Day 2 in Prague - Prague Castle & the Ballet

Today we explored outside the confines of Old Town and crossed the river to the Progue Castle. What's funny is it isn't really a castle, it's a collection of old buildings with the most magnificent being St Vitus Catherdral.  It was originally built starting in the 900s which a damn old!!!  It took nearly 500 years for it to be complete and good things certainly are worth waiting for, it's incredible.  It's high Gothic style and insanely ornate details are something to marvel.  We started our tour of the Castle there and spent over an hour meandering through the various chappels handing the audio guide back on forth.  Mo got most of the good pics with the DSLR but my phone got some decent pics too!  It's really just amazing how much effort and time go into these structures.  Makes you wish we took the same approach  to the buildings we create in the US, nothing compares to magnifcence of Europe's Cathedrals.

After St Vitus Cathedral we headed over to Royal Palace.  It was fairly basic compared to the ornate detail of St Vitus but still pretty cool to get an inside view of how the early Hapsburg monarchs lived.

Next up was St George's Basilica, this was much smaller and simpler but it was crazy old too.  It was started in the 900s and had been through all sorts of catastrophic events and was finally restored in the 1960s.  Pretty basic, but rich with history.

Finally we headed to the Golden Lane.  This was at the perimiter of the "Castle" and was basically a long building housing all the castles workers...seasmstresses, goldsmiths, guards, even a small theater room.  Speaking of small, people must have been pretty short back then.  The ceilings and doors were quite short!  The Golden Lane also housed an incredibly large collection of old war regalia, full suits of armor lined the entire length of the hall dating back to the 1400s.  The swords went back as far as 750BC???  What???  Now that's old!

After all that it was time for some hot wine, or Grug as they call it in Prague.  Think Gluvine or Gloog, super yummy and a great way to relax and warm up.  While it was a little chilly in the mid 40s, the sun was shining bright and it felt GREAT!  Couldn't ask for better weather in February!!!  WE totally lucked out!

We had lunch at the bottom of the hill in a cool old bar with traditional Czech Food.  Mo had beef goulosh with dumplings and I had potatoe dumplings stuffed with ham over glazed cabbage.  It was actually pretty damn good!  I had to take a picture to commemorate the meal...yum!!!

We made our way to to the hotel once again crossing over the Charles Bridge.  Its a beautiful pedestrian bridge made out of stone witha number of very old statues adorning its sides.  Great leisurly walk with fantastic view of the city.  We hit it just before sunset...perfect timing!

We got back to the hotel and the concierge at Hotel Josef was great and helped us get tickets to the International Prague Ballet Gala at the State Opera House.  Got great seats and it was an awesome show.  The performers were from all over and were all principal dancers from their respective companies.  It was a packed house and attendees were dressed to the nines.  The venue was amazingly beautiful on both the outside and the inside.  Lots of clapping during the show and at the end it went on and on and on and on...it was comical after while.  Guess that's just how they roll...

The show was over just before 10pm and we managed to find a decent restaurant bar and I got some ribs!  Not quite Texas BBQ ribs but tasty nonetheless!

All in all a great day and we're wiped, looking forward to one more full day in Prague which unfortunately will be interuppted by media briefings from 5pm to 7pm, but hey, it pays the billz...  See ya later!