05/08/08 - A 14th century 'new' town!!

With a little more energy than yesterday we drove across some very
pretty rolling countryside, tree-lined roads, and little Czech
villages before making it to the big city of Prague.

First site when entering the out-skirts was hundreds of rather ugly
1970's style apartment buildings that dominated the skyline. Not the
best introduction to the city that we have been told by many that you
absolutely cannot miss!! Anyway, undeterred we headed in and found
the suburb of Trojir where after 4 months of free camping we are going
to break with tradition and splash out a camp ground for two nights.

Our camping ground was not too busy but we decided to mark our
territory by erecting our gazebo that we inherited with the van which
thus far had failed to make an outing. It proved a bit of a mission
until we found another bag of connectors along with the instructions.
But we now have ourselves a beaifully set up gazebo which will get
absolutely no use as we will spend most of our time in Prague town!

A speedy trip into the town centre by tram and we soon found the
reason that this place is a 'must see' place. Almost unscathed from
World War 2 (it did get a little damaged when the Allied bombers
mis-took Prague for Dresden in Germany), you could spend days here
just lapping up the atmosphere and history of this town.
Unfortunately it seemed like every other tourist in Europe was doing
the same thing!!

Never mind, a quick walk into Staré Mêsto (Old Town) which was built
in around the 13 century, then onto Nové Mêsto (New Town) - which was
built in the 14 century!!! Pretty old new town if you ask me ;-)

Happy just to wander and take it all in - we soon found a large crowd
staring up at the town's astronomical clock. Like good tourists we
joined the crowd to see what was going on - then on the hour the
skeleton standing beside the clock started ringing the bell, while
above the clock - the 12 apostles all pare out the window to view us
silly tourists all lapping it up! Apparently the three greedy looking
men standing by the skeleton should be shaking their heads as to say
'no we are not going die', while skeleton nods his head to point out
'yes they are'. Anyway, that part of the show was broken -
understandable really considering the clock was built in 1410.

After walking over the famous Charles Bridge - with all its 18th
century statues decorating its sides, we came across a canal that
wound its way between the houses. Our first thought was that we have
magically made it to Venice. Instead, according to the guide book we
had found Little Venice - very cool.

To finish our evening, we joined a 'goast and beer' tour. We got to
hear the Prague legends such as the well, where if you look down into
it you can see your future. One day a man looked down into the well
and saw that he was going to die!! He got such a fright that he
slipped and fell down into the well and drowned!!!!