Welcome to Prague!

Prague was absolutely beautiful. We arrived there Friday evening, and met another nice American couple with 3 children in the lobby who were also just checking in. The Ritters had just finished biking down the Danube with their boys, Patrick (8), Casey (7), and Derek (or Boo Boo, age 1). We met them again the next morning at breakfast, so we all headed out together to see the sights. We headed into the old town center, on the left bank of the river and walked around a bit there. As usual, many fountains, churches, and statues were the favorite sites.

At two o’clock, we joined a “free tour” which accepts tips in any amount at the end of the tour. Our tour guide was Czek, but raised in Germany. She took us over to the right bank where we saw many sites, including some important sites in history. She showed us where one student had burned himself to death in 1969 to protest the Communist rule of his country. She also showed us some important sites where different Hollywood movies were filmed. Mission Impossible, and the Borne Identity both had some great running scenes up and down lots of stairs which we were lucky enough to climb. J It was such a thrill!


We ended our tour with a walk through the Palace and its grounds, the largest in all of Europe. We didn’t have time to visit the inside of the Palace by the end of the day, which can take up to two days to visit; however, we thought we had an hour left before the beautiful Palace church closed, so we rushed in, only to be pushed back out by the guards who kept trying to close the place down. Our guide had previously explained to us that the crown jewels (which go on display every 5 years) are locked up in this church, and each evening it takes 7 different keys belonging to 7 important people to lock it up.


I spotted the head guard with a huge metal key in his hand and I kept trying to get a picture, but we kept getting shooed away. Finally, I went up to the guy and asked him if I could get a picture of him with his key. He said to me in an exasperated voice, “No, we are closing! There is no time!”
Then about 3 seconds later, he just handed me the key without a word. Jessica and I were together and so I quickly handed it to her so that I could get a shot. You can see that I was standing too close, but we were in the crowd of people being shoved out of the building, so I did what I could. It was pretty funny! We found out minutes afterward that the church had closed early that evening for a wedding! Boo!








After having some Czek goulash and potato soup (yummy!) we walked down the golden lane. This was a street filled with little tiny houses that were originally used to house the king’s guards. (Sorry, I can’t remember any names!) When the new king came to power, he was quite crazy and kicked all the guards out, replacing them with his own little crew of alchemists. Hence the name, “golden lane”. These little houses are so cute and today they are little tourist shops of course, still used in the quest for wealth! That particular King was obsessed with alchemy and legend says that one of the huge fires in the palace was started in the king’s study where he kept his chemistry experiments. The fire burned a huge portion of the castle, and took a lot of work and money to repair it. However, it did give the king a good excuse to re-model!




We descended back to the center by way of the beautiful castle gardens and returned to the town center through the famous St. Charles Bridge. There were tons of people painting pictures, and playing music to earn money here. We even saw a guy with a rat and a big bulldog. His talent was to keep his dog calm so that the rat could sit on top of him. Aside from this guy, all the others were quite entertaining and talented.








Prague is a beautiful city, but filled with tourists from everywhere! I’m not sure if there are any Czeks that inhabit the area. It was very romantic and beautiful and certainly has a lot of sites to entertain a person, however, the people were a little cold, probably because they are quite sick of tourists. And it is quite expensive, like a European version of Disneyland or something! Still, if I had the chance to go back I would because Prague is another city which has so many amazing and beautiful original historical buildings which are really incredible to see. It has a very interesting history!




See you next time on our next post!!
McCollaum fam.