We woke this morning at 7:30am. It felt good to have a full nights’ sleep after having stayed awake for 24 hours on our travel days to get here. We got ourselves ready and out the door at 8:15am to meet Roy and Gwyn for breakfast. The hotel has an enormous layout of food for breakfast: breakfast cakes, fruits, various cold meats and cheeses, breads, pastries, bacon, scrambled and hard boiled eggs, a made to order omelette station, roasted vegetables, yogurts and even hot pretzels.
The four of us had a nice breakfast and afterwards, stopped by the Viking desk on the lower lobby to verify our excursion times. Roy said that was the last time he would need to do that because Rob and Michele are doing the same excursions after today and so he would just ask Rob. Rob and Michele’s WWII Czech Resistance tour started time was 2:40pm— a few minutes later than originally scheduled— and Roy and Gwyn’s traditional folklore dinner started at 6:50pm—20 minutes later than originally scheduled.
We headed back to our rooms and agreed to meet for lunch at noon in front of the hotel palm tree.We watched a few ships make their way through the canal locks. It takes about 15 minutes from entering to exiting the three lock gates.
We met Roy and Gwyn for lunch at the Cafe & Bistro in the hotel. We each tried what the other had the day before. We ordered the club sandwich and they tried the fried chicken sandwich.
After lunch, we went back to our rooms to get ready for our WWII Czech Resistance tour. After checking in at the Viking meeting area at 2:30 we were given ear pieces and a portable radio receiver. We boarded a small Viking bus with 12 other people.
We took a short bus ride to the Cathedral of Saints Cyril and Methodius and our guide, Eva, talked to us about the occupation of the Czech Republic by the Nazis in 1939 as well as the most famous resistance operation, Operation Anthropoid. Operation Anthropoid was a 6-month plan that culminated in the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. Reinhard Heydrich was the commander of the German Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), the acting governor of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and a principal architect of the Holocaust. A very evil soul with a charming exterior, as our guide described him.
The seven resistance fighters made their last stand at the crypt of the cathedral nearly two weeks after the assassination. The extreme reaction of the Nazis after the assassination gave support for countries (starting with Britain) to consider the 1938 Munich agreement (it provided for the German annexation of part of Czechoslovakia called the Sudetenland, where more than three million people, mainly ethnic Germans, lived) null and void.
We watched a short video about the operation and walked around the crypt before getting back on the bus and returning to our hotel.
After returning to our room at 5pm we decided to do a little exploring. We walked on the pathway that followed the Vltava river, making our way up river towards the famous Charles Bridge. Rob wanted to see if we could get a get view of the Prague Castle. We crossed over the Charles Bridge, but since the setting sun was behind the castle, we did not have a good shot of it. No matter, the other views were great.
So, we continued up river another 1.25 miles to the Legion Bridge and crossed back over the Vltava river. Prague is a really photogenic city. The architecture makes for stunning views.
On the Legion bridge, we were able to get a picture of the castle protected from the glare of the sun.
We walked the 2.25 miles back to the hotel for dinner, passing more elaborate buildings on the way.
We arrived at the hotel around 8pm and went straight to the Hop House and ordered the exact same meal we had the night before.
Tomorrow will be an earlier day for us. Our first excursion starts 30 minutes earlier than planned, at 8:30am, to visit a historic town an hour outside the city.
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