Our Long Weekend - Day One

When we woke up on Saturday morning, we really had no plan for our time in Prague. In fact, we didn't even know where we were going to eat breakfast. We chose the first place we saw after leaving our apartment, which was a hostel across the street (http://www.mosaichouse.com/) that had an all you can eat breakfast buffet of buns, deli meats, yogurt, muesli, fruit, eggs etc. We have become quite taken with Eastern European breakfast items, so we were very happy with this assortment. Not as happy as Gord was though, when he found out he was allowed to play the guitar on the wall.

When we were finished, we set off to try and find Old Town. However, it proved to be harder than we had expected. We really had no idea where we were going. The funniest part was that every time we stopped to try and read the map, there were other people doing the same thing on the same corner. It was not a long weekend in the Czech Republic, but since it was a long weekend in Germany and Poland, there were tourists everywhere. EVEYWHERE! Eventually we made it on to a tram and across the river to the area we were looking for...sort of...kind of.

We thought this was a statue of snakes. It was actually a timed fountain, which we found out when it suddenly shot water at the kids. They were a little surprised...and wet!

We got off the tram, and came across some people in a big line up. Big line ups mean there must be something worth seeing, right? We asked someone what it was for, and were told that it was to buy tickets to take a train to the top of Petrin Hill. The girl we talked to assured us that if we didn't want to stand in line (which we try to avoid since the Science Centre episode) we could just walk up the hill. She thought it would take about 20 minutes.

No problem, we told the kids. We are Canadian. We can walk up a little hill. We live at the base of the Rocky Mountains, for Pete's sake!! It turns out that it was quite a steep and long hill. It took us about 2 hours! We were glad we walked though, because we made many discoveries on the way up that we wouldn't have made if we had taken the train.

There were all sorts of interesting statues and monuments.

There was a fantastic view of the city from about half way up the hill.

There was even time for a romantic picture. Aw, come on, how cute are we?

We found a beautiful garden that reminded us of the Secret Garden. It had high walls, beautiful flowers and a gate to get in. The kids could have played in there for hours and hours.

It even had a tree you could climb into. This garden reminded me of Hanna. She would have loved it!

And Grandma Janet would have loved the rose garden we found.

In the rose garden, there was a maze you could walk around. It was another big hit with the kids!

There was really only one pitfall on our walk. About half way up, we saw a sign for a Magical Cavern, and the kids really wanted to check it out. When we got there, the man told them that there were pictures of fairies, elves and princesses inside. They were totally excited! When I stepped in, all I could see were pictures of half naked girls on horseback. Oh sure, some of them had fairy wings, but it wasn't exactly what we had in mind. Besides, I wasn't really comfortable with the smell of pot I encountered on the way in. There were many tears when we told the kids that the Magical Cavern was not for us.

Later in the day, we found the church that houses the Infant Jesus of Prague and walked across the Charles Bridge. Both were really interesting, but for some reason I can't seem to find the pictures we took of either. Maybe Krista will put some up later.