Our third day in Prague was planned to be a bit lighter. It was our hottest day so far with temperatures above 90 all day. We walked first to the Old Town Square and saw the oldest working astronomical clock in the world. On the hour two doors open up and the twelve apostles cycle around (6 on each side) and death pulls a bell that rings throughout. It was very neat to see.
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| On the Old Square |
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| This is the church we think looked like Hogwarts |
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| Waiting to see the clock strike 10. |
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| The astronomical clock. |
After that we walked down and saw a sculpture at the public library that is made out of books. The sculpture is neat on its own, but it also has mirrors at the top and bottom, which make it like an endless well of books that is fascinating. We stopped by the Marionette theater, but it wasn't open, so we didn't buy tickets.
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| Book sculpture from the outside. |
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| Looking into and down the sculpture. |
We walked from there to the Charles Bridge, where we spent about twenty minutes listening to a group consisting of two violins, two cellos, and a percussionist (with a box she sat on) playing pop and rock songs. We decided to take a river tour, so we went and bought tickets. On the boat tour we saw the sights and sipped lemonade. It was a beautiful view and a nice way to avoid the worst of the heat.
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| On the street. This was where they made the tower cakes. |
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| Walking in the city. |
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| Statue of Charles |
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| Group of musicians playing pop and rock songs. |
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| Ladies on the bridge! |
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| The bridge was built in the 14th century and the sculptures were added in the 18th. |
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| More sculptures. |
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| Yulia on the bridge. |
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| Police women on horses coming over the bridge. |
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| View of the city (and Prague Castle) from the bridge. |
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| The bridge from the boat dock where we began our tour. |
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| Waiting for the boat. |
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| Settling in for the ride. |
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| Swans on the river. |
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| Neat sculptures on one of the bridges we passed under. |
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| Enjoying the tour |
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| Sisters sipping lemonade on a boat. |
From the river tour we went looking for the Franz Kafka head statue. We found two statues of men peeing instead by the same artist. It was pretty funny (and the girls were all appropriately embarrassed and shocked). We found a nice little cafe and ate lunch and then got on a tram to go to the model train museum. There was a bit of miscommunication between Yulia and me about who was responsible for knowing how to get there. I remembered.....mostly..... how to get there. It turns out we went one stop too far. We ended up at a mid 19th century cemetery that was being restored after years of neglect. Yulia and I left the girls and Ramona there sitting in the shade and went and found out where we went wrong. Once we found the museum, we came back and got them.
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| A canal. |
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| Peeing statues outside Kafka museum. |
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| Lunch |
The museum took up two basement floors of a shopping center and had an impressive collection of model trains with scenes from all over the country. There were also busses and trains that the kids could get into and pretend to drive. In addition to all the model trains, there was an entire section dedicated to models of all types - aircraft, cars, military equipment, racing cars - that was quite impressive. The place had the advantage of being cool and dark and we spent two hours letting the kids be kids.
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| Details of one of the train sets. |
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| Large view of the train set up. |
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| Watching the trains. |
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| Model race cars. |
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| The girls driving a tram |
We ate at the McDonald's next door and took the tram home. It was a nice third day with plenty of interesting sites seen.
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| Evening thunderstorm outside the window. |
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