14th August - Tours amour

We woke up this morning relaxed and comfortable....this bed was soooo soft! It was the usual routine of getting ready for the day and we had decided to do the free walking tour around the city as we were limited on time and the other free tours we had done were really good. On he way we grabbed a trendikal...the tube dough things like we had in Romania and a coffee. We had some time to kill before the tour so we watched the famous astronomical clock 'show' at 11am, it was defiantly an anticlimactic event although pretty cool that is the same show that has been going since 1490, every hour on the hour 9 till 9....I wouldn't ruin it for you and tell you what happens! The clock had a really interesting story about its maker, his fate and revenge.

We then began the tour, we knew we were going to like our guide straight away, An Aussie with english dry humour. He was funny which is always a plus when you have to listen to someone for 2.5 hours. We looked around the old town including the Church of Our Lady Before Tyn, that inspired Snow White's castle and the Jewish quarter, we learned a lot about the history of Prague and the Czech Republic, including all the legends like 'the thief in the night', which was acted out by members of the group....Mark playing the thief...hilarious....who knew he had such talent! It was a great tour...in fact so good we decided to do the castle tour straight after with the same guide.

It didn't disappoint....this time we got a tram to the back of the castle district and walked from there, seeing the library, St. Norbert monastery which brews it own beer, (which we tried obviously) and other cool landmarks with interesting stories and histories. Our last stop was St. Vitus cathedral which took over 700 years to build and was pretty impressive...even of some of the sandstone was coloured in to make it look older...haha. We tried some locally brewed beer and enjoyed the panaramic views. We finished the tour watching the change of the guards.

After the tour we headed back towards old town to a recommended Czech restaurant where we ate a feast of cheese, sausage and goulash with a side of traditional knedliky. We had been debating all day whether to join the pub crawl or not but as we strolled around after dinner we spontaneously bought tickets to the opera!! The performance of Don Giovanni was being held at the Estates Theatre which is Prague's oldest and the only theatre left in the world where Mozart performed including the premier of Don Giovanni back in 1787.

It was amazing and nice to do something different...although we did google the storyline when we got back to the room, just to make sure we had followed it!....After we were exhausted from our jam packed day of touring so took a quick stroll to Charles Bridge, so we could see it without the crowds and then headed back to collapse on the bed....

15th August - Wrapping up

We saw so much yesterday that we decided to have a lay-in this morning, up until 10am anyway as check-out was at 11am and we had to do all our packing as we really spread our stuff out in the room.

Our flight home is not until 9.40pm, so we arrange to leave our bags at the hostels luggage room.

With half a day to play with we decide to see the sites more in depth that stroke our curiousity from the tour or places the tour missed. Our first stop was the Old Chain bridge. Our tour guide advised us to stay away from this place in the day as it is rammed with tourists. He wasn't lying. This bridge had more tourists on it than the whole population of papa new guinea. The bridge was cobbled with a large gate arch one end, statues lined the top of the walls and artists offering caricature drawings lined the bottom. We walked along the river front to see Prague from the other side of the river. We then crossed back and headed to the Jewish district. This was one of the more interesting modern districts of the city. We headed to Pinkas Synagogue. The oldest Synagogue in europe. Now converted into a memorial for all the Jews that died during the Nazi occupation. Almost 80,000 names are written on the walls in memory of each victim. Its sad to see some ages as young a 2yrs old.

On the second floor of the Synagogue was an art exhibition, but what makes this unique is that the art we were looking at was created by the children in the camps. An old teacher who was placed in the Teriza consentration camp, collected scraps of paper and different drawing tools so the children could express themself in their art. She hid thousands of peices under some floorboards to avoid detection. Unfortunately her husband was sent to Auschwiz and she couldn't take being apart from him so volunteered to go on the next train to be with him. In a bitter twist of fate she was killed in the camp and her husband was one of the survivers. Luckily she told a friend of the art work we was collected after the war and exhibited. The sadness of the art was the ages of death underneath. Most between 10-12 years old.

This Synagogue was built in the 13th century so has a large amount of history. Back in the day this whole area was the Jewish ghetto. Where thousands of Jews would live in an allocated part of the city and was not allowed to branch out. An issue with this was the lack of burial space. Jewish religion does not allow them to disturb a buried body and with this Synagogue offering the only grave yard they quickly run out of space. The governement at the time would not let them branch out, but would offer them earth. So what they started to do was bury the dead on top of eachother and update the tomb stone with the extra names. This happen for hundreds of years as a result a hill of dead was formed, littered with hundreds headstones covered in (some say) 90,000 names. Its bizzare and sad to see.

The ticket we purchased gave us access to the Spanish Synagogue which was a unique Synagogue because it was not plain, by decorated like a mosique in its design influenced by immigrants from north Africa.

Our final stop was to see a church the guide showed us the day before. Inside was an old medieval arm, all leathered with bone showing hanging on a change. It was a bit gross and unethical for a church I thought. Apparently a theif broke into the church and tried to rob it. In the process a statue of the virgin Mary came to life and held the thief in place until the priest arrived. Instead of damaging the statue they cut off the thief's arm. Hanging on a change as a warning....

Time was moving fast. so we headed back to the hostel. picked up our bags and headed to the airport. A train and tram later we arrived. We got there earlier than we expected as the public trainsport was really good and we didn't get lost. So filled in the time grabbing some food and sewing on my Czech badge.

Border control was easier, the only bit of drama was the metal detector that buzzed every time I went through. I ended up taking off layers and shoes and it was still buzzing, luckily they didn't to a cavity search.

The flight was only about an hour and 50 minutes and we were a head of schedule. Although I did freak out slightly when we were about to land, slowing down, lights on, about to hit the run way...when all of a sudden the lights go off and the plane accelerates to full speed and we are taking off again. I start freaking out getting Stevie to check our the window to see if there RAF jets. Wondering when the arabic guy in front of me looks nervous. Then over the speak the captain says we can't land due to remains on the runway..... Remains!! Remains to what!!!... This still 'remains' a mystery to us.. Luckily a few circles around the airport we finally land.

The doors open, we walk down the stairs and on to the runway.... Back on English ground...... HOME.