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| Erin's Journal for 9-25-02 Today we figured we'd get the lay of the land by taking a walking tour of the city. We previewed several options in the fliers we'd picked up the day before, and chose an all-in-one tour, which should cover the history, major landmarks, quarters of the city, and the castle. There were two start times and of course I got up a little late, so we decided to hit the 1:30pm tour and use our morning to explore train options to our next stop, Vienna. We trammed into town and stopped off to leave Ryan and Casey a message about the tour, as they'd expressed interest the night before in joining us. Then we headed to the main train station and puzzled out where to get information on schedules and prices. The lines were long and we had to rush out of there to make it to the tour meeting point on time. We met in front of the National Library at the top of Wenceslas Square. The tour guide was a youngish lady who turned out to be German, studying in Prague for the next 2 years. She was a little hard to understand but we figured we'd catch on pretty soon. After waiting for the crowd to assemble (the brochures said intimate groups of 4 - 5 people, but we had about 14), we headed off down Wenceslas Square, the guide occasionally stopping to point things out. This was the newer quarter of town and had several monuments to the establishment of Czechoslovakia and the victims of communism. One major problem I immediately had with the guide was that she kept turning her head to look at what she was talking about, and was so soft-spoken that nobody could hear at all when she did this. We were all straining and leaning in to begin with, so this quickly got frustrating. After a few more stops, some of the other people on the tour started discreetly pointing out to each other and us that the guide was telling us less about these things than their tourist guide books! We noticed that she had a spiel about each place we stopped, but couldn't really answer any questions about them. Also, she seemed not to care about this stuff at all! In addition, as time went on, she opened her mouth less and less while talking, so soon she was mumbling in her already-thick German accent, making it virtually impossible to understand her. Halfway through the tour, we lost one of the people on the tour. The group was going across the Charles Bridge, and the guide was paying no attention. Granted, this guy was taking WAY too many pictures and counting on his wife to listen to the comments of the guide, but the point was that after crossing the bridge we took a sudden left turn and completely left him behind. His wife noticed he was gone, but was torn between going back for him and losing us, and sticking with us to make sure the guide got paid! It was a mess, and eventually I suggested to her that she tell the guide she'd pay her at the start of tomorrow's tour. So she left, and the whole group by then was making disappointed sounds about the tour in general. Also at this point, we were running very behind. By the time we got to the castle, the tour had already gone on for 45 minutes over the 4 hours it should have taken. Guess who showed up then? The missing guy! He knew where the tour was supposed to end, and thought to catch up with his wife there. We told him she'd gone back to the bridge to look for him over an hour ago, and wished him luck. I'm glad he's not mine! Several people were hinting they'd rather pay up and leave than endure the last 4 stops inside the castle, but our guide didn't pick up on this and they all dragged along with us. When it was over, about 4 people literally ran away after paying her! What a disappointing tour this was. It just goes to show how important it is to get a good guide - there is so much more to know about this city! We left the tour exhausted and cold, and stopped off in the first warm pub we found with a good-looking menu. Several of the folks from the tour joined us, and we had the best part of that day in the good meal and conversations that followed. After filling up on pasta, we went back to Old Town and said goodbye to our new friends, then caught the first trams back to the hostel. |
| The wonderful Glockenspiel, an astrological clock which tells month, season, horoscope sign, and one of 3,000 names to be celebrated each day |