Right... today I woke up pretty early considering. I was up and out on the streets by 9am. Today I decided I would do the "Free Walking Tour" and get an overall view of the city. So off to the centre of the Old City to get to the meeting point.
We weren't meeting until 10:30am, so I decided to watch the Astronomical clock go off at 10am (it goes off every hour dusk - dawn). It is a really big build up to something that is a little bit of a let down. When the clock goes off, 12 saints appear through these doors at the top, then go away... yip as good as it sounds. The clock itself is quite cool though... try reading it, I think there are 7 hands! I only found out how to once the tour guide explained it fully.
So after that I took some photos of the Old Town then waited at the meeting point. I wasn't the only person from our neck of the woods. There were about 4 other Kiwis (older people) and around 8 Aussies (older people again). The younger people on the tour were from England, Italy and Spain. Our tour guide was Nicole (a German born Czech), but she had a Billabong bag, with a Paua Kiwi attached to it. She had lived in Aussie for 6 months or so.
Anyway, first she showed us the Astronomical clock and explained it all (no I'm not going to write an explanation). After that the tour went like this: headed around the back streets of the Old City to see some more sites, then the Jewish Quarter, then over Charles Bridge, past the John Lennon wall (which is the only wall you're allowed to tag on in Praha), past St. Nicolas Church in the Lesser Town, then up to the Castle, a quick walk through the castle and done. It doesn't sound like much but it took over 4 hours.
The highlights for me were the story about Josephov (Jewish Quarter). Basically, one of the queens kicked all the Jews out using high taxes and other such methods (poor Jews)... then once she started kicking them out she realised that they were a bunch of her revenue (tax etc). So she got her son to start the Jewish Quarter and invite them back. I'm sure you can guess what his name was :-P
Throughout the tour I was chatting with Nicole about all sorts. Also chatted quite a bit with a pommy chick and an irish lad (ummm... Kate and Toph... I think... too many names in such a little time). Who had been to NZ and Canada to work for some ski-seasons. I learnt a bit about Belfast and the tank-like-police cars that were kitted out during the IRA days :-P After the tour they took off to catch up with his parents for dinner.
It was Nicole's last day doing the tour as she had a new job. She got some photos taken during the tour so I'm going to be famous (along with everyone else on the tour)! I ended up talking with for about half an hour about all sorts after everyone had left. She said she might head out to NZ and got my contact details (hopefully I can remember all these people when they come calling on me). She then had to run off because the boss was taking her out for dinner.
(Me and Nicole)
Anyway, I would recommend the tour, once again the "Free Tour" (you tip what you want) was great. The tour guides seem to be more passionate about it than on the paid ones for some reason. It wasn't run by the same company as in Berlin, but was still pretty good.
After that I wandered down to see the inside of St. Nicolas Church... which I was told was impressive. Now, Prague has got soooo many churches, and throughout Europe I have seen many many more, so it had a lot to live up to. It was pretty cool, but I have seen others that are just as great.
I was then walking down the street... and I bumped into two Asian fellows that I had helped at the metro station on my first day (the day where I almost got caught!). They were heading to see the "Baby Jesus"... which I had no idea about. So I tagged along with them. And it was exactly that... a little doll of a very young Jesus.
I was a little tired (shock... horror) so took a walk back to the hostel to relax. I had been walking around for 9 hours so I thought I deserved it. There was one guy asleep in my room... so I took a nanna nap as well :-P
The sleeping-guy woke up when his mate arrived back. So, I started chatting to them. Two Portuguese guys named, Filipe and Miguel. We ended up going out for dinner then hitting the town. I found out they live in Lisbon (where I'm heading in 4 weeks time) so they offered themselves as tour guides for me... looking forward to it!
We went to a club that had 5 different dance floors, each one playing different styles of music. Ranging from hip-hop to 70's disco. The hip-hop floor was quite funny, there were guys on the dance floor having dance battles. They also had two live dudes rapping on stage. Which was pretty cool.
On the top floor was the "chill-out" room which had bean-bags and comfy sofas to lounge about in... we headed after a bit (well, Filipe and I, we lost Miguel as soon as we got there).
After a few minutes, I wanted to test my Aussie-dar (which is pretty accurate now). I walked up to these random chicks and asked them what part of Australia they were from. I was right on the money :-P 2 girls from Perth (Sam and Naomi) and 1 from Sydney (Jules). Ended up talking and hanging out with them the whole night. Had a lot of fun... and may bump into them at Oktoberfest... along with the other millions of people there :-P
We got home around 5 or 6am and we crashed.
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