We rose bright and early this morning to take a 6 hour walking tour of Prague.

The tour was great. There were only 10 of us and Misha our guide was very knowledgable about the history of Prague.

The city centre is composed of three main sections, the old town and the lesser town are about 700 years old and the new town is about 300 years old.

The old town is very busy and touristy, with the main town square, including the astronomical clock, which is a fascinating clock incorporating 3 different time measurements, as well as astrology and astronomy clocks. Every hour it plays a little 17 second routine where puppet saints appear and look down at the crowd judging them. It is very lame, but cool at the same time, given it has been doing this for 600 years.

We then took a cruise along the Vltava River, which was interesting, sailing under the Charles bridge.

Misha then took us to the John Lennon wall, which is a wall where artists started adding graphiti and Beatles lyrics when John Lennon died. The tradition has continued and there are new artworks appearing almost every day.

After that we had a traditional Czech lunch. Lidia had the goulash and I had a steak and dumpling dish. Of course we both had beer, which interestingly costs less than water in the Czech bars.

We then took a tram up to the cathedral and palace where we enjoyed magnificent views across Prague. The cathedral took 1,000 years to build, the most recent half of it being completed last century. The stained glass windows have the names of the banks and insurance companies that sponsored them incorporated in the stained glass. Tacky!

The walking tour ended there and we came back to the hotel for more beer than walked around the old town at night. We listened to a busker with a piano which he wheeled into the town square on a trolley. He was a fantastic pianist.

It is very noisy there so we are very happy to be staying in the lesser town which is quieter, but still very old and quaint and only a short walk from the old town.