Prague continued

The choir tour has officially ended as of Saturday morning and several folks have left for home. The five of us (Marilyn, Anne, Denise, Caryn and me) moved out of our hotel and into an apartment we rented through AirBnB, which was luckily just a short walk from the hotel. The apartment is nice and roomy with five beds, but the location unfortunately is quite noisy. So we're bringing out the earplugs at night!

We've basically been wandering around taking in the sights. The tram line and the metro are just steps away, and we've managing to figure out fares and routes, etc. despite the language being so different from what we were used to. Caryn, Marilyn and Anne did have a bit of a run-in with metro security and then police, but I'll save that story for another post!

Yesterday morning, we hopped on the tram for a visit to the famous Charles Bridge. Commissioned by King Charles IV in 1357, Charles Bridge has been a pedestrian-only bridge since 1978 and is now full of artisan vendors, painters and musicians, making for a lively artsy feel.

Charles Bridge

 

Entrance to Charles Bridge

 

 

 

 

 

View from the bridge

 

Leaving the Charles Bridge

 

Street view just beyond the bridge

 

Lunch break at a tasty Mediterranean-style restaurant

 

 

After lunch, we wandered over to the Wallenstein Garden located on the grounds of the Wallenstein Palace. Built in 1630, the garden is a lovely quiet spot containing fountains, sculptures, trimmed box hedges and a few roaming peacocks, including an albino one.

 

 

 

 

Bert, this one's for you. :-)

 

 

At one end of the garden is the Wallenstein Palace which houses the Czech Senate. It happened to be open to the public so we took a look inside, having the place practically to ourselves. (We couldn't help wondering whether the Czech Senate works any better than the Canadian one.)

 

 

 

 

On our way home, we stopped at the grocery store and picked up food for a light supper. We then hauled the Ikea table and chairs out onto our sixth floor balcony and had a lovely meal, ending with a beautiful full moon over the city. What a day!

 

 

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