We took a minibus tour of Prague on Friday. One family on the tour was Italian, so it was a combined tour with a bilingual guide. Turned out her English was unintelligible. I understood 10% of the English and almost that much of the Italian. But we saw a bunch of pretty buildings and there was a spectacular view of the city from the castle complex high on a hill.
Our hotel was excellent but our room was on the second floor overlooking the front door of the Hard Rock Cafe. The noise was such that we partied all night along with them, without the benefit of alcohol. We didn't sleep much, and at our request we were moved to a quieter room in anticipation of an even noisier Saturday night.
Saturday was a rest and chore day. We set out to find an optical shop to get Sandy's sunglasses fixed. On the way we found in the Old Town square that there was a parade of folkloric groups in town from all over Europe and Asia for a festival. In addition to the delightful troupes of dancers, musicians and singers, there was one group of men from Germany who all rang giant (5-gallon?) cowbells. Imagine the sound of 50 men beating on metal garbage cans with baseball bats, in unison. Oh- they were almost all smoking traditional crooked cigars. They could be heard all over the city. We coined the term folkloric terrorism. Onward with the sunglasses quest. They only need a screw in the hinge but the shop we found couldn't provide it, so she has a very becoming pair of new designer sunglasses. Eat your heart out, Walgreen's. We walked to the train station and booked tickets for a Sunday journey to Basel, which will be the starting point for the next leg of cycle touring. Then back to the hotel to catch up on the sleep we missed the night before. And we watched the exciting Alpe D'huez mountain stage of the Tour de France on TV. In the evening we went to Mass at a nearby church with a community of Dominican priests and brothers.
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