June 4

The last time we were in Prague it was December and snow & ice were all around.  It's beautiful in summer.  We walked about 30 minutes to the Old Town Square area and spent quite a bit of time exploring around the area which also encompasses the Jewish Synagog area.  There are numerous antique shops and I saw lots of old clocks I'd love to have in my collection.  The difficulty in carrying a clock around the next 5 weeks saved me a lot of money.  Looking and longing was free.  The architecture in Prague is intricate and quite varied and it's a wonderful city to explore on foot.  We stopped for lunch in a 14th century cellar restaurant that had numerous stuffed animal heads & hides on the walls,  Their specialty is meat cooked in their fireplace so I tried the suckling pig plate and it was excellent.  There was a cooking fireplace in the room where we ate that seemed no longer in use.  Next to it was an altered weight driven clock movement that, instead of turning the hands, ran a cable to the fireplace and turned the spit.  The movement looked to be a 14th century style.  We wandered around the old town awhile after lunch and then walked to the famous Charles Bridge which crosses the Vltava River.  It was built by Charles IV some centuries ago and now is a pedestrian (and tourist) bridge.  We crossed the bridge and walked the other side of the river back towards the hotel.  We got caught in a rainstorm which didn't last too long but slowed our journey.  We arrived back to the hotel about 5:30 and watched some more of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee on BBC.  The lunch had been so filling that we just had an appetizer at a nearby restaurant for dinner.