Sunday 13th October 2024 (day 30)
Today, we rode the tourist trams, which follow two different, but overlapping routes around the city centre. You can hop-on and off at any stop en-route, but more of this later.
For me, the city centre is mostly about its architecture and the amazing, fine old buildings which tower above the streets. It really is a feast, and what would be seen as exceptional in other towns or cities, is run of the mill here.
Many of the following buildings are posh shops (Prada, Gucci, Chanel, Jimmy Choo, Yves St Laurent, to name but few) down at street level:
The Prague Old Town Square is one of the tourist-traps, with its monuments, buildings and the Prague Astronomical Clock, which is on the side of the Town Hall Tower.
Nearby, there are other highly decorated buildings:
There are also some fine monuments:
The Winged Lion is of particular interest as it commemorates the 2,500 air-force personnel who fought in the second world war in the RAF, many of whom were persecuted when they returned home under the communist regime. It was unveiled by Rt. Hon, Sir Nicholas Soames MP (Winston Churchill’s grandson) in 2014.
As expected in a tourism hotspot, there are many vendors of food and souvenirs, but “Old Prague Ham” does not sound like a good advertisement:
As I said at the top, we used the trams to get about. There are a wide variety of tram-cars in use, many are historic and used just for tourists, in particular the Nos 42 and 41.
The 1304 tram has been beautifully restored, but the seats are a bit hard:
"See-u-Later" 