Good Morning Prague

We arrived in Prague late in the afternoon on Tuesday and transferred to our hotel.  We walked the streets of our neighborhood and had dinner at a nice restaurant around the corner, but the big sightseeing started Wednesday morning.

Along the Voltava River with Prague Castle in the background

While Prague has some hop on, hop off bus options, these tours are around the periphery of the Old Town area due to the narrow streets.  Since this wasn't a great option, we booked a private guide and driver to show us some of the highlights of Prague and help orient us to the City.  Our guide Lenka met us in the lobby at 9:00am and we discussed our options.  She made several suggestions as to what we would be good to see.  She gave us a great overview of Czech history and the architectural styles we'd be seeing during our tour.  Pavel was our driver and we loaded into the van for our half-day adventure.

Strahov Monastery Library

We drove through Wenceslas Square where the Velvet Revolution occurred in 1989 that brought about the end of communism.  We ventured around Charles Square and saw the Old Town Hall as well as several important churches.  We crossed the Voltava River and went to the Castle Hill district and stopped at the Strahov Monastery and Library.  The library contains over 200,000 rare books and manuscripts and is ornately decorated.  We saw great views of Old Town Prague and the river from here.  We briefly stopped in front of Prague Castle and walked across the Charles Bridge, the most famous bridge in Prague and one that is pedestrian only.  After finishing through Old Town Square, it was hard to believe that five hours had gone by so quickly.

At the end of our tour with Lenka and Pavel

Lenka was extremely knowledgeable and provided great context to all that we were seeing.  She has great command of Czech history and culture.  Even though there were intermittent sprinkles during our tour, it was a great introduction to Prague.  Now we know what to look forward to as we go back and experience more of these sites in depth.