After breakfast I went down to the front desk and booked the Grand Sightseeing Tour: Prague Castle and Boat Trip. The tour pickup was at 9:45am at the hotel so I had a lot of time to kill and decided to just go out and walk around the town sort of trying to get lost and see what I could see. I did this for around an hour and a half and had some reasonable luck seeing things I hadn't on day 1. I set my phone alarm for 9:15 and headed back to the hotel for the pickup then. I got back at say 9:20 and used the facilities and drank some water before heading back down. I got to the lobby just as the van was arriving to pick the tour up. Along with me there was a Norwegian woman and her granddaughter that left from the Meteor Plaza. The van took us to a starting point location and we were separated off to our respective tours. Ours was not too full having half Spanish speaking guests and half English speaking (including the Norwegians). There was a couple from NYC Ahmed and Beth around their thirties and a couple from South Carolina Delton and Cindy who were retired age for the English speaking group. Our guide was a tall Czech man who said his name really fast though I think it was Michael (or the Czech equivalent). He spoke both English and Spanish and said everything on the tour twice.
The tour started with the van ride through the old town and some of the new town and then over the bridge into the lesser town. Old and new are relative as they are talking 13th and 14th centuries I believe he said. The lesser town is 16th century. As we crossed into the lesser town we came up past the royal gardens to the back side of Prague Castle where we disembarked and started a walking tour of Prague castle. The walking part carried us to the castle and the scenic overlook then had us see the changing of the guard which was not terribly filled with pomp but still was neat and then into the castle courtyards and into the cathedral which dated back originally to 12th century but was added too over the centuries. From there it was through the rest of the courtyards and down to meet the van again. A lot of this was recap walking from day 1 for me and I didn't take tons of repeat pictures but tried to take new angles when I found them. The van took us down to the river and actually to the boat where I saw something being filmed for TV (it looked) on day 1. The guide didn't know about the filming.
The boat tour basically takes you up the river to the locks and then spins around for a little while and then back to the starting point. Along the ride the guide explained features and all of this was recap visuals for me. i found that the huge metronome was a symbol of the national government after communism was removed and that a statue of Stalin was originally up in that location. The boat ride was pleasant and I ordered a beer named Bakalar (pronounced Bah-kah-lahsh) and enjoyed it. Along the boat ride guide had set us up in English and Spanish tables to make it easier on him and that's where the batch of us got to talking and even though he spent a lot of the ride talking to the Spanish we didn't really mind. They were all very nice people and it was fun to talk to them. Everyone had traveled quite a bit and seen different things and it was fun to compare notes.
After the boat ride was over we walked through the Jewish Quarter and then on to the Old Square where the guide finished his tour speaking about the Old Town Hall with the clock. In all the tour was about 3 and a half hours and was fairly pleasant. The guide was a fast walker which was fine by me but a lot of the tour was not happy with trying to keep up with him. I guess he was worried about time schedule. I am sure he had to be back to the starting point for a 2pm departure as well. Before we left him we asked him to suggest someplace to eat for lunch and he sent us to the Red Peacock which was less than a five minute walk away. We Americans had decided to stick together to talk and eat because we were having a good enough time. The Red Peacock (I won't try to type in or even say the Czech name) was apparently an expensive bordello a long time ago and had some famous customers including Otto von Bismark according to the menu. This was not a touristy place as it was around 2 corners in a back alley. I ordered a dark beer which was served in a Pilsner Urquell glass but was not that brand (the menu just said dark beer) and I had the roast boar with dumplings and cabbage. I liked the food a lot. The dumplings were more bread-like than I was expecting but they were still very good especially with the sauce from the boar meat. The boar meat was very dark and sort of looked like beef but still had a pork flavor to some degree. I am glad I ordered it and cleaned the whole plate including the cabbage. Apparently everyone else liked what they ordered because they all ate what they ordered too. An odd note to mention was the noose hanging right next to the table where we ate.
After settling the bill we decided to walk around the town a bit together some more and talk and the women did a little bit of souvenir shopping as both groups were heading home on Saturday. We all had maps but I had the best understanding of the land and we steered ourselves around a few more streets I really hadn't visited (which had a lot of shopping stores) and then eventually around to the Old Town Hall again to watch the clock go off for 6pm. From there I guided them to the Charles Bridge which is the large walking bridge across to the Lesser Town that I had crossed already a couple times. Delton and Cindy had to go to a hotel up past the castle and it would have been a long walk so I guided them to the bridge and then showed them on the map how to get to a tram that would take them near their hotel. With that we all parted our ways. Ahmed and Beth were going to visit the bridge as well and take some pictures as they hadn't yet.
It was basically 6:30 or so by this point and I just started wandering again not sure what I wanted to do for eating. I realized that staying off the main thoroughfares would be cheaper and I tried to see what I could find off the beaten path but I guess I didn't choose my direction well and eventually decided to eat at the McDonald's up heading toward the National Museum. It was already past 7pm and I was tired and didn't feel like putting a lot of effort into dinner at that point anyway. I make it a point to hit a McDonald's once per trip anyway so this was it. I ordered a Big and Tasty Bacon Cheeseburger and it was big and not terrible tasting. I think the meal cost around $7 US equivalently. Since it was a large burger I can live with that. I think I was more anxious for the drink than the food as I was more thirsty than hungry by that point. The weather had cooperated quite well on the day being sunny and warm to hot most of the way through. I got a bit of a burn again as I forgot to sunblock up before I left though not anything terrible. After dinner I headed back to the hotel and booked my next two days' tours at the front desk then headed up to the room to relax.
Overall it was a fun day. I met nice new people and had a good time. The guide was reasonably good though didn't answer a ton of questions off topic and I am sure he spoke Spanish better than he did English. I heard him speaking Spanish and though it was slow by their standards it was clear and he didn't pause to think what he wanted to say near as much as he did in English. I don't speak Spanish but I could understand about 50% of what he said.
The pictures for today are located here.
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