Another day in Bohemia

Praha, Wednesday, April 17th

This morning we worked our way across the Charles Bridge - which is open to foot traffic only and lined with artists. The temperature today was 11c with a bit of wind and sun coming and going. Our destination was the Royal/Presidential Palace and Parliament. In the complex is also St Vitus Cathedral, quite spectacular, St George Chapel and various other historical buildings as well as the embassies. From the bridge, the complex rises straight into the air! Of course it was meant to be fortified and the only way to get there is to climb up, and up, and up at the steepest angle I have yet seen in Europe! I may be a bit off, but it seems like just a tad off 89degrees! In the afternoon, we worked our way down - rappel ropes would have been a nice touch! A quick late lunch and we wound our way thru the usual tourist traps as we worked our way back to the hotel. A quick rest, then Gail checked out restaurants, while I went to get some supplies for the morning at the supermarket. I added Slyvovitsa (plum brandy) and a variety of diabetic chocolate bars. While shopping, ran into a Finnish woman with her nephew. She spoke English, he spoke a bit of English and French. So we were speaking French and translatining into English for her. Meanwhile at the checkout, I was speaking Ukrainian to the cashier. We had dinner at the "Marie Teresie" - our treat restaurante for the Praha part of the visit. White linen and all. Gail had pork with ham and cheese and mushrooms, I had roast beef with blue cheese. We had onion soup and garlic soup which we traded half way through. On the way back, we did a bit of souvenir shopping and came back and crashed.

The Czechs although part of the union, do not enter the Eurozone (meaning using the Euro as currency) until 2010, so still use the Crown or Koruna which is about 5cents CDN. There is quite a sticker shock when you look at things. However, it is quite easy to convert when you move the decimal point to the left by one digit and divide by two.

Yesterday, we saw and heard more Germans since I'm sure the Czechs have since 1939. Today was Italian day, everywhere they were speaking Italian!