Wednesday – we started with clear blue skies and a coolish breeze. Excitedly we hurried to the old town and our Segway tour. Alexandria was to be our guide. We selected our helmets tried the machines and we were off – inching our way forward to start. Good thing we went early so that we could avoid the crowds. We went down to Jewish Town and saw where the various notable synagogues could be found. They boast the oldest synagogue in Europe and of course I have a photo.
We were making our way to the river and came to where Stalin built his largest statue on the banks of the Vltana. It is no longer there thanks to Nikita Kruschev declaring Stalin a criminal and destroying the monument. Not to waste a good set of stairs and a large plinth the Czech’s built a large metronome in place of the statue. Then we went to the beach by the Vltana where the swans and ducks congregate, onto the Franz Kafka museum with the pissing politicians and then to “Lenins” wall.
Oops it was “Lennons” wall – John Lennon memorial. We also found where the restored cars/ tour taxis parked up. Then onto the Palace. The tour groups were out in force so we elected to go to the Petřín Lookout Tower. It is a 63.5-metre-tall steel-framework tower strongly resembling the Eiffel Tower. Although it is much shorter than the Eiffel Tower, it stands atop a sizable hill, Petřín, so the top is at a higher elevation than that of the Eiffel Tower. Built in 1891 it was used as an observation tower as well as a transmission tower.
We stopped for coffee and cake (a lemon and earl grey cake) and resumed our trip back down to the old town passed the statue of Karel Macha and the memorial to those killed during the communist era to end our Segway tour. I was ecstatic about the ease of using a Segway and the fun that can be had with it. The tour company Euro Segway Prague were good to deal with also.
Walking back to our apartment we passed some markets filled with tourist trinkets but also with fresh fruit and vegetables. Some of the boxes of berries looked very tempting. And there were some interesting coffee shops along the way. Back home I stopped to grab some snaps of Wenceslas Square. At one end is a large building now a museum where I can imagine Good King Wenceslas last looked out in the 11th century on the feast of Stephen, when the snow lay round about deep and crisp and even. At the other end is the passage to the old town as we are in the New Town quarter. Beds of roses lay between me and the museum and the air was full of perfume.
glendon1954 