Day 2 - Meeting people and Prague

Monday morning, having had no sleep the night before due to the party apparently going on outside my room, and we were up at the crack of 6am - nice.
After a spot of nourishing bread and cheese (luxury breakfast!) half of us went to do the entrance test while the rest of us hit the internet café for a bit of facebooking.

When the others finished their test we went for a spot of lunch at Park Cafe (7/10 yumminess) where we had approximately 10 minutes to order, eat and pay for our meal! After rushing through it Michael (Sheffield Uni) stashing most of his pizza in his bag for later, we headed back to the main square and got on the coach to Prague.

Staroměstké náměstí

Astronomical Clock

50 minutes later, having travelled via a mildly rickety coach (with a suspicious drip coming from somewhere) we were let free into the boiling afternoon. We then set out on a mini tour of the city on the way to Charles University, via the Staroměstské náměstí (Old Town Square), a large square home to a Gothic church and beautiful Baroque buildings. On an outside wall of the Old Town Hall is the Pražský Orloj (Astronomical Clock) that does some pretty groovy things on the hour, if you are patient enough to wait for them. 

Staroměstké náměstí

The Carolinum is the building on the left

The mini-tour was followed up by the official course opening of Univerzita Karlova v Praze (Charles University, Prague) summer language schools, in the impressive Carolinum hall at the university, which dates back to the 14th Century. The hall has since been renovated but still has some elements of the original building, for example the old doors and some statues and tapestries. If you are in the area and into history it's definitely worth a visit, even if you just see it from the outside! 




Following a quick talk welcoming us and basically saying how amazing we were for studying Czech, we were set free in Prague for a couple of hours. 
This prompted a visit to a cafe near the Staroměstké náměstí for a spot of tiny traditional Czech cake (weird, wouldn't recommend it!) 





After cake we headed for Karlův Most (Charles Bridge), built from 1357 under the reign of King Charles IV. The bridge stretches across the wide Vltava River, which runs through the centre of Prague, and gives any keen tourist a great view of the waterfront buildings, mostly built in the Baroque style. From the bridge you can also see the St. Vitus Cathedral, a spectacular work of Gothic architecture, standing high on a hill above Prague. All in all I'd recommend visiting Karlův Most for a fab view of Prague, just expect there to be a lot of tourists at most times of the day!

View from Karlův Most with the Cathedral in the background