The golden rooster at the top of the clock says "errggh"

Welcome to Prague, young Canadian!

We arrived in Prague at 6 am and were not able to check into our hostel until 2 pm, so with our suitcases in storage, we were obliged to wander the town for a while. After we had done a circuit of some of the pedestrian streets we spotted kiosk selling tickets for tours of the town, and signed up for a two hour tour of the highlights of Prague. If worst came to worst, we figured, we could catch up with some sleep on the bus.

The tour was bilingual - English and Italian! Nelson and I found that we could understand a lot of the Italian the guide was speaking so for a little while we felt rather smug about our language ability. Then we realized that we could not understand more than a word or two of what the Italian passengers were saying. We decided it was not a matter of dialect but the fact that the guide was speaking very simple Italian! So much for our language ability.

The tour was a very good overview of the sights -- truly and overview, as we went to the top of the hill and wandered through Prague Castle, where we were released from the group for exactly four minutes (the guide was very precise) to take pictures of the view. After the bus ride we had a walk through the Jewish old town, and the major old town square of the city. There are still four synagogue buildings, one is used for services and the other three are museums. The tour highlight of the old town is the famous mechanical clock, which our guide described in detail - including the astronomical, astrological and mythological features. I think it measures sidereal time and I know it is the pride of the town. The figures of the apostles circle past a doorway. The figures of the Turk, death, and greed ring bells and nod heads. Finally, the golden rooster at the top of the clock says "errggh". And it all lasts about 28 seconds! It was pretty hot stuff for the time it was built, but in the age of computer animation it's not exactly rivetting. Thousands come to watch, anyway.

The main feature of the main square for us was the booths selling wine, beer, fanta, bratwurst-on-a-bun, chicken kabobs and giant slabs of fry bread slathered with your choice of topping (nutella, ketchup and garlic, cheese, etc). You can probably figure out our lunch menu from this description.

ABC hostel was just off Wenceslas Square and right in the middle of the action. We had a room for four, paid for three and got the whole thing to ourselves. It was good to have the space to spread out. There was good wireless access in the common room, so we got caught up on blog entries and emails there. In the shopping mall under the hostel was a currency exchange place where we traded in our Ukrainian cash and the last of our Russian rubles -- and the cashier did not laugh at us. (See previous blog entry describing our trip from Lviv to Prague for the reasons we were sentative about our Ukrainian cash.)

We pursued modern history rather than the story of ancient Prague on our second day, and visited the Museum of Communism. It was very well done, and told the story of the 20th century in themes: The Dream (the inter-war years when the Cech communists believed that Communism would be the foundation of a new utopia); The Cult of Personality (the impact of Stalin and his henchmen in Czechoslovakia after WW2), The Reality (execution or exile of Cech nationalists and leaders in all fields, shortages, propaganda, spying, etc), The Nightmare (Prague Spring and the Soviet invasion of 1968), The Velvet Revolution (the end of Communism and the independence of the Cech Republic and Slovakia in the 1990s).

Time for a break from things too serious or thoughtful…we dragged John through the crowds across the famous Charles Bridge (both ways!), sat on the river bank and had a drink, then went to the Museum of Medieval Torture! A little more wandering on the pedestrian streets to admire the art deco buildings and the mosaics on the churches, a little grocery shopping in the “Albert” store across the street from the hostel, and the day was done.

Now it’s time to see Prague without the lenses of history! We spent Sunday morning at the hostel catching up on sleep, blog entries and math homework. Our Sunday afternoon expedition was to the park, where we saw a children’s festival in progress, and then on to the river where we rented a paddle boat and admired the view of the city from water level. . The sun was shining and it seemed to me that Prague is a very happy city these days, even though the tour guide told us that tourism has dropped almost by half since the economic crisis of 2008.