Street Musicians During Easter Week

Here is a video of some Czech folk singers entertaining the crowd during Easter Week in the Prague town square.

PRAGUE DURING EASTER WEEK

I was in Prague during Easter Week.  The city was crowded especially in the city square where the astronomical  worked for the first time in a long time.  The square was filled with many craft and food booths and there was entertainment on a makeshift stage there in the square.  It was a very lively time. 

View as you enter the square.  

   

 People and booths.

 Astronomical clock.

 More people and booths

 Crowds

 In the square by the stage

Giant Easter Egg.

Prague in April

 After sailing all the previous day, we docked at a small town outside of Prague.  We boarded several small Isuzu buses and started our Prague tour.  Our first stop was a castle on the hill.  It is a complex that contains several historic buildings, one being the residence of the Czech prime minister, another the residence of the Archbishop of Prague and the historic Cathedral.  We spent about two hours there and then went to the Jewish section.  This is a very old section of the city.  Our guide mentioned that before WWll there were 45,000 Jews living in Prague.  Today there are 1,500.

                                                            

     

                                                 











This is where we disembarked and boarded the Isuzu buses that took us into Prague.  They are visible on top of the bridge.

This was the royal palace once upon a time.  It's now the residence of the Prime Minister.  This is the entrance.

View of the city from the square in front of the palace.

Stained glass in the Cathedral of St Vitus.

Side chapel in the Cathedral.  Entrance to where the Royal jewels are kept.

Prague street scene of the Jewish section.

Very old  Jewish clock.

The Last Lock

This was the last lock we went through before we got to Prague.  It just fascinated me.

                                          Steering through the lock

                                           Tight fit

                                       

Notice the dark mark on the wood.

                                           Look where the railing is now.

Leisurely Day Cruising on the Elbe.

After Dresden we spent a very relaxing day on the boat cruising down the Elbe.  The weather was sunny and warm and the scenery was gorgeous.  We went through several locks which in its self was an experience.  In the afternoon our AHI cruise director Anya gave a talk about growing up in East Germany.  It was very interesting and informative.   In some respects it was much different than growing up in the States, and at the same time it was very similar.  She didn’t want for anything, but she also didn’t know what she didn’t have until after reunification in 1989.

Before dinner this evening we had a farewell reception and a graduation ceremony.  Certificates were mentioned but were distributed to us in our cabin.

The dinner was the Captain’s dinner.  Our meals were very very good on the whole cruise but tonight’s dinner was great.  It was a six course dinner with an appetizer, soup, salad, sorbet of vodka and apple ice cream, an entrée and dessert.  They carried the desert in with sparklers shooting out of it.  It was an ice cream cake that was absolutely delicious.  The sparklers also melted the ceiling where one of the servers was standing

See ladeetravels.blogspot.com for food pictures of our various meals.

Pastoral scenes of the countryside as we cruised down the Elbe toward Prague.