Czech-ing out the sights

As you probably guessed from the oh-so-clever title, we have arrived in Prague, and have begun to see a bit of the city. We found our way by bus, subway and foot to the hostel earlier this afternoon, and after a bit of a breather, headed to the Old City to start to get our bearings. We ended up going up to the top of the Powder Tower (so named because it once stored gunpowder), thus getting a nice view of the Old City and a bit of a history lesson along the way -- not to mention some exercise!

After that, we wandered into the Old Town Square, saw the clock tower ring 6 o'clock (which was surprisingly unimpressive -- maybe we didn't have the right view), and saw several other impressive buildings. We both appreciated the fact that one restaurant on the Town Square had a person with a hose, spraying water so people could cool off. Prague is *really* hot (in the 30's), and there are headlines in the news about the heat (from what we can figure out -- it is in Czech after all.)

We had a delicious supper at a pub which was in the oldest cellar in Prague, dating back to the mid-13th century. Natasha really enjoyed her mushroom ragout on potato pancakes, and Dave had sausages in a black beer sauce, with a mug of Czech beer to wash it all down. We think our waiter was amused by our attempts to speak Czech, although Dave seems to have a fairly good handle on some basics -- please, thank you, excuse me -- it's all very useful!

After supper, we headed back to the hostel, and will be heading off to bed shortly in order to be rested and ready for a full day of sightseeing tomorrow. The combination of heat and lack of sleep have left us pretty wiped.

The hostel we are staying at has free internet access via a handful of computer terminals, so we will likely be able to keep you all up-to-date on our travels. However, we won't be able to post pictures, which is too bad since Dave has been camera-happy :)

Dave and Natasha

*To read about Day 17, go here.