City of a Hundred Towers
Czech Philharmonic
Last night we "slept" on an eight hour bus ride from Krakow that landed us here in Prague around 8:30. The bus ride really destroyed my sense of time. Almost worse so than the jetlag in Munich. I hardly slept for an hour, yet somehow the incredibly uncomfortable trip felt quite quick. The result was my body feeling like the night never happened at all. We found our hostel and dropped our stuff there before heading out into the city. We were recommended a free walking tour so we headed toward the town square. Our tour guide Chris was HILARIOUS. He had a real dry, deadpan, self-effacing sense of humor that had us in tears a couple times. The tour took about two and a half hours and took us all around the Old Town and the Jewish quarter. We learned some interesting history about the city as well as a new word: defenestration. For those who are unfamiliar with this word, it is the act of throwing something, or in this case someone, out of a window. We learned that throughout Prague's history, its denizens have had an unfortunate habit of resolving conflicts with defenestration. Therefore, on several times throughout our tour, Chris would stop at a building, give us its history, and then tell us who was chucked out of which window and for what reasons. After the tour and upon Chris' recommendation we went to a small underground (I mean literally under the ground) restaurant that served traditional Czech food. After some goulash and beer we headed back to the hostel for the day.
So far the rain and wind have followed us, which is a real buzzkill at times. Otherwise Prague is a very beautiful city. Very colorful. Tomorrow we plan to czech out the Castle District as well as the Jewish Museum.