To Keeley's delight there was chocolate drink (a la Milo) at breakfast this morning, meaning she could not only have a coffee-mocha but also fill up our dwindling supplies of the precious powder. Also a simultaneous bonus and curse was the hostel staff member just hanging around, who was very pleased to wash our dishes for us but made stealing bread for lunch impossible. We walked to the free tour of Prague with an English guy, Antony, we met last night and although we were ten minutes late (Keeley had to do her hair) we caught the tour and spent the next three hours wandering the streets of the city in the now-familiar fashion. The guide was quite informative and I got used to her broken English quite quickly, although Keeley said she struggled a bit to concentrate on it. We saw a few of the major buildings in the old town, like the Charles University (the oldest university in central Europe, founded in 1347). A student from here burnt himself to death as a protest against the Communist government in the 1950s. It seems that King Charles IV was quite an impressive man, founding the university, leading not only Bohemia but also the Holy Roman Empire, and building Prague to be one of the richest and most powerful cities in Europe. This legacy is repeated all over the city, and the Charles Bridge is named after him (for around 600 years it was the only crossing over the river in Prague to the castle). The city itself is quite impressive, and a lot has been done to rebuild and repair the Communist neglect since it fell in 1989. Prague Castle is particularly nice with a spot on the hill overlooking the city and a very large grounds, being the biggest 'ancient' castle in the world (whatever that means). The gothic cathedral, St Vitus, in the centre of the Castle is very impressive, and despite being started in the 1300s it wasn't completed until the 1920s. The stained glass windows are amazing.
Our tour ended at the castle, and we were a little disappointed with it, but it was a good way to explore the city. We sampled some amazing Czech food – sweet bread-on-a-stick with caramel, vanilla, and almond in it, and some traditional Czech food at a cute little restaurant near the bridge. I had some amazing sausage and mustard and Keeley had pork in a paprika sauce. It was really nice, although soured a bit by the added extras on the bill (like a service charge that was 30% of the rest of the bill). Fortunately it was still dirt-cheap. We also went in search of the city museum because it apparently has a pretty amazing model of the city, but we couldn't find it so we went to a lolly shop instead. This shop had a demonstration of the process for making layered boiled-lolly-type candy, which was very interesting. They worked the sugar sheets into a roll maybe 15cm in diameter, but eventually got it down to around 1cm diameter, with a little picture of a fruit in the middle. The same shop also had a 112kg gorilla made out of chocolate and lots and lots of other chocolate goodness. We bought the off-cuts from the lolly-making process for cheap, and now can't wait until we get to Switzerland or Belgium for the chocolate there.
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