The morning started off with with a cozy breakfast of crepes and cappuccinos before we crossed the Charles Bridge to get into old town from our hostel perched just under the Prague Palace. We arrived in the main square surrounded by gothic buildings and met a hilarious duo of English tour guides who entertained us as we waited to join a free tour of this area of the city. They began quarreling about accents and pronunciation, and one of them started elongating his words like "Baaaaahhh-sk like a liz-aaahhhhh-d" to which we could not stop giggling and that became the defining sentence of our entire trip. However, neither of them were our tour guides and we weren't too keen on the Australian woman leading our actual tour so we ditched the group in front of the Astronomical Clock and watched it come to life at the hour with the skeleton pulling the bell, the apostles coming out and the men shaking their heads, and the golden bird at the top at the grand finale accompanied by the trumpet player at the top of the bell tower. We then decided to take a stroll around the adorable area surrounding the main Old Town Square and indulged our cold little selves in trdelnik (dough rolled around a stick, rotated and baked over coals, and covered in sugar -- ugh it's literally one of the best snacks EVER) and discovered the wonders of mulled wine in the below freezing wintertime.

After our little mid-morning snack we tried to visit the Church of Our Lady before Tyn but it was unfortunately closed, and ventured on toward the Powder Tower and Municipal building which were both quite impressive. The Powder Tower was interesting because the weather-worn stone made the gothic architecture stand out against the blue sky, and municipal building was especially ornate. I think the cold really speeds up my metabolism because we got a case of the munchies again and decided to stop by a restaurant called Lokal. We were handed menus in Czech and understood absolutely nothing, but thankfully they realized what our blank stares meant and brought us English substitutes. I ordered the cabbage soup and potato dumplings (and of course a round of Czech beer -- so cheap! So good!!) and my oh my this was honestly the best meal I had in Prague. The cabbage soup was tart and the sausage was so flavorful, and potato dumplings really stuck to my stomach in the best way possible since the cold was making me so miserable. We feasted heartily before heading back out to keep on exploring. This was the beginning of our circles around Prague. We decided to head towards the Jewish quarter and found ourselves in front of the Kafka statue (which I hugged in a photo my friend took of it because The Metamorphosis defined a good portion of my high school AP English Lit life). We aimlessly wandered around and passed by the back of Lokal, and again past the statue, and by many other buildings we had seen and figured out that we were just making figure eights -- a theme carried out throughout the rest of our stay in Prague because everything ran in circles. The synagogues in the city were beautiful on the outside, but unlike Rome where everything is open to the public for free Prague charges for entrance everywhere so we decided to skip out on venturing inside and continued on our way towards Wenceslas Square.

We arrived at a beautiful square surrounded by candy-colored buildings and literally everything looks like a Disneyland set. I'm convinced Prague is not a real place and most of it is made out of plywood and styrofoam because it is just too perfect. There was even the most adorable traditional Czech decorated egg store with real painted eggshell ornaments and dolls. After a quick break we decided to head back to the Charles Bridge to watch the sun set, though it was slightly cloudy, and coincidentally ran into a group of guys from our program in Rome. It seems everyone had the same idea! Exhausted from our day exploring the town we decided to head back for a quick siesta hour at the hostel before heading back out for dinner. Our friend looked up a restaurant that was supposed to serve super authentic Czech cuisine, but it was hidden in an obscure little alleyway so we had a little trouble finding it. However, we eventually located Baracnicka Rychta where I tried an interesting plate of bacon-wrapper cheese with greens and balsamic sauce which was super tasty. After dinner we decided to walk around near the castle and then head back downtown to check out a little pub near the river where we sat for a quick chat and a cider before calling it a night. We were off to see the castle the next day so we needed a good night's rest for the following day's adventure!