Today was a rough one

So this started off on a bad note from the get go.. due entirely to the fun from the previous night though.  We had the bright idea of trying to get up early, but reality set in and that just wasn't going to happen.  So our original plans of a day trip out of Prague went out the window.  This actually seemed fine because we could use the day to see the main castle across the river, we which also high on our list.  We walked up through Old Town to the Charles Bridge, but the crowds seemed pretty crazy and we just weren't in the mood to deal with it.  So diverted a bit south tot he next bridge which was exponentially less crowded.  This gave us a very nice walk through some parks on a island just across the river and then a quick walk back up to Charles Bridge, now on the other side.  The crowds were also much more spread out at this point and was very enjoyable.  Part of the problem with the crowds was due to the construction on the bridge... most of the bridge's capacity was halved.  Across the wider parts of the bridge, there are street merchants and performers, which at the time did seem nice.  Kirstyn and I saw some prints of the bridge we really liked, but decided to hold off to see what else was available on our way to the castle.  The answer is a lot!  We thought the things we were seeing were originals, but the same prints and trinkets keep appearing all over Prague.  There were a couple original item, but there were definitely priced to match.   

It really seemed like this side of the river really preys on tourists, and I think that swayed our veiw of Prague for the rest of the trip too.  There's just a little too much of the tourist trap stuff going on.  We continued on (continually seeing the same souvenirs) and almost made it up to the castle.  It was finally time for lunch.  We were both hungry and getting exhausted, so lunch was well over-due.  The view from our table was fantastic and the food was decent (actually, it probably tasted better than it should have since we were so hungry!)  However, we were not ready for the exorbitant bill.  I'll just say, I think it was one of the highest bills of the trip yet and it was just Kirstyn and I.... and no booze.  They really took it too a couple tourists at this joint.  Needless to say we didn't tip and moved on to the castle.  I was determined to not let that experience linger on.

We ran into a couple road blocks on our way to the castle because the Pope (yes, the Pope) was in town.  The visit was just about finishing up and we could have waiting for the roadblock up the stairs from our crappy lunch to clear up, but we diverted back down the stairs and around to head up a different route.  Once at the entrance to the castle gates (marked by two large stone statues of warriors), we waited a bit to see what the commotion was about.  We couldn't really see much, except a bunch of black cars making their way out through the highly guarded streets.  We enterd the castle gate and proceeded to get our audio tour devices, which up to this point of our vacation have been extremely useful.  Just like lunch, we got taken advantage of again.  Becuase of the time of the day and the events with the Pope, we could only do the short tour, which gave us 2 hours to walk through everything that was still open.  There is no way you can do all that in two hours.  We cut the cathedral audio tour in about half and couldn't go into the old Royal Palac at all.  We even moved at fairly good pace, but got the audio tour devices back in just enough time.  Oh well.  The things we saw were still nice and there were a couple places we couldn't have gotten into with the audio tour, so maybe... (maybe?), it was worth it.

After we freed ourselves of our tourist shackles, we relaxed a bit by walking through some of the castle gardens.  Like most of Prague and the castle, great views and very pretty.  I have to say, walking through Prague, you really get a sense of walking back in time.  The city was really bombed during WWII, so there is a lot of very old streets and buildings to admire.

It was now time to start the long journey back to the hotel.  Once back, we were both pretty exhausted after the day of feeling manipulated and the epic amount of walking we did.  We were looking forward to a low key night at the hotel restraunt/bar/lounge.  Dinner was decent, but priced appropriately which made it taste even better.  We then continued onto the lounge section where I got a nice Cuban cigar (Coheba of course!) and single malt (Talisker 10).  The cigar and scotch didn't interest Kirstyn as much, but she enjoy some nice white Czech wine.