At the start of the Charles Bridge

Newer part of the Prague Castle

On Golden Lane

Puppet shop

Another view of Castle

Looking down on some of the gardens

Day 2.  We headed out into another cold, damp day but warmed up quickly as decided to cross the river via the famous Charles Bridge to the part of the old city around and up to Prague Castle.  Prague Castle is the largest ancient castle in the world.  It once contained a town and still has squares and streets and a huge cathedral and acres of gardens within it's walls.  The streets up to the castle are VERY steep and in fact many are not passable by car but are actually stairs.  We stopped and took a lot of photos as an excuse to rest while all these old Czech ladies passed us with their shopping bags.  All this cardio exercise is probably what keeps them from dropping dead from their "all fat-all the time" diet.  There is an area in the castle that's called Golden Lane.  It's a small street of tiny houses that once housed some of the people who worked in there like seamstresses and jewelers.  It was actually still inhabited up through the 1950's when the city bought all the houses up to make the entire castle complex a state treasure.  Now the little places are set up as a museum showing how the occupants lived or as shops with some of their local crafts.  It looks like something from the Hobbit.  Franz Kafka lived in one of the house for a few years.  Maybe that's where his idea about the cockroach came from as only way to live comfortably in one of these places is to be the size of a bug.  After hours of trudging up and down to the castle we went back to explore the Charles Bridge which is lined with giant statues of saints. It is pedestrian only and filled with stands of people selling art and jewelry and goodies.  There are also street performers (some very good), and beggars (all surprisingly well fed), and tourists, tourists and more tourists.  After all that walking we had to go back to the hotel for a nap.