Central-Eastern Europe Trip, Day 2, June 20th, 2010

The next day we woke up naturally at 5am and had to pass some time until the 7:30 breakfast. Following breakfast we set out to explore the rest of the old town we didn’t see yesterday, though we left out most places we knew we would see with our group.

Walking along the river again, we saw Charles Bridge followed by the National Theater. We continued walking for a while longer, passing by Henry’s Bell Tower, King Winceslas’ Square and the Powder Tower. We ended our 3.5 hour walk at town square and went up to the top of the Astronomical Clock Tower. There were wonderful views of Prague from up there.

Charles Monument.	National Theater.	Old Town. New architecture (on left) mixed in with the old.	King Winceslas Square.
Henry’s Bell Tower.	Powder Tower.	At the top of the Astronomical Clock Tower, looking at Tyn Church and Powder Tower (off to the right).	More of Prague from above. In the distance- Prague Castle.

Sweet buns.

Town square was alive and buzzing when we came back down from the tower. We stopped at one of the booths there for some tasty, sugary bun treats. We watched while they made those. After that we had some outdoor lunch at one of the restaurants in the square.

Betlem Chapel. Jan Hus preached here.

We decided to visit Betlem Chapel to see where Jan Hus- famous for having been burnt at the stake for what the Catholic Church considered heretical views- used to preach. There was also a statue memorial in town square of him.

After the chapel, we started fading out and turned in for an afternoon nap. An alarm woke us up to head downstairs to our hotel’s cellar where we met up with our guide Peter, and 26 other folks that would be in the tour with us for the next 17 days.

Peter later led us down the street to an excellent restaurant for our group welcome dinner. The food was great, and we got to know some of the folks on our tour. We had a good short walk after dinner, then people split off. I ended up watching Brazil-Ivory Coast on the big screen in town square, and a while later we turned in for the night.