More Travels With No Shoes: Prague

It's my birthday today!

This hotel used to be a bank and the breakfast is served in the old vault! It's a lovely little family run place. They have a photo in the foyer of the five generations of family who have run it.

After breakfast, we start walking - that is the theme of the day... Walking and taking 'artistic' pictures along the way...

It is such a pretty city! Past the Kafka Statue and what I think is the Philharmonic Building - happy to be corrected on this.

Then we get to the Charles Bridge and take a stroll to the other side and back. What an amazing place this is! There is one statue that if you touch it, you receive good luck. Apparently just as many people touch the dog and I do too! (I did touch the other one on the way back too!)

Time for a coffee, and with a view!

Here, as with most places, there are the selfie sticks and the serious tourists with tripods, setting them up and posing in a series of ridiculous pouts to the camera. I do still love popping into the background of someone's selfie with weird expressions and Alison is now joining me in doing this - hilarious!

I really wanted to see what is considered one of the most beautiful libraries in the world but it is closed for restoration - so disappointing, but what can you do? This is the photo I got of the beautiful library - the sign...

That will look great in a frame... Never mind, there is another pretty good library, apparently.

We had noticed guys in sailor suits the other days, spruiking something and had avoided it but Peter, Maryanne and Karla said they had done the boat trip and it was great so we decided to give it a go. It's easy enough to get a ticket, you just walk towards the bridge and wait for a sailor to accost you. Didn't take long...

Down and into the boat and we are offered tea, coffee, beer or lemonade and we choose coffee - not the best choice to make! It's not good coffee and they only have UHT milk. She looks a little surprised when I ask for five little tubs of it, I like milky coffee... We also have a choice of an ice cream or gingerbread. And we get earphones for the commentary.

And we're off...

This was great, the commentary gave heaps of information about Prague and the Charles Bridge - all way too much to recount. Our captain, Charles, did point out the buildings of interest as we passed them, showed us the palace where other royals have stayed, including Elizabeth II, the place where all the stars have stayed.

It mentioned the National Theatre that was built for the people and it burned down many years ago and they had a fundraiser to rebuild - they made a massive amount of money in a very short amount of time coz the people cared about the arts.

Prague was divided into four parts - New Town, Old Town, somewhere I didn't catch the name of, and Lesser Town - which sounded like not a great place, but it is pretty trendy and very nice. It's the areas between the castle and the river. All the houses used to be made of wood until it all burned down on the Great Fire in the 1500s. We went up past a mill on this side and past an old bakery.

Charles had some pictures of when the river was frozen over and showed us the wooden structures they have now to prevent this happening again.

It was a great tour - lots more info, but that's the gist of it... Here's Charles...

After the boat ride, we took a look in the Charles Bridge museum, really well put together museum, lots of fresh flowers everywhere - that's probably not what I should remember most about this place...

Now I want to find the other library and it's up in a monastery, past the castle, so back over the bridge we go and it is teeming with tourists and caricature artists and souvenir vendors, it's crazy! Once we get through that, then there's a hill to climb, a stop for a bite of lunch and the hill continues - all very pretty, but very steep!

We make it to the top and find the monastery, there's a small queue as it has just reopened after a lunch break - just like us! The sign says only Czech coins but the lady does take euros, thankfully.

We go upstairs and there is an amazing room, Alison takes a few pictures and gets tapped on the shoulder by a gruff Czech man, saying she has to pay for photos. So we give him the 50 crown and Alison gets a 'photo licence' sticker.

Totally worth it, though - have a look at this place!

Incredible building and I reckon it's doing a roaring trade while the other one is under restoration...

Next, we're off to the castle, just in time for the changing of the guards.

We are in two minds on whether to go in but we do decide to do it and thank goodness - the first thing we see is St Vitus Church, which apparently is what the complex was based around, and it is the most awe-inspiring building - just incredible!

The pictures only give a glimpse of how impressive this place is, amazing.

There are number of different tour options you can choose, we took the basic one, it was all very well organised and well done.

We continue on, through to the Old Palace, took this before realising no cameras in this part, this was the ceremonial room. There was also a crown room, a room with lots of insignias and a viewing area, where the selfies takers were particularly annoying - one couple just kept posing over and over again, rather than get there, take a couple of snaps and get out for the next person. So annoying.

Next stop was the old basilica followed by Golden Lane, a recreation of a lane back in the day, with different artisans' cottages. Upstairs was an amazing array of suits of armour and clothing from the era.

So that was ABC - another bloody castle, but great! We head out and back to Karlov Most...

We end up back in the old square where it's time for birthday cake! I have been looking forward all week to trying trdelnik - ice cream in a sugar-rolled doughnut and today, it's my birthday cake!

Yum! And what a backdrop!

There is a brief rest time before we head out again - very excited about this one - we are going to the National Theatre for the opening night of the ballet Timeless! Beautiful walk along the river before we arrive...

We are up in the gods because they are the only seats that were left, but it's fine, I would be happy to sit anywhere. And it really is cheap up here, the Czechs want to make the arts accessible to everyone so they are very affordable. Look at this theatre...

The first ballet starts, it's a string orchestra, Tchaikovsky, lovely, flowing, girls in blue beautiful ballet. The next ballet is much more modern, abstract. There is a brilliant pianist on the stage with one couple dancing. Apparently they are going to alternate the couple - tonight was a guy and girl, but it could be two girls or two guys. The last ballet is Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and features the boys - very vibrant and fabulous.

At the end of each ballet, there is a massive curtain call, it keeps going on and on - they bow, bow again, curtains close, curtains open, bow, close, open, bring on choreographer, close, open, bow, bow, bring on flowers, close, open, bow, bow, and so on - hilarious.

During the second interval, the girl sitting next to Alison asks if we are Australian - she is too! From Sydney and her name is Alison! So that is two Alisons we have met in the space of a week. Again, we swap travel stories. Another lovely encounter.

What a fabulous way to end my birthday. But then it gets better, as we are walking back along the river...