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Today we took the tram to the bottom of Prague Castle and first looked for a coffee house where we had breakfast with a huge coffee and a piece of cake. It took a while to find one as you only find pizzerias and McDonal’s at the trodden toujrists’ paths, but no classical coffee houses. Slightly back from the castle mountain we found one and had a good Sacher and a chocolate variant of the Black Forest gateaux.

Then up to the mountain in a very slow pace, the road up there is quite steep. The view from the mountain alone however makes the effort worth while.

After a small snack with a Prague speciality, Klobasse, a grilled sausage with losts of red peppers, grains and bad meat none of us really liked, we visited the inner area of the castle.

It is an impressive complex of buildings which you need to visit several times to really explore it.

Hanna especially wanted to see the Golden Lane, a street with very small house built into the wall, which are the only houses left from the medieval ages in Prague.

The blue house you see Hanna standing in front of, is one where Franz Kafka lived for a time. The smallest house in Prague may also be found here, consisting of one single small room.

Nowadays the houses are not inhabitated of course, but cramped with tourist shops (including the inevitable lead crystal collection). In spite of the many people the Golden Lane is worth a visit, who is more interested in history of horror should go to the two towers at both ends of the lane, which used to serve as prisons for a long time.

Tonight, after our usual afternoon rest, we will go into town again, to have dinner with the participants of my meeting already present.

Prague has a wonderful inner city, nearly 900 hectars belonging to UNESCO’s world heritage. Today we set off to leisurely explore it. Leisurely really means it, just being driven by discoveries, to stop here, to look at a shop there, without trying to tick off a special programme in as short a time span as possible.

Hanna and Michael during our walk discovered their love for lead crystal. It is a Czech or Bohemian speciality and they stopped at crystal shops whenever they saw them to wonder at the exhibits in the windows. And then they even entered every second shop. In the end Hanna did not resist and bought a vase. Fortunately not one made of lead crystal, but of ordinary glass, wonderfully painted at an unbelievable price. I am no real fan of lead crystal, you must know.

We let us be driven from shop to shop, from lane to lane, enjoyed the fine weather, which let the whole city glow in a wonderful light. We met masses of people anxiously waiting for the twelve apostles to appear for a few seconds in the astronomic clock of the old town hall and to shoot hundreds of digital photographs. And some hundred metres farther we found quiet lanes with just a few people lost in them.

The same with the prices, directly at the clock we paid 22 Euro for 2 beers and 2 coffees, as much as 400 metres further for 2 and a half beers, a coffee and 3 traditional Czech meals.

After treading stones for 6 hours it became a bit too much and we retreated into the hotel where Hanna and Michael still rest. Tonight we will make a pub crawl and tomorrow we want to visit Prague castle.

Hanna now has arrived, finally, with her provisional passport. In the end it was four and a half hours later than planned, but nevertheless earlier than what it would have been had she gone to Berlin to pick up the original.

I met her at the train which nearly went wrong as well. I waited for her at Holosevice station, but she went to Hl. N., Prague’s central station. Fortunately it is 3 stops only on the underground, so I was there in less than 10 minutes.

Now we have had our dinner, real classic Czech food, roast pork with sauerkraut and “Knödel”. Well, you might say that this is Bavarian or austrian, but the Czech Republic had been part of the Austrian Empire for a long time.

Hanna now is in bed resting her back after all the excitement. And I am waiting for Michael to complete the travel group.

Maybe it was not such a good idea to choose the sad looking station Berlin-Südkreuz as a starting point for our journey. Originally we thoughzt that the weekend wood be really nice. A couple of wonderful days in Prague where Michael was to join us.

Now I am sitting in an appartment in Prague and Hanna is not here: she had to get off the train at the border as she had forgotten all dokuments, inparticular her passport. Now I sit and wait for both, Hanna and Michael who will only arrive late this evening.

But Hanna is on her way, she went back to Dresden and had a copy of her passport faxed to the police there which was sufficient to make them give her a provisional document. Now she is on the train since four and will arrive here some time after six.

Cost for the provisional passport: 28 Euro. But much less than the ticket to Berlin and back!