New Town Prague

June 19th—We woke up this morning to rain. We had a slow start to the day because we were trying to let the rain go away. It finally did so we headed out and stopped at our now favorite restaurant, Novomestsky pivovar, for a wonderful lunch. Mike ordered the same bohemian platter from the other night, and I ordered the chicken pocket filled with Parma ham and spinach served with roasted potatoes and pepper sauce. No complaints…the food was still wonderful. After lunch, we walked up Winceslas Square. The name of this area is so odd to us because you would think the it was actually a square or plaza, but it’s a street. Anyway, at the top of the street is a statue of Sir Winceslas. So, we walked up to the statue and then back down the street admiring the different architecture. We made a slight detour off the street to the post office for some stamps. Upon arriving back on the street, there was a a big crowd and a lot of noise coming from this crowd. It was obviously a protest or rally of some sort so we followed the crowd back up the square in order to figure out what was going on. It wasn’t until we got back to the apartment and google translated the signs that we determined what the rally was about. It was some 9,000 or so high school students protesting the implementation of a state graduation test. We left the rally and continued back down Winseslas Square. Once we got to the bottom of the street, we walked down some other major shopping streets. We walked to the Powder Tower which was the Gothic gate of the town wall. We also saw the Art Noveau Municipal House. As we left this area heading into the Old Town, we got stuck in a little bit of rain. So, we darted into the Rock Candy shop. We arrived at the shop at the perfect time. This shop makes their own candy and a candy making event was going on. We all really enjoyed seeing how the candy was made while eating our own snack. After the candy was done being made and we got to sample it, we exited the shop. We headed over to the Old Town square and listened to a band play. From here, we started walking back to our apartment and stopped off at the bakery for a light dinner.