Kim says: "The day begins at the Frankfurt airport where we ordered two iced coffees and to our surprise iced coffee in Frankfurt isn't just boring coffee over ice with milk..no it's the most splendid combination of ice, espresso, milk, vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, and caramel topping. Not a bad way to start the day!"
We met up with a couple of my co-workers, including Robbie, at the airport, and made our way by Prague's excellent Metro system to the Hilton hotel in Old Town Prague. The location was spectacular -- close to the Metro and walking distance to almost everything.
After checking into the hotel and cleaning up a bit, it was mid-afternoon. This is the critical point when traveling several timezones east -- you must power through this part of the day, even though your body is telling you that it's 1am and time to sleep. No, no, no ... this is when you get showered, get up, and get out of the hotel for a bit of sight-seeing before crashing :-)
We walked through Prague's main square, which has an amazing Astronomical Clock. Later in our trip, we took a video of the complex contraption in action.
We walked over to the Charles Bridge, perhaps Prague's most famous monument, having been constructed in 1357.
By this point, we had walked a few miles, and had been awake for some 24 hours ... it was time to celebrate with Prague's original frosty beverage, pilsner beers. Kim generally isn't a beer drinker, but look at that smile on her face...yeah, anyone can enjoy a beer in Prague.
After a late lunch, we walked across the Charles Bridge, and proceeded to exchange germs with the rest of Europe, touching some bronze relief for "good luck". Luckily enough, the weather changed for the better at this point. Most of our pictures before the lucky touch show a cloudy, overcast sky. It was right about this point that it cleared, and we had clear, blue skies overhead. ;-)
Looking down from the bridge, we saw this couple enjoying some time on the Vtlatava River. I'd say this guy is doing pretty well for himself ;-)
From here, we walked uphill quite a ways to the famous gates of the castle.
The sculptures on top are quite striking (pun intended)!
St. Vitus Cathedral is a tremendous, Gothic structure in the center of the castle. Its remarkable silhouette is visible over the rest of the castle from almost anywhere in the city. There has been a Catholic cathedral in this spot since 925, though the current structure was more recently built -- in 1344!
By this point, we were quite exhausted, and started making our way down the hill, with a gorgeous walk through a vineyard and some rewarding views of the city.
And that was most of Day 1, Sunday, July 18, 2010. The rest of the week would of course mean work for me, but Kim got to see a great deal of Prague.
:-Dustin and Kim
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