Praha

It was very misty yesterday morning when we took off from Nuremberg. We had a 4 hour bus ride and it was lovely driving through the countryside and past lots of villages and towns. We got into Prague around lunchtime - it was mayhem at the hotel with Avalon getting us off and out and picking up a new boatload to continue on the river. We are staying at the Intercontinental, which looks pretty ordinary from the outside (it was built in 1968) but very comfortable inside. Jane and I had a large double bed each in our spacious room. Something quite unusual for us was seeing people smoking in the lobby and restaurants - they do have special smoking areas that you walk through on the way in!
We had booked into a Prague Secrets walking tour which began quite well and was interesting. We saw things like the outside of the old castle,

View of old castle

the John Lennon pub and the the John Lennon wall - not that John Lennon had ever stayed in Prague.

Part of John Lennon wall

They, like the rest of this area of Europe, have had some tremendous floods and many of the buildings near the river have markers for the different flood levels throughout time. The weather was beautiful and sunny but a bit cool at 6 degrees - and it got much cooler as the day went on. The buildings are amazing dating from 900s through most ages - Gothic, medieval, renaissance and so on. We finished up on the Charles Bridge where you couldn't even walk comfortably - it was absolutely packed with people elbow to elbow.

Under the Charles Bridge

Apparently it is a special weekend in Christmas festivities here - Mikulas , St Nicholas Day and heaps of people come in from neighbouring countries to join in the celebrations.




After 3 1/2 hours we took off back to the hotel to thaw out
Dinner was at a local restaurant, Pilsner Urquelle Restaurant, where we tried local delicacies - beef goulash, small fishes? some other beef dish and Pilsner Urquelle. All quite delicious.

small fishes