We sleep a bit later today as we control our own breakfast.  I make coffee while someone else sleeps a bit longer.  🙂

So far it is dry outside but overcast.  By the time we get going at about 10:15 it is drizzling again.  We have decided to take one of the “Free Walking Tours” offered in the old town.  The streets are a sea of umbrellas (except for us.  We purposely did not pack ANY rain or cold weather clothing!  It is summer, we are packing light, what are the odds????)  We cave and buy a 99 koruna ($5 CAD) umbrella and become one of the crowd.

We enter the square with the Astronomical Clock at about 10:45.  The clock does it’s performance on the hour and there are many people gathered to witness it.  We see a young man (Max) with an umbrella advertising free tours in English.  We chat briefly with him and discover that he is from the San Francisco area and has been travelling since graduating university trying to find himself 🙂  He also tells us that the Astronomical Clock is the 2nd most overrated tourist attraction in Europe.  We wait for the performance and agree it is a bit underwhelming.

We find Max who is now gathering his tour participants.  We spend 2.5 hours with him hearing interesting details of Prague’s history. We find this great street!  It’s great rulers, it’s not so great rulers.  The boom times and the opposite.  He was very entertaining and knowledgeable.  Worthy of a 20 Euro tip at the end of the Free Tour 🙂

We head to the pub under the place that Mozart lived and caroused.  They have great ribs there so we share one order and it seems it is a 2 beer lunch day.

Apparently Stu is back into the “Girly Beer” 🙂

While there we witness something VERY STRANGE.  Into the restaurant about 8 people enter.  They walk in a line towards the stairs that lead to the toilets.  There are men and women and they are all dressed oddly.  They are all very thin and the men are wearing suits that appear to be at least 2 sizes too big.  Some with brief cases, some without.  The women were also dressed oddly.  They all seemed much too formal for the pub and even for Prague they stood out.  A while later the parade re-appears from downstairs and walks out of the restaurant.  This time there were no women, only men, more men than originally came in.  The way they were dressed make me recall the old war movies like Stalag 17 and the Great Escape where there was a prisoner who was a tailor who made suits for all the men that were to escape so that they would blend in.  Or concentration camp refugees??  These people seemed so “out of time”,  and what happened to the women???  I went downstairs to use the washroom and found a mens room and a womens room plus another room for private parties.  The room seemed empty and was quiet.  A Mystery in Prague!!

Planning to go to Krakow in a few days we head to the main train station to purchase tickets on the night train.  We reserve two beds in a 4 person couchette.  The train ride is 8 hours so this way we don’t waste a day travelling and a hotel room.  The ticket agent wasn’t a very jovial fellow.  The ticket price is in koruna.  He says 3,169.  Yikes it sounds like a fortune.  Actually about $170 CAD for transportation and hotel.

We need to have some dinner.  I am still feeling full from our lunch so we wander around the area our apartment is in.  We find an Italian place nearby so decide to give it a try.  I only want soup!   My family will be amazed to hear that I ordered “Tomato Soup”!!  It is approaching a year since I was in the hospital where once I was eating on my own I felt I had a steady diet of tomato soup.  Breakfast, lunch and dinner.  I couldn’t face tomato soup for a very long time.  This however, is not your Campbell’s variety.  A very nice Italian variety!