Spring has finally come!!

Saturday the weather had finally turned nice, and Megan and I decided to go to Petrin Hill, which is something I hadn’t seen yet, as it’s mostly and outdoors kind of attraction. We took the metro over the river, and walked in the sunshine over to the funicular which takes you to the top of the hill. In fact we didn't know exactly where this was, so we had a fun time walking through Mala Stranska trying to find it. Along the way we happened accidentally into a little park with a duck pond and some pretty architecture. There was also a very pretty sundial, which does not keep up ith daylight savings time, by the way. Once we made it to the top of the hill, we wandered around in the nature for a while, and then headed over to the main attraction. Petrin hill is topped by a scale model of the Eiffel Tower. According to the literature, if you include the hill on which it stands, the top is about the same height as the original. Built in 1891, it was restored in 2001, to make it safe and pretty again. We walked up the 400 stairs or so to the top, which is an adventure. The stairs wind around the outside of the tower. The steel grid is of course between you and certain death, but its still open air, and when you get up close to the top the dangers of vertigo are very real. The steps are narrow and steep, so you have to be careful. I took lots of pictures from the top, including one that is just looking down. As I write this I have not viewed them, so hopefully they turned out well. After the tower we went into the basement where there is a strange museum of artifacts from what appears to be a wholly fictitious historical person, “Jara Cimrman, genius who has not become famous”. The museum is very comical however, and I recommend it if you are ever in Prague. Finally, we went to an exhibit that has a mirror maze and some fun mirrors, as well as a seemingly out of place but very interesting exhibit about the Swiss invasion. All of this was built in 1891 as well, and was impressive considering the time. We were pretty tired at this point and wandered leisurely down the hill to lunch at Bohemian Bagel, then headed back to Krakov to rest. That night we went to dinner and were joined by Scott. We had a few beers and discussed the history of the Czech Republic at length before going to bed.