Exciting day in Prague

Another day in Prague was a very busy one. We went to the National Museum - not art - but more of a natural history and history museum. It's a huge museum, but the displays were very antiquated. Since Ann is a docent at the LACounty Museum of Natural History, she's gotten us to be pretty critical of museum displays and signage.

We spent some time in Old Town (Stare Mesta), walking around the narrow cobblestone streets and check out some of the shops. Our Idyll-sponsored event was that night - a chamber music concert of Mozart at the Prague Mozart Museum. It was a much longer walk from the trolley stop than I was comfortable with, ending with a very steep block-long walk up to the venue. I was NOT a happy camper by the time we got there. But the string-trio concert was exceptional, and it's hard to be grumpy when you're listening to Mozart.
We walked to a nearby beer hall for dinner, and had delicious goulash, served in a bread bowl. Superb!

Then it got really interesting. We headed home on a different trolley, which was fairly crowded. We were sitting separately, and I missed the stop. John, Al & Ann all got off at "our" stop, and I sailed blithely on. The panic started at the next stop when everybody got off, and the driver indicated that this was the end of the line and that he was leaving. Oh, my god!!! What now?!? I couldn't find anybody around who spoke any English. I debated walking back, but had no idea of how long it would be. Then I realized that others were waiting for a trolley heading back in the other direction, so I decided to wait for that one, too. Just about then, dear sweet wonderful John showed up - walking up on the other side of the street. He said that he just hoped that I had gotten off, or that the end of the line wasn't more than one stop (which it wasn't). Anyway, I was rescued, and within a few minutes, a new driver showed up, and the trolley headed back toward town. We got on for that one stop, and walked home. Ann and Al came up right behind us - they had gotten lost, too, walking from the trolley stop to home - making a wrong turn.

Fortunately, we were all home, safe and sound, and really tired. And this was probably our hardest, most exciting day of the trip.

Today's picture is of marionettes hanging outside a shop near the Charles Bridge.