Prague old city

Yesterday indeed went much better. Instead of making a detailed plan for what we wanted to see, we walked across the Charles Bridge and wandered in the old city, going into some churches. And then we came upon the Klementinum, originally a Jesuit University, and took a tour. An amazing baroque library and also an astronomical observing tower with recreated 18th century observing instruments just a step beyond what Tycho Brahe and Kepler would have used when they worked in Prague. What I had never seen before was the system used in the 19th century to determine noon exactly and provide a signal to the town clocks. We followed our interest in the history of astronomy and went on to another church to see the tomb of Tycho Brahe.

Our daughter wanted to look in stores so she and I walked back the way we had come over the bridge, while John and our son took the subway back. I got mixed stories about how lost they got but they came out of a subway entrance other than the one opposite the trolley stop and had trouble finding the trolley stop. We are beginning to feel confident with the trolley system and so able to get around easily from our apartment. I'm slowly suggesting to our son that he pay more attention, and he likes figuring out public transportation systems.

In the evening we had dinner in our apartment, then went up a funicular (somewhat like the cable cars in San Francisco, but with two cars connected by a cable) to the top of a hill overlooking the city. At the top of the hill there was a smaller version of the Eiffel tower that you could go up for the best view. To take the elevator I had to say John was handicapped—I think the kids felt that. John said it was fine for me to play the handicapped card, he wouldn’t have been able to walk the stairs. It was a wonderful view; the picture below shows the bridge we walked over in the morning.