Prague Day 1

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We hardly got any sleep the night before. Usual panic attacks with packing - checked I've packed the essentials an insane number of times. Had to get up at around 0200 to get ready - and we were out of the door by 0400. We were driving up to Stansted and would leave our darling iron horse to graze in the "mid stay" car park for the two nights until we came back to ride it home. Our flight was at 0615 and we reached & parked up by 0500 - so all good, right? - wrong!! The car park pickup buses were running every 10mins, but they were running full (note to self - never assume that it would take 15mins from the airport carpark to the terminal). Finally the third one came round with space for us to get on and we got the flight - had to hurry a bit - esp as we had to queue up to get Susmita's boarding pass reprinted (the original one got lost between the desktop and the printer somehow). Arrived dot on time in Prague and no waiting for hold luggage (way to go!). No sign of pick-up yet (probably factored in the waiting time for luggage) - no worries, we wandered round and got a bottle of water, came back, and he was there! Got to the hotel much earlier than their check-in time but they had a room ready, so changed and went out for lunch. It was sunny when we came out but started raining heavily in about 5 mins. We walked in the rain around 20mins to get to the curry place ("Min Mini"?) suggested by the hotel. What can I say - the food was worth it - authentic Pashtuni Biriyani, Aloo Parantha and Chicken Malai curry - mouthwateringly delicious!! On the way back and it was sunny again. Back in the hotel, tried to book a place on the city tour but the last tour was leaving in 15mins so we decided to do it the next day and just took a stroll around ourselves...

We got off at Namesti Republicky and saw the Municipal House (Prague's largest opera house). It was funny, as we didn't know what it was at the time as only the czech name was given on the city map we had - we found about it the next day during the guided city tour.

The fresco was magnificient - also as you can tell, the sun was out again!!

We hung around this place for a while checking concert times etc.Should have reserved tickets then, but missed out this time.

We then moved on to the "Powder Tower" next to the municipal house. One of the many towers dotted around the city, this one I think had an elevator to the top.

We kept on walking in the old town. Streets soon narrowed down to paved alleyways with beautiful architechture at every corner

Until we came out on the old town square, right next to the astronomical clock. Again we didn't know it was the astronomical clock and just walked past it - though, come to think of it we did remark on how crowded it was there!

In the old square we stood in awe as we were surrounded (on all sides) by these buildings taking us back almost 600 years.

Too much! We had to sit down for a while and chill... We also took the time to get ourselves booked on the city tour for the next day (complete with hotel pickup at 0930 - a bit early for my liking but cool!).

Close up of the facade of the building in the picture above.

There were quite a few horse carriages to take tourists around the old town; cars / buses are not allowed in the old town square. We however decided to keep on walking.

First view of Charles Bridge (remember the famous scene from Mission Impossible?). If you look closely, you can make out the Petrin tower on the hill on the right. It's a 1/6th scale replica of the original Eiffel Tower in Paris.

Took turns posing in front of Charles Bridge. There was a lovely Four Seasons Hotel with well manicured gardens overlooking the river Vltava at this spot.

The tower at the Charles bridge - you go underneath the tower on to the bridge... The silhouette of the statue on the right is that of St John, you are supposed to rub a spot on it's base for good luck. We (as usual) didn't know - so missed it... what we did however, is try to go up the tower until we found out the number of steps.

On Charles Bride now - looking on the Vltava.

We got a fellow tourist to take a snap of us.

Sun setting on the Castle... as you can tell, it got a bit late before we could get back, and after a few tram / bus interchanges and a quick shop at Tescos (yes Tesco followed us there!!) we got back to the hotel at around 2230 - a long day!!