Prague Day 2...

After catching up on some zzz's after a slew of late nights in Kutna Hora I was ready for day 2 in Prague. A short walk awarded us the dazzling view from Charles bridge of Prague Castle and St. Vitus Cathedral. I plugged in the general direction into my internal Navi we began the trek up the meandering streets to get to the castle. I'm not 100% sure which was the castle proper, but I'm pretty sure that everything on top of the hill was part of the complex. That and Guinness puts Prague castle as the largest ancient castle in the world. They even had London type guards which I wanted to pose for a picture with, but I figured they wouldn't know I wasn't going to hit them... Oh well, maybe next time.

Prague is supposed to be a city of music. Indeed there were quite a few street musicians on the paths of our exploration, including a quintet of classical musicians whose music greeted us on the castle summit in front of the main gate. Not to mention every cathedral had 'live' music each night we were there. The band was very nice, and so was the main gate, but St. Vitus was my goal and that is where we went first. The exterior is a great Gothic structure (largest church in the country) completed in 1344 similar to, but not as good as, the Kölner Dom. The interior was a little bit of all right with a very nice gilded silver sculpture tucked away in the back corner. In order to really enjoy the sculpture we climbed up on a small step of a chapel and stood above the slow moving procession of tourists who would snap a single picture and move on. But after watching a group of people cut in the line upon entry to the cathedral with no protest from the masses I decided it was OK for us to take our time. Lili was now carrying a large quantity of free pamphlets and information so we finally had other objectives. The first being the ascent of the Great Southern Tower of St. Vitus... but much like the royal garden, part of Charles Bridge, and the castle Powder tower, it was closed due to technical difficulties.

Disappointed as the view should have been spectacular, we moved on to the next objective which was St. George's Basilica. After being turned away by the need for tickets we moved on. When we were denied the next objective of the Golden Lane by a need for tickets I broke down and bought us 2 and we headed back to St George's. St George's is the oldest church building within Prague Castle, originally founded in 920. According to the pamphlets it was the best preserved baroque structure in the country. I wasn't seeing it though... I took 2 half hearted pictures inside and both ended up being very blurry. Although the scary looking skeleton statue I took a picture of in the central knave(?) was morbid and awesome. Also, I think it may have been made of jade. Everything else about the place was pretty blah and uninteresting so we quickly moved on.

Other interesting points of note were the Dalibor Tower which had various instruments of torture on display including a rack, but no thumb screws or iron maidens. We also took a trek down the Golden Lane which is an old street that has a house where Franz Kafka wrote some important books. To be honest, I had no idea who Franz Kafka was, but Lili knew his work very well and it turns out that he is quite the important author in the 20th century. It was interesting how short the doorways were and how low the ceilings were. I can't believe the giants here originated from that stock... We finished with a quick walk through the history of Prague castle museum full of interesting treasures. There was of course no photography allowed and the lighting was actually poor enough that I didn't bother taking pictures.

About halfway through the museum my stomach and feet told me it was time to go and Lili agreed. We ended up eating some Italian food near the castle. Much like the eatery outside of the Vatican in Rome I left with a lot less money and ready to eat again. There was a brief debate about whether we would go up the Prague 'Eiffle tower' or head back to the Jewish quarter. The tower being uphill and the Jewish quarter being downhill we decided on the latter. Plus the previous day we were turned away from the Jewish quarter due to everything shutting down at 6pm. We got there and, what a shocker, it was closed. Turns out that Saturday is the Jewish day of rest, not Sunday...

A little disheartened about missing out again, we moved back towards the old town square. Being denied the ascent of the tower earlier in the morning I wanted to get a better view of the city. I picked the astronomical clock tower as it would provide a nice view of Tyn Cathedral and the old town square. It turned out to be a good idea, except for the overcrowding in the 1 person wide isleway at the top. We soaked in the spectacular view and I snapped about 50 pictures with different angles on all of the interesting sights in the town. Exhausted from walking all day on hard and uneven pavement a short nap was in order since the game plan included a nigh of dancing at a club.

I asked the guy behind the desk for a good electronic music club but he was a bit too old for that I guess. He did show me on a map the location of a 5 story club with a different DJ on every floor. That sounded nice so I had him write down the name and general location on the map and we set out once again. On the way to the club we stopped for dinner at a jazz restaurant. When we got in, the lady told us that at 11 they were done. I figured an hour would be enough for eating and enjoying the live band. We had passed up on live gypsy music only because I couldn't find the restaurant a second time. After about 10 minutes and the waiter saying the tourist menu was closed the band packed up and left so we got to dine in silence. I ordered the rabbit which smelled bad and tasted worse... Luckily Lili didn't mind it so I ate her fillet. After getting the bill which was another whopper I had to take a picture. The final total was 768 and a note said service of 10% was not included. The waiter was kind enough to write in '+service 860' on the bottom. I'm not sure what kind of gorilla math they teach in Czech schools, but 92 is not 10% of 768... Figuring I would just correct him when he brought my change, I found out that he kept 860 and gave me a giant stack of CZK 2 coins... In Kutna Hora 3 of us ate 3 course meals with lots of booze for my two colleagues for less than 1300...

We finished the night, or rather began Sunday, at the club. 5 stories of DJ's and all kinds of different nationalities were present at the club. We started at the bottom for some reggatone and dirty dance music. On the second floor they had electronic music and a decent DJ. The dance floor was kind of scary with a large crucified robot looking thing with lasers for eyes... All I want is a freakin shark with a laser beam attached to its head, is that too much to ask for?... The third floor was oldies with some swing dancing and disco, but neither I nor anyone else in the club actually knew how to dance to that music properly. The fourth floor was the hip-hop, R&B floor which reminded me a bit of the Post in Novi... both the clientele and the music. The 5th and final floor was called the chill out room where there were couches and a great house DJ. Of all the floors I think we spent the most time there as it had the best music and I could actually sit down.

Finally at the ripe hour of 6am we were back at the hotel and sound asleep... This weekend should be the last for a long time where I get back from a club after 3am.