prague (3,000 people) perished (very Christian!). Later Hitler came along and murdered some more. Boy, who'd be a Jew?
Our guide was a Ukrainian uni student who was studying economics in the Czech Republic (for which he had to spend a year learning the language to tertiary level). We were lucky to have just the two of us and the guide on our tour. We passed many larger groups!
Wikipedia has been my friend on tour and I've used it to get a brief overview of some of the places we have visited. It tells me that Prague was founded about 1100 years ago and was the capital of the Czech state and the Holy Roman Empire. It was an important city to the Habsburg Monarchy and its Austro-Hungarian Empire and after World War I became the capital of Czechoslovakia. After WWII it was under the control of the Soviet Union before becoming the Czech Republic in 1993.
On our tour we were able see a giant 23m operational metronome on the site of a former giant statue of Stalin. Our guide said it was a way of saying 'no no no'.
We visited a number of other spots including the Jewish Synagogue, Rudolfinum (concert hall), Charles Bridge, Lennon's Wall (ever changing graffiti), Prague Castle (great view over the city), Strahov monastery, Petrin Park, Victims of Communism Memorial (the site of my ignominious crash) and the National Theatre. We were VERY glad we were on the Segway when we saw the steep streets to the castle and the monastery.
We really enjoyed our Segway tour, but it was much harder work than we anticipated (excluding my extra events!). Once we hopped off at the end we hobbled up the street as our feet were sore and our toes were a bit numb. I think we probably needed a couple of more stops to stretch out our muscles during the tour.
We stopped in Wencelas Square for some lunch and then returned to our apartment for some rest! Our hosts came along and fixed the TV connection and we were very happy to be able to watch TV. It was all in Czech, but Anthony managed to discover the Tour De France in French (as if that made a difference) and watched it to see the Australian guy win.
The weather cooled and there was a little rain, we hoped that meant the street drinkers would be kept away tonight!
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