A Journal, with Pictures

On Sat­ur­day August 22, 2015 we depart Cincin­nati for Paris and then on to Prague. We check into our hotel, The Four Sea­sons over­look­ing the Danube. We are going to stay in Prague until Wednes­day when we will trav­el to our cruise ship on the Danube which leaves from Ger­many. We have arranged for a guide and dri­ver to see the city and sur­round­ing area, but first on arrival day we explore on foot after our check in and are imme­di­at­ly blown away by the beau­ty of the city. The Prague Cas­tle is across the Danube and look­ing out our hotel win­dow it looks like a post card and we can see the Charles bridge which is a bee hive of activ­i­ty on this Sun­day. It turns out that our guide Mar­tin is a retired reaserch chem­istry pro­fes­sor, very knowl­edgable and a delight­ful per­son. He does a great job telling us about the cities his­to­ry includ­ing the com­mu­nist era. We do two half day driving/walking tours and a walk­ing tour of both the down­town and the Jew­ish dis­trict. Prague is an incred­i­bly inter­est­ing and beau­ti­ful city dat­ing back to 880. We vis­it the Cas­tle com­plex, St. Vitus Cathe­dral, we vis­it the Old Town Square famous for its Astro­nom­i­cal Clock and the Kin­s­ki Palace. We vist the Stra­hov Monastery, and get a pri­vate tour of its library of 15,000 hand writ­ten man­u­scripts. We also vis­it the Jew­ish cemetary with 12,000 jum­bled tomb­stones and Syn­a­gogue that has the 80,000 vic­tims of the Holo­caust from Prague inscribed on the walls. We also see Less­er Town that occu­pies the slopes below the cas­tle. This his­toric area includes inter­est­ing squares, and build­ing includ­ing St. Nicholas Church. We vis­it Petrin Hill that offer a mag­nif­i­cent panara­ma of Prague. We see Vyschfrad Fort and the old­est church in Prague still being used as well as Tro­ja Cas­tle. There are so many things to see and soak in and we dine at two mem­o­rable out­stand­ing restaru­ants. In all Prague proves to be one of the most inter­est­ing and beau­ful cities we have vis­it­ed in Europe.