July 5th and 6th are public holidays in the ČR. So Claudia’s parents and sister drove down from Berlin and we all spent a long weekend together in Prague. This was a nice, relaxing visit and it felt good to get away for a few days. This was my third visit to Prague and they have all been in the last six months so I was hoping to visit some of the sights I hadn’t seen before. The castle is great but I didn't need a third tour.
We started out on Friday night with a dinner cruise on the Vltava. The Vltava (Moldova) is the longest river in the country. The trip started with a 30-minute shuttle ride to the boat and the tour guide talked about the sights along the way. Claudia’s parents only speak German so we purchased tickets for the German lan
guage version. But the guide kept switching back and forth between English and German, so by the time she got around to speaking German we had already passed what she w
anted to point out. We then spent three hours going up and down the river while having dinner and then we sat up on top of the boat listening to the accordion player. It was nice to see the city from a different perspective.
On Saturday, we toured old town and walked on the Charles Bridge. Of course, being with four Germans, we had to go watch the World Cup since it was between Germany vs. Argentina for a spot in the finals. We watched the match at an English pub which was interesting. The English don’t really care for Argentina (Falkland Islands War) and Germany knocked the UK out of the competition. So you could never really tell who they wanted to lose more. But there were lots of happy Germans in old town, all chanting away, once they made it in to the final four.
The last time Claudia’s dad was in Prague was sometime around 1965 – 1968. The last time he was there he went to a pub he liked and wanted to go back again.
This year, Prague opened up its first Hooters restaurant so I suggested that we tell him this was how much the pub had changed in +40 years. At least I thought it would be funny. But believe it or not, we found the place and it is still going strong. 
U Fleků was founded in 1499 and is considered the oldest brewery in Prague. Now I know that Europe has a long, rich history. But this brewery is older than my country. The pub was founded in 1499 and Columbus discovered the New World in 1492. This place has been brewing beer for +500 years!
We visited Petřín and the observation tower which is a small replica of the Eiffel Tower. We also checked out the John Lennon Wall, the Memorial to the victims of Communism, the Museum of Communism, the TV tower and the Jewish Quarter. More on all of these later so stay tuned for future posts.