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On our last full day in Prague we decided to take another walking tour so that we could have someone to tell us about the history of the city & explain to us what we're actually looking at. As much as I love wandering around a city, exploring it for myself, it's really nice to know the stories behind a certain building, or why monument X is actually important. And in our experience thus far, the free walking tours always seem to be better than the ones you pay for in advance. Why? Well, because "free" is really a misnomer (unless of course you're completely stingy) - it's more that they are based on tips. So there is the expectation that you will tip roughly what you'd pay in advance to do the same kind of tour, except on a "free" walking tour you pay at the end. That means the guide has to actually work hard to get your tips (because if they're completely terrible you don't actually HAVE to pay them) & thus they generally put in a bit more effort, are more entertaining, & generally provide a better tour.
Our guide of Prague was Amy, a lovely, bright, & extremely enthusiastic Texan who had moved to Prague about 10 months ago with her husband after falling in love with the city when they visited a few years before. I'm always wary of guides who aren't locals, but she was fantastic! And unlike our guide the night before, who pointed out a few sights along the way to our boat cruise in a boring, unenthusiastic monotone, Amy explained every sight & told every story like she was doing so for the first time. Her love of the city was entirely evident & infectious.
So we started out at the meeting place in the old town square with the Astronomical clock, which is known to be one of Prague's "most disappointing" sights. Fortunately my hopes were never up that high, so when the clock chimed on the hour & the 12 apostles filed past the little window & then the rooster let out a sad little squeak that I suppose was meant to be a crow, I wasn't particularly disappointed. Plus, you have to bear in mind that this thing is 600 years old & has been going off every hour, on the hour, 20 times a day for all those years. With that in mind it actually is kinda impressive!
Amy took us through all the major sights of old & new Prague (like the powder tower, Charles bridge, & the only remaining theatre in Europe where Mozart performed live), as well as the Jewish quarter with its' four different synagogues & a beautiful old cemetery. She stopped along the way to explain to us the stories of Czech history, from many centuries ago right up to WW2. For example, we learnt about the origins of defenestration (which my former English teacher, Dr Rowley, used to threaten as punishment to anyone who misbehaved in his class!), which was the Czech's favourite form of executing people - no need for gallows or electric chairs, they just used to chuck people straight out the window! One of the my favourite places that Amy showed us was a Jewish synagogue that's been turned into a memorial & houses the art work of hundreds of Czech Jewish children, which was created in the concentration camps where a prominent artist ran secret art therapy groups to try & help the children cope with what was going on their lives.
In the afternoon, we walked across the bridge to the outer parts of Prague to a restaurant Amy had recommended, which served fantastic, authentic Czech food. We tried a couple of traditional dishes including a Goulash soup (meat that's cooked for hours & goes really nice & tender) & also a Steak that comes with a kind of cream & Cranberry sauce (sounds kinda random but tastes delicious!). And of course it all came with dumplings, because everything in this part of the world seems to come with dumplings! :P We even had dumplings for desert! Apricot dumplings with grated cottage cheese in a kind of buttery sauce - very Czech, very yummy! :)
During the time is took us to go from main meal to desert, the blue skies completely clouded over with dark, ominous looking clouds, thunder & lightening filled the air, & it started pouring with rain, & then hail! It was the weirdest thing - in the space of an hour it went from ridiculously hot, sunny, blue skies to dark grey thunderstorms! We decided we'd better head back to the hostel because we were both in thongs & shorts & neither of us had any remotely warm clothing with us. So we ran along the street trying not the step in big, muddy puddle of water. Prague is not the cleanest city in the world, & it hadn't rained in a while, so when it did the smell was pretty awful!
In the evening we curled up in our room & watched the storm raging outside the window. There are lots of tall towers tipped with gold in Prague, & to watch them lit up by lightening is pretty spectacular. Then by the time morning came, it was all clear, blue skies again! :)
P.S. Good news people! It appears I've finally worked out how to upload photos!! So I've put one lot up but that took over an hour so the other lot will have to wait until I have a bit more time on my hands :) Enjoy!
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