For those of you who never thought of going to Prague, think again!  It is a gorgeous city with tons to see but 3 days worked just fine for us.  It's pretty small for a capital city with a little over a million people.  The older architecture is beautiful.  The buildings look like they're frosted and decorated like cakes.  We walked and ate so much I feel rather spider-like; round in the middle with skinny limbs sticking out.  Here's my rundown.

Old Jewish Cemetery

Old Town Square w/ Gothic church

Cold Grace

Astronomical Clock

Did I mention the wax museum?

Side street

Church of Our Lady Before Tyn

 

 

The square at night

Day one we left Italy at 7 am which meant getting up and leaving home by 5:30.  In this city of one million there are fewer people on the streets at 5:30 am than at that time in Boothbay Harbor.  We made it to the airport in record time.  When we flew into Prague (only 1.5 hr flight) it was gray and cold.  We checked into the hotel, bundled up and headed out.  Our hotel was right out of the 70's boom era with mirrored walls and huge western themed chandeliers, but clean and convenient and only 3 stops from the old center.  Getting off the tram and walking into the center is like entering Disneyland.  The city is extremely clean as they have huge fines for littering.  The cake-like buildings are pink and blue and yellow and there were still flowers everywhere even though they had already had their first snowfall.  The Czech Republic is part of Bohemia which is famous for all sorts of well known hand-crafted products.  They make crystal (Swarovski), and enameled nesting dolls and eggs, wonderful puppets and other wooden toys, amber and other semi precious stones, plus glass Christmas ornaments and all sorts of shiny pretty things filling every shop window.  The old center has churches dating back to 900, and it's street are mostly pedestrian because they are too narrow for cars.  There is an astronomical clock tower in the main square that announces every hour with moving characters who ring bells and wave their hands.  Then from the top of the tower a trumpeter plays a tune from each of the four sides.  Five minutes have past before the hour has been tolled.  There were tons of tourists even though the "high season" is over.  All of the shops and bars and restaurants were open and bustling.  There are even more restaurants per block than Italy, and everywhere you walk it smells like roasting meat and spiced wine and toasted sweet bread (sold on every corner, all tasted and enjoyed).  We toured the old Jewish cemetery and surrounding Jewish quarter with many historic synagogs and museums.  For dinner we went to a traditional pub for cabbage and potato pancakes topped with a garlic sour cream, goulash with dumplings, and beer (me only - good).  Yes it was as heavy as it sounds.  Then we stumbled back to the hotel.  On the tram a lovely young gal was doing her make-up.  She had red toothbrushes stuck through her earring holes.  Day 1 complete.