Wow there are so many tourists!

The Czechs are so slack about border security. The Slovaks did at least stamp me out so someone knows where I am!

I did quite well at finding the hostel from the SMSed instructions from Mum, the LP maps which went over two pages and given the fact that you cannot actually walk on a lot of the roads that are shown around the station because they are those overpass highway things. I had been told to catch the metro part of the way but even carrying my bags it only took 20 minutes to get there on foot. I wish that I had found more hostels like Miss Sophies. It is just wonderful and the showers are so so very good. The bathrooms are better than a lot of the hotels that I have stayed in.

I headed into town to find something to eat and ended up at Tulip Cafe which is recommended in the LP. The food was nice but the service was terrible. Even by Slovakian standards. After wandering around the new town for a little while I headed back to the hostel and a good night sleep in a comfy bed.

Monday was a busy day and started with a trip to the Prague 1 Clinic to see a doctor about my cough. I found the clinic just fine but had a bit of trouble once I got into it. All the signs are in Czech and it has four sections spread out over 4 floors so it was easy to get lost. I found a man who spoke a couple of words of english and he managed to give me a doctors name and which floor I needed. So I headed up in the lifts and found the right room. They just have a little waiting room and then a door behind which is the receptionist and the doctor. The receptionist did not speak any english so just gestured for me to sit down and wait. So I did and finally it got to my turn. It seems that there are not any appointments, that you just turn up and wait and get seen in turn. Thankfully the doctor spoke very good english and I got a CXR, my unique and really not that expensive souvenir from Prague, and a diagnosis of allergy so now have some stronger antihistamines to make me better. All in all it only wasted two hours and I did get to watch a fascinating Czech video on the evils of hypertension.

After the doctors I headed to Charles Bridge and the castle with pretty much every other tourist in Prague. There is not much open on Mondays. The bridge was massively crowded, mostly with tour groups of elderly Europeans. I headed across the bridge fairly quickly in an attempt to make it to the castle before them. The bridge is in desperate need of a good clean! Most of the statues are black with pollution.

Once on the other side I toiled up the hill to the castle. It is well signposted but does not really need to be because it is large, it is on the top of a hill and everyone else is going there too! I got to the guards at the entrance gates but did not bother hanging around for the changing of the guard. The main gate is known as the gate of the titans and presumably is named after the statues of big blokes beating each other up. I am not sure that I would have like a statue of a man getting stabbed in the back at the front door of my palace but each to their own. It was a real shock that there were so many people in Prague after often being the only english speaking person at places in Slovakia.

In the second courtyard that really is not anything special I got my ticket and headed into the third courtyard where the sights really start. I jumped straight into the queue for St Vitus Cathedral because it was getting longer before my very eyes. Thankfully it was moving fairly quickly and it was not long before I was inside the church. The cathedral is one of those huge gothic numbers with flying buttresses and stuff. Lots of awesome gargoyles too. It was built in the late 14th century. I climbed the 289 stairs to the top of the bell tower and the amazing views over the city of Prague. Thankfully, it was a really clear day so you could see for ages.

Unfortunately the crypts are closed at the moment but there are some kings and bishops buried in the main churches and side chapels as well. Some of the tombs are incredibly ornate especially the one with all the silver angels.

After St Vitus I went to the Old Palace which is the gothic section of the castle that is open to the public. There is not much in the rooms but it was been well restored and you get a reasonable idea of what it was like. The ballroom is huge and has an amazing gothic ceiling. At the far end is a chapel for when they could not be bothered walking the 50 metres across the square to the massive cathedral I guess! It is rather sad and dusty looking compared to the cathedral. There were several rooms decorated with the crests of all the noble families of the area and some old books from the original castle.

St Georges Basilica is on the far edge of the third courtyard and was once attached to a convent. The convent buildings are now a gallery. The church was originally romanesque but has lots of different styles overlaid now. There is nothing much left inside the church anymore. Only a couple of statues and some wall painting. It is quite nice though and a real contrast to the opulence of the cathedral. It also has a large crypt and the royals used to get buried here prior to St Vitus. When they renovated the floor they found lots of graves underneath.

Finally I headed to the Golden Lane which is a series of little houses that have been built into the original castle wall. They are now all souvenir shops and there were heaps of people crammed into not that much space so I did not hang around for long. At the far end is one of the old towers which was used as a prison for several centuries and has some requisite bits and pieces of torture equipment in it.

From there I wandered up one of the terraces outside the castle. This is where you have to stay off the grass. They seriously have people patrolling with guns to stop you from walking on it. I finally reached the top again where the guards are and had just missed the changing again.

I continued up the hill to the Loreta which unfortunately is closed on Mondays. I had forgotten this before walking up the hill. So I took some photos of the outside not mobbed by tourists and then headed back down the hill to St Nicholas Church. It is a baroque masterpiece and is truly impressive. It is completely baroque except for a couple of rococco statues. It even has a gallery which is open to the public so that you can look out into the church and see the windows properly. The leaflet that you get about the church is very informative. That was one complaint I had about the castle. They want you to pay the huge extra fee to get an audioguide so you do not get any info about anything and there are no signs.

I headed onto the church where the infant of Prague lives but there was a mass on and I did not feel comfortable just barging in while they were praying so I left. The tour groups obviously did not share my discomfort.

I walked through to the Church of St John at the Laundry because I liked the name. You cannot get into the church except for when there are events on though.

I crossed the river using on of the other bridges and got some photos of Charles Bridge still covered in people. Walking back to the hostel, I passed the Church of Ss Cyril and Methodius which is where the men who tried to assassinate Hitler hid out afterwards. You cannot get into this church other than for services either. Continuing on I passed a shop selling religious things and they had a picture of the Pope which made him look like the Emperor out of Star Wars. It was really creepy.

