Before leaving Sydney I’d pre-booked two bike tours of Prague with Praha Bike, an afternoon tour at 3pm and a night tour at 7.30pm. The tours were conditional on at least two people booking them. A few days before I got to Prague, I received an email that no one else had booked the 3pm tour and unless I wanted to pay double or someone else booked, it would be cancelled. I let them cancel it.
Turns out I’ve very glad I did this, as it was a very hot day, and 3pm to 5pm Friday was a peak tourist time, it would be been a bit of a nightmare on the bikes through the city at this time. It gave me a few hours just to wander around on foot instead.
I turned up at 7pm, met the tour guide, as well as Andy and Chuck, two Americans here in Europe for a few weeks with their work. Small groups on bike tours are great. We were fitted with bikes, these were mountain style bikes. No where near as comfortable as the bikes I had in Berlin and Copenhagen, but on the flip side they were at least half the weight so manoeuvring this bike over the footpaths and uneven surfaces when you had to lift it was easy. Given the local conditions, these bikes were the obvious decision.
Some of the places we visited were :
- Main gate into the old town
- Charles University Building
- Man Hanging Out
- End of Communism Velvet Revolution Memorial
- Ss Cyril and Methodius Cathedral (this is a significant part of modern history. more on that later)
- Dancing House
- Kampa Park. A small park not many tourists go to and is mostly used by locals. fantastic quiet little place to escape the hectic tourist bustle. We had a beer here, I think a pint (or probably only 500ml) cost about A$3.50. Look for it on google maps.
- Crawling Barcode Babies
- Lennon Wall
- Charles Bridge (A Must do/see thing in Prague)
- Pissing Fountain Statue (My inner 13 year old was highly amused!). Yes important parts of the anatomy on this stature are animated and move about…
- Czech Philharmonic House
- Jewish Quarter
- Main Square
It's all about the coffee 