I’m going to try to postabout my trip on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, so that I can finish sharingabout it before the Christmas season. I don’t know though. I have over a thousandpictures to wade through, and we saw so much history, some of which I haveresearched already, but it’s different once it’s seen. Know what I mean?

We arrived in Prague late Tuesday afternoon and had the entire day Wednesday to explore on our ownbefore the official tour started on Thursday. A couple of months ago, I was lookingup things to do and discovered some river cruises which sounded interesting. Ibooked the Devil’s Channel Cruise for 12:30 that day.

The weather was somewhatdecent, cloudy and a little cool, but not too bad, so we left the hotel earlyand wandered all over the Old Town until our cruise.

The cruise boat company’swebsite described our trip as a 50-minute fairy tale cruise through thepicturesque Devil's Channel, one of the most romantic cruises in Prague. You’llbe surrounded by beautiful medieval homes that seem to grow right out of thewater, listen to the clatter of the mill wheel as in days gone by, upon your boat,the ecological friendly Elvíra.  

The cruise was nice, theyoung gal navigating and narrating was friendly and funny. I can’t remembermuch of what she said; I just took my usual excessive number of pictures. And we saw more of the river than just the Devil's Channel. 

I do know that the picture below is of the Charles Bridge. It’s a medieval stone arch bridge that crosses the VltavaRiver, connecting the Old Town and Lesser Town. Construction began in 1357under King Charles IV, but it wasn’t finished until the early 15th century.Originally called Stone Bridge or Prague Bridge, it’s been called "CharlesBridge" since 1870. 

It is open to pedestrian trafficonly, is 1,693 ft long, nearly 33 feet wide, and has 16 arches. I’ll share morepictures and explanations about it on upcoming blog posts.

The other thing I will bewriting about a lot is Prague Castle. It is the largest ancient castle in theworld, occupying an area of almost 750,000 square feet or 17 acres. There areactually many larger castles around the world, but they don’t carry the “ancient”designation; I haven’t really figured out the difference yet. But you can seethe castle complex, high on a hill overlooking Prague, from nearly any point inthe city with a view. There will be many more pictures of it! 

But I like the simplethings too, like wildlife. We saw some mallard ducks and a few swans.

Then these little critterswhich looked like a beaver or muskrat, but are called a nutria. Cute but they werelittle beggars on the beach.