More Prague

It's Thursday and we had a leisurely breakfast at our BnB. That's the way I'm referring to any place we stay at that provides us breakfast. It does not mean AirBnb or Days Inn or The Ritz. These are basically rooms in someone's home or maybe a five or six room apartment style building. There's not really a"front desk" but someone is usually around. Next time I want someone around to bring food to our room.....as well as carry our luggage up the three or four flights of stairs that everyone seems to have. I thought that's why Alice came. In this place we have to go through three sets of locked doors! I don't think there's a lot of crime. I think the owner just gets a kick out of making his "guests" do that. Plus we all have to go out together. Once one leaves, the doors are locked and your stuck. AND THAT FRONT DOOR ! It took two women to open it. Seriously. I couldn't help... I was holding the camera.

Also, every place we've stayed is on the top floor, INCLUDING THOMAS' !!! At least Thomas had an elevator, sort of. Our three pieces of luggage and two people could ride in it. Alice and I left the stairs for B. She likes stairs. Tomorrow she's going up one of the bell towers here. 384 steps! Good for her. I'm having a latte and watching.

Speaking of steps. Today we headed to the Prague Castle. We wanted to get an early start because we heard it was going to be 85 degrees today but breakfast got in the way. About 10 we headed across the Charles Bridge, with a few thousand other tourists. There are people everywhere. This place really is like Disneyland, only real. Including the crowds! Once across the river we had a choice: take the number 22 tram for $1.50 or climb at least a quarter mile of steps! Even Belinda thought it might have been more than that. In close to 85 degree heat! WHY DID WE DO THAT?!

At that point I really didn't care about some stupid castle. I've been to Disneyland. OK, it was interesting and we did come to Europe to sightsee but like I said, next time, different level of accommodations AND a private tour guide who can deal with all this stuff.

We watched the changing of the guard at the castle gate and spent the next few hours meandering around relatively level ground.

Then it was time to hike back down, thinking it would be easier than going up. By the time we got back to our room we all needed showers and our clothes needed washing. STUPID STUPID STUPID!

We rested for a couple of hours and then headed back out to find something to eat. Since we hadn't had lunch due to our having heat stroke we found a place quickly, which may not have been the best idea. The food was fine, actually pretty good, but as we were checking out restaurants the weather was changing. We knew it was going to be about 20 degrees cooler the next day, Friday, but didn't think much about it until the wind came up. Of course in our haste to eat, and in our desire not to walk very far, we selected a table under some umbrellas next to the sidewalk. Now these umbrellas were all weighed down with a concrete base that must take four guys to move. No problem because we weren't going to go inside. There were two steps up to the door. Our mind changed when the first umbrella fell over next to us right after I said "It's getting windy." Suddenly we could handle two steps but by the time we got up to move, everyone else had too, and filled up the restaurant. You know how you feel when you just eat too quickly because you don't want to be late for the movie? That's how I feel right now because we scarfed that meal down. It was scary windy.

On the way back to our room is when B saw the bell tower and has now made her plans to summit it tomorrow. I'm having my latte.
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Day two, or three depending on how you count them, was nice and cool and sure enough Belinda and Alice headed for the tower.... BUT they took the elevator! I'm proud of B for trying something different but then I didn't have time for my latte. Belinda is at the top of the tower here.

 We watch the highly overrated "Astrological clock" strike the hour of 11. More interesting was the crowd, and I do mean crowd, of people waiting for it.

Hell, come to Mount Angel if you want a show. The clockworks itself is something to see, the hourly striking not so much. We then caught the underground with the girls heading towards the one museum they hadn't seen yet, the Mucha Museum, while I headed for an important meeting with representatives from AVAST, the antivirus software maker. Number one or two in the world for free antivirus. They have products for the pc and Android phone. We use it at the literacy center and have been extremely happy. And it's free! We met back up after our excursions and had lunch on another beautiful square in front of the National Museum which, thank gawd, was closed for renovations. We had bought a couple of 90 minute metro passes so we decided to head to the funicular near some gardens on the opposite side of the river. When we got there we found it was closed until March! THANK YOU BELINDA! The one reason I wanted to go to Prague! (Whew... It involved stairs). So we decided to catch the next streetcar and ride it to the end, which we did, and then grabbed a different one and rode it back to our local square by the clock. We had a Polish sausage, beer and a Coke on the square and listened a bit to the musicians playing in the area and then walked back to our room for any early bedtime. We have to get up at 0530 to catch a 0712 bus to Manneheim and then a train to Beaune, pronounced Bone, France. Thank you, Zuzana, for all the food tips and places to visit!

When we got back to our room I was perusing my emails and read this one. " The U.S. Embassy in Prague informs U.S. citizens residing in or traveling through Europe that travel may be delayed or disrupted across the region, including via land borders." I look forward to it. Not that all these countries are part of the EU there's no "border crossings" and therefore no border or country stamps in our passports! What the hell are our passports for if not to flaunt where we've been? We may get two stamps, one for arriving at the Netherlands and the other for entering the US!  How disappointing is that? We could have just gone to Canada!