Prague. July 28

This morning we got up a bit later and Elise went to meet the Brands in the morning while Ash dedicated some time to actually Skype her parents for the first time in the entire trip (oops soz).
During this time Elise and the Brands climbed, or should we say, took the lift up, the astronomical clock tower to get some sweet views over the city. It was pretty good as Mama and Papa B pointed out many things including the UFO! But actually it was a phone tower or something??? Anyway it was a fabulous monstrosity overlooking the entire city. We walked back down the tower, which was more like a spiralling ramp around the edges than a staircase, and read as many information boards as we could before giving up on pushing through the crowds. Pretty interesting though!

Anyway, after this we decided there wasn't much more time before we would be meeting Ash, so took a look inside the Church of St. Nicholas which had a fully siq chandelier. So big! Then we picked a restaurant to have lunch at with Ash, and Elise went off to wait for her at the gigantic statue.

At around 1pm Ash met up with the Brands for lunch at restaurant in the old town square. Both Elise and Ash enjoyed some traditional goulash with many dumplings, it was amazing. We also were treated by Andrew to traditional Czech shots. He persuaded us to down the 45 spices, Christmas tasting liqueur, which really freshened our breath.

After lunch we all went to the Jewish quarter to explore the area, visiting the Jewish cemetery and Alt-neu synagogue, believed to be the oldest synagogue (Barcelona strongly disagrees with this) amongst other interesting sites in this area. It's also known to be the home of the famed Golem.  The quarter was really interesting and shed some light on the history of the Jewish citizens in Prague and how they were unfortunately persecuted prior to the Nazi persecution in a very similar manner, suffering many times throughout history. The Jewish cemetery was an intriguing site, situated above street level, a little hicklety pickelty, with tombstones falling over and the ground moving to skew many of them.

Gang

Elise really glad to be reunited

BOOM. Photobomb win redshirt

Luuuurrrving the astronomical clock performance

 After this we had a coffee break  and introduced Andrew to the delicious Czech donut type yummy, tredelnik. Which, as always, was AMAZING. Mmmmmmm we can never pass up an opportunity to grab one of these on the go.

We then headed down to the river to go on a late afternoon cruise, a definite highlight! The river bank is pretty beautiful, all the buildings so pastel and remarkable. Seeing the famous Charles Bridge from the water was also a treat, the actual bridge is always full of tourists but from the river it appears much more appealing.

Mint

Our boat

Teaching Andrew travel app tips

As both Andrew and Jeanette were pretty sick we decided to skip a group dinner and instead we got take away pizza from a really great place down the road from our apartment and enjoy that at home.

Xoxo
A&E