Prague the Brave

Day 10

(I know this may be a little disjointed - sorry! If I wait until I've caught up, you'll never hear from me!)

Today was our first full day in Prague. M hadn't had a great night's sleep, so we took it easy this morning and make a slow start. We enjoyed our hotel breakfast and got going.

It took a little while to find an open ticket window - we wanted to get the 3-day-All-In-One metro travel ticket, so it took a little wandering about. Finally found one, and the odd little sales guy had some basic English which made life so much easier. We caught the tram up the hill to the Prague Castle (and surrounds), grabbed the audio tour thingies (after being stuck in a queue behind U.S. pensioners - what IS it with these people? How can they be so deliberately dumb?) and set off.

The Cathedral was AMAZING. I'm not normally a church kind of person - too many lost hours in school - but this place was astounding. Lots of little chapels off the main church dedicated to "one of the most important saints in Czech history" - all of them - and the most eye-popping tomb of the lot was only about 4 tonnes of silver. Crikey.

Interesting Lesson From History - Don't Be An Over-Interfering Mother-In-Law.
Queen Ludmilla was married to the first Catholic king of the Czech empire, and took her own conversion pretty seriously. When hubby died, she kept pretty active in state politics & religion, and took over the education and religious instruction of her young grandson Wenceslas (who whould later be remembered by having his own Christmas carol and be killed by his brother - you win some, you lose some.) This didn't sit too weel with her young pagan daughter-in-law, the new Queen. After a few years of the Dowager Lumdilla throwing her weight around, Queenie was so pissed off that she send assassins to get rid of Ludmilla. She was choked with her own rosary beads! The lesson in this is - sometimes, it's important to know when to stop. I hope this story warms the heart of all daughters-in-law who have ever had to grit their teeth and smile. (Mind you, I've never had to do that myself, having been blessed with a lovely MIL - Hi Joy!)

The Castle grounds are massive, and include the Cathedral, Presidential Palace, other random palaces for nobility, and few towers & ramparts, a quirky little place called Golden Lane [full of tourist shops] and a cross-bow gallery. M was the most accomplished person to take on the cross-bow challenge, just as one would expect from such a spunky lad.

The funniest part was the Hats Through History display, showing various military millenry throughout Europe and time - kinda funny.

Duinner was at a cute little bistro full of locals, the only bummer being the lack of smoke-free dining spaces. Again, chain-smoking locals making their presence felt.

Sweet dreams, all!