Vacation: July 19th

It's amazing how much you can do before noon if you try. We knew we had to be checked out of our hotel room by 12, which was good timing because that was just about the time we needed to head to the airport. Somehow we were able to have a nice breakfast, take a trip to Prazsky Hrad (Prague Castle), go back by the old town square, buy some souvenirs, get lost, and still make it back to the hotel with enough time to get the souvenirs packed and check out before noon. So here's some of the photos I took that day. The view from our hotel room. A cute narrow little park. I loved the brick design on the sidewalk.
The castle is on top of a nice little hill (which is always the most logical place to build a castle). But that meant we had to get up that hill. Even though Cindy had given us directions on how to get to the top of the hill on the trams, we decided to walk up the old castle steps. At that point in the morning it wasn't too hot. Plus the view we had of the city was wonderful. This was right at the entrance to the castle. England's not the only place that have guards stationed outside the gates. Apparently they have a changing of the guard ceremonies too but we didn't have a chance to see it. Yes that's a sunflower growing out of the wall of the castle. It's currently the wallpaper on my computer.
And a view of the city from the castle.
And another view.
A view of the bridges over the Vltava.
Inside the castle is an area called Zlata Ulicka (Golden Lane). This was the one place in Prague that I knew I absolutely had to see. These are small homes built into the wall of the castle in the 16th century. If you look at the top of the homes, you can see the grey castle wall. They are now used as little tourist shops. I bought some wonderful soap in one of them.
My second most favorite building in all of Prague. And here's Trina (in the shadows) taking pictures.
A view down Golden Lane.
And now on to the rest of the castle. I wish I could remember what this building was...
Look.. it's flying buttresses ! Any way, Trina & I were excited to see them. And the required bit of construction. Katedrala sv. Vita (St Vitus's Cathedral) is breathtaking.
Looking straight up at the cathedral.
Beautiful mosaics at an entrance to the cathedral.
Another view of the cathedral. On my next visit, I have to go inside!
Another pretty building in the castle. Unfortunately, I don't know the name of this one either. I guess that's what happens when you are on a very tight schedule.
Anther pretty building.
Ok, I was very sad to see later that I had not taken any photos of Lady Luck in Prague (I guess that's one more reason to go back). So instead, I'm showing a photo of Trina walking on the cobblestone sidewalk somewhere in or around the castle(& just a little bit of the cobblestone road at the upper right).

So all of that was done before noon. After lunch we made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare. Our flight to London Gatewick was uneventful. Customs between EU countries was very easy. So easy that if you have nothing to declare then you don't even have to talk to human being. We found our way to the train to take us into the city. Once at Victoria station we stumbled around until we found the Underground.

A short time later, we found our hotel, the Ambassadors in Bloomsbury. And wouldn't you know it... the hotel was undergoing a renovation! Luckily, the room had already been renovated and was very nice with good AC... and thanks to AAA, the cost was pretty reasonable for a hotel in London. After we got showers (since we happened to arrive in London on one of the hottest days in London history & were drenched in sweat), we headed out to explore the Bloomsbury neighborhood. And it truly was hot... if I remember correctly it was in the high 90s, which is hot even for this southern girl.

UPDATE: Trina reminded me that we did actually have to talk to human while going through customs. It was just so brief that I had forgotten about it. For some reason Trina had a harder time talking to security so she probably has a better memory of that. I was only remembering the part after whe talked to the man & had to decide which line to enter depending on where we had been. That was the part where we didn't have to talk to anyone.