Prague-ress, Take 1

Nerudova Street

     After our long and tiring journey in London, we decided we should take a little bit of time to relax. This was especially true after our red eye flight to Prague. We left our London Hostel at the ripe time of three in the morning. Unfortunately, our hostel was at the very top of a scenic hill, Nerudova Street. This meant that we had to lug our bags all the way to the top. Exhausting! When we arrived at our hostel, we were pleased to find out that our room was available right away. We took the first night easy and wandered around the city.

The view from Charles' Bridge

      The next day we decided to try a walking tour, but it didn't quite work out for us. We got about half way through the city tour when our guide informed us that his wife was in labor.  I believe his exact words were, "My wife, the water, it broke!" Definitely an interesting experience to say the least. Our short time with our guide gave us lots of information. We visited The Church of St. James in Prague. Just to the right of the entrance was a mummified hand. The arm belonged to a thief who tried to steal jewels and offerings from the Madonna statue. Legend says that Madonna grabbed his arm and didn't let him leave. The police found the thief the next morning and were forced to cut off his arm to get him out! The monks then took the arm and hung it by the door as a warning to all other thieves. It was shortly after the church that our guide had to leave, so we did the most logical thing and visited the city's Ice Pub. It is a pub made completely from ice sculptures! It is so cold inside that they give you a giant parka, gloves, and a hat upon entrance.
After our freezing drink, we strolled across Charles' Bridge -- it was breathtaking. On our walk back to our hostel we decided to try trdelnik, a pastry-esque dessert favored by Czech tourists. It was good, but way too sweet. 

     Sunday came much faster than expected. We mapped our route to the airport very extensively, but yet we still failed. We took a tram to the outskirts of Prague where we waited 45 minutes for a bus that never came. (We figured out later that the bus was out of commission for the day.) Luckily we left with amble time to spare because we had to go all the way back to the city center in order to trace another, much more successful, route. We were finally off to Olomouc!