Prague on a Sunday

Gerri and I arrived on Saturday after a 4 hour train ride from Vienna. The ride was tiring but the hot weather was the real issue. We had about enough energy to get to our apartment  then find a place to eat. The apartment is pretty much an antique as are most of the things here in what is known as Old Town. The apartment is on the 5th floor, unfortunately the elevator only goes up to the 4th floor. Actually with the building being so old, the elevator was installed at some later date. The owner of the apartment informed me that we should not put more than 3 people at a time in the elevator. Since it's as small as an average hall closet, I don't think that's much of a problem.

Riding up in the elevator is kind of like an amusement ride. You close the entry door, push the button for your floor and away you go. It's kind of neat, in a weird way, to see the wall of the elevator shaft whizzing in front of you as you look past the nonexistent door. With a jolt and a bounce we arrive at our floor. The apartment is decent enough, it's clean, it has a beautiful view of the River Vltata and it's close to all the historic sites. 

Sunday we wake up to a beautiful cloudless sky as the early morning sun hints at the hot day ahead of us. Not being the hurrying kind when we travel, I make our morning cappuccinos, then after being duly fortified with espresso, we head out. We were on a mission to find some things, like my Harley Davidson t-shirts after which we wandered about for a bit. The day got hotter and hotter. The weather is unseasonably hot. We were expecting temperatures in the high 60's to lower 70's. Instead the weather through our whole trip has been in the mid to upper 80's. Of course we didn't pack much in the way of summer clothes so we are sweltering. A trip to the department store shows that they have their winter stock out and not much of a summer stock left to choose from. Oh well!

The highlight of our day was after dinner when with the coolness of the evening weather we were able to explore a bit more. We crossed over 1 of the bridges close to our apartment, walked on the other side of the river to the more famous bridge, the Charles Bridge. This bridge was started during the reign of Charles IV around 1357 and completed in the early 1500's. It's the oldest stone built bridge in Europe. The bridge is about 510 meters long and is lined with religious statutes along its length.

With this being the 15th anniversary of the 9-11 attacks, Gerri and I were surprised and honored to see a memorial to the firemen who lost their lives in the twin towers.

 

We walked across the bridge back to our apartment, feeling blessed with our lives and grateful to the men and women who serve our country. The sun has set so we'll wrap up our day and start out again tomorrow.