Day-8

This is the room at the Castle Steps.  Pretty nice.

I got an early morning call from my friend Kent who didn't know I was in Prague this morning.  We just had a great old time talking on Skype which is about the coolest thing ever for traveling.  I am not a pitchman for them, but if you ever do a lot of travel and you can get internet access Skype will save you a ton of money.  Kent, called me on the cell phone at about $1/minute and I called him back on Skype for about $ 0.05 a minute.  Even in Switzerland where the internet costs ran $ 0.40/minute it was cheaper to use Skype.  Anyway, we had a nice chat and I decided I need to go to Las Vegas for a long weekend or something to see him… before he moves to someplace else.  

Well, the rain has returned to Prague,  I think i'll be using the umbrella to go to breakfast today. We went down and got tram tickets.  We jumped on the tram going the wrong direction and ended up having to back-track to get to the Charles Bridge.  The bridge is 650 years old and has been undergoing repairs since 2007.  A lot of it is done but they are working on it a section at a time so tourists can still see most of the bridge and walk across it. This is looking back toward the bridge Gatehouse from the first part of the bridge.

Once we got into Old Town we went to the Kepler Museum.  It was very small but actually very interesting (It only cost $3.00 for entry) and fun.  We learned a few things we didn't know about his life.  One interesting portion was a compendium of quotes from people who knew Kepler well, like Goethe who said that among other things Kepler was a really nice guy, who laughed a lot.

       

We ate lunch a an overpriced place near the old town square then saw the chapel where the Hussites worship. They are sort of a cross between protestants  and Catholics. Then we went to the design museum and saw glassware and fabrics and caught several trams going is various directions in an attempt to get back to the hotel. We stopped for spaghetti and gnocchi on the way back. So here we are, packing again for a trip to Vienna tomorrow.