Tuesday I took a different route into the city from the hostel and went through St Wencelas Square. At one end it has the spectacular National Museum and the statue of St Wencelas on his horse but the rest of the square is pretty dull and is mostly souvenir shops and money changers. I finally found a kebab shop here though. I thought that they would have to have them given the amount of drunken tourists around. I wandered down to the town hall square and arrived just in time for the astronomical clock to do its thing. It was really unimpressive. The clock itself is really beautiful and interesting but the show is really dull. Do not feel bad if you miss it.

The church in the square was not open yet so I continued onto the Museum of Decorative Arts which was unfortunately closed for some works on the water supply. So I went back across the river on yet another bridge. There seems to be one every 400 m! I headed up the hill to the Loreta and arrived just after opening but unfortunately not before the tour groups. The Loreta is a large building built around the house of the Virgin Mary. You know, I had no idea that the Virgin Mary lived in a large white stone building with scenes from the bible carved into the sides. The church is quite interesting though and there are a lot of little side chapels with statues of saints in them. My favourite was the Chapel of Our Lady of the Sorrows which has a statue of St Starosta. She was a Spanish girl who did not want to get married to a prince so prayed to the Virgin and overnight grew a beard and the prince would not marry her. Her father very thoughfully had her crucified instead. There is a statue of her in the chapel and it looks like a guy in drag hanging on the cross.

From the Loreta I headed even further up the hill to the Strahov Monastery. I did not go to the library with the tour groups. I had a quick look in the church which is only open for services and you cannot see much through the glass doors. I then headed to the Gallery. One of the previous heads was a keen art collector and opened a gallery for the public of some of the best of the churchs collection. And an impressive collection it is too! It is mostly religious art but there are some portraits and landscapes as well. The icons are mostly from Prague or Bohemia and are stunning. Everything is in really good condition. The collection is laid out chronologically and is really well explained by the signs. I am getting much better at picking my saints based on the objects in their hands now. I am still struggling with the men except for St Peter and John the Baptist but I can pick at least six of the women. I wish I knew a few more of the stories so that  I could work out why they have the objects. It was nice and quiet inside the gallery and for most of the time I was there it was just me and a priest.

To get into the gallery you go through some of the old rooms from the convent which have been restored. They are Romanesque and Baroque mainly. As I was leaving it was just starting to rain and by the time I reached the river it was bucketing. I headed rapidly across and to the Convent of St Agnes. There is little left of the convent but the old buildings are used to house the Museums collection of Medieval Art. And it is one of the most impressive collections that I have seen. It was totally worth the entrance fee. It has artworks from the 13th to 16th centuries and has paintings, icons, metalwork, statues and carvings. It is connected to one of the old churches which has nothing in it anymore but is worth going down to for the architecture alone which is much easier to see when the church is empty.

It was still bucketing when I came out and headed back into the main town again. Every little shop was selling umbrellas because it seemed that most of the tourists had forgotten one. I got back to the hostel and headed straight for a hot shower. I then got locked out of my room because the magnetic card reader had broken. Thankfully, I had taken my clothes to the shower with me. The guy from reception got me into the room and then organised to have it fixed while I went and had dinner.

For my final day in Prague I headed to the bus station to get my ticket to Cesky Krumlov. The bus station is an experience in itself. It was hard enough to get to using the stupid maps that do not mark the streets under the over highway things. I ended up out in the suburbs somewhere and took ages heading back towards the station. I did find it eventually though. Then I had to find out where to get a ticket. It is an old building that is set up in a series of small rooms with stuff everywhere in them. There are hundreds of timetables pinned up on the walls and noticeboards so that it is impossible to make head nor tail of any of them. Luckily the people at the information desk speak english and they directed me to the right spot. I ended up at a desk that you would not have picked as selling tickets to Cesky Krumlov if you had been guessing. I got my ticket though, it was on an earlier bus than I would have liked as the other one was booked out. If you are getting tickets get them early!

After getting my tickets I headed into the city again. You would think that there would be a few more signs from the main bus station pointing towards the city but no, maybe that is expecting too much. I did find it eventually though and ended up at the Art Nouveau Municipal House which is one of Pragues theatres. Unfortunately now that it is not peak season anymore, the tours only run on weekends and Mondays so I could not go inside and see the rooms. I continued on into the town hall square again and looked at a couple more of the churches in the town centre. I headed back out to the Museum of Decorative Arts which is really worth a visit. I just did the permanent exhibition and it is really good. They have glassware, metalware, jewelry, ceramics, clothes, prints, illuminated texts, toys, a great collection of clocks and furniture. It is also in a beautiful art nouveau building and it is worth going for the rooms alone.

From there I wander aimlessly through the old town for a while looking for somewhere to eat. I went to one of the places recommended by LP and was highly unimpressed. I am sick to death of being ignored in restaurants because there is only one of me. I am a person too and I am going to spend money and buy drinks. I find it so hard to attract any attention from the staff in some of these places and it is driving me insane. So after waiting and being ignored for 5 minutes, I just got up and left and went to another place where you could order at the counter and then they brought it out to you. Much better service there.

After a very large lunch, I headed across the river one more time and into the gardens at the castle. They are quite lovely at the moment with the trees just beginning to colour. Although you do have to be careful not to walk on the grass here either. I walked back through the old moat and ended up in the bottom section of the castle. Walking back down the old steps with the rest of the tourists, I ended up back at the Charles Bridge which was slightly less crowded so I got some more photos of the statues.

I then walked back to the hostel and made some dinner and had an early night before my early start to Cesky Krumlov.