24 Hours in Prague

Last night Leslie, Whitney and I returned from a whirlwind trip to Prague.  We had hoped to stay two nights, but didn't get our bus tickets in time.  We left Saturday morning about 8:30am and arrived in Prague about 12:30pm.  After checking in at the Czech Inn we met up with a friend of Leslie's and a couple others and headed up to see the castle.  The "castle" is actually many buildings with a cathedral inside. 

After walking through the castle, we walked down to the Charles Bridge stopping along the way at a cafe for warm beverages.  The Charles Bridge was very busy and quite interesting. 

My favorite part was the small jazz band with a clarinetist.

We walked around a bit more before realizing that we were to meet a missionary family for dinner.  We went to a restaurant that served traditional Czech food from times past.  Wild boar was a popular item on the list and I settled for roasted duck.  Very interesting...

After visiting with the family for a while we ventured out into the frigid weather to see the castle and Charles Bridge by night.  It was beautiful.  We had the castle and bridge practically to ourselves.  It was freezing, but beautiful.

We arrived at the hostel very late and were grateful to fall into our bunks.  We got a little confused with the daylight savings business,  but managed to eat breakfast and then head out again.  We went to the Jewish Quarter to see the Jewish Cemetery, but weren't quite up for paying the entrance fee and just peeked through the gate.  We did see the Old New Synagogue from the outside.

After the Jewish Quarter we meandered around the Old Town Area where the Astronomical clock is located.  We were told to be there on the hour so we could see the different figures pass by the doors.  Apparently there was something funny at the end that I missed...everyone else was laughing and I didn't get it. 

At this point we had an hour and a half to get to the bus station.  We decided to try and see the Dancing Building.  We made our way towards the southern part of the city, stopping for some food at a bakery on the way.  The subways are not quite as often as those in Vienna and by the time we made it out of the subway station at the stop we had half an hour to make it to the bus station.  We raced down the street to see the building and I took the official pictures as we trotted across the street and back up to the subway station.  

We quickly made our way to the bus station, getting to our seats with five minutes to spare.  Whew!  

Check out the rest of my pictures from the trip.