We began at 8:30 by taking our coaches to a spot where we could walk across the Mánesův bridge into old town for a guided walking tour of the Jewish Quarter. Here's some of our kids about to start out:
The Jewish Quarter represents the remnant of Jewish residency in Prague, which is long and complicated. This neighborhood preserves some synagogues, monuments and a cemetery as a historical record. Below is Maiselova Street:
Our walking tour led us through the neighborhoods, the Pinkas synagogue (whose walls are painted with the names of the more than 77,000 Czech Jews killed during the Holocaust), the Jewish cemetery, and the Spanish Synagogue (where the choir will sing tomorrow). At the end of the tour we saw the Charles Bridge, and across the river (looming over the town) the Prague Castle & St. Vitus Cathedral which we visited yesterday:
Following our guided tour we arrived at the Old Town Square, where some shuffling and hopping got the kids ready for a festival concert at 2PM in St. Nicholas Church:
That's St. Nicholas Church's twin spires on the right in this picture (again we had beautiful weather):
This beautiful chandelier hangs over the interior:
This performance was shared among the University of Missouri choir, a choir from Turlock, California and the Gunn Choir. The Gunn choir was last, and delivered an amazing performance that impressed everybody who was there:
The performance lasted an hour, at the end of which the choir changed into street clothes (again, some running back and forth to the bus across Mánesův bridge was involved) and we came back to the square for some much-deserved free time. Here's St. Nicholas Church from the front:
This is Dlouhá street where it enters the square, a mix of art nouveau and art deco architectural styles:
Here are some pictures of the Gunn choir students enjoying themselves in the beautiful sunshine and weather:
Hmm...who are those people on that circular bicycle, anyway?
The afternoon on the square was probably just about as perfect as it gets:
Here are the kids playing an ad-hoc game from theater class -- the rules escaped me completely although they sure enjoyed it. So did all the visitors to the old town sqare watching them...
Even Mr. Liberatore participated:
Here's Don Anderson taking a picture of me taking a picture of him. You can see what he saw at his online album...
After a couple hours shopping in the old town square (the current exchange rate is about 16 Koruna (crowns) to the dollar but the real cost of most things is about the same as back home) we had a hosted dinner. The chaperones were kept away from the kids in the cellar so as not to disturb them, but we snuck down just to see how much fun they were having. It seemed like a lot:
Meanwhile, upstairs the chaperones were silently and boringly just eating and staring at each other, with no conversation at all. Or at least that's what we told the kids later after our first chance to be apart!
So, today was another great day: Wonderful weather, terrific guide services (both local guides and our tour guides from Kingsway), and especially the amazing performance at the St. Nicholas church by the choir. They were in top voice and delivered a wonderful set of songs.
Tomorrow will be a somewhat more 'free' day; a relaxing morning followed by a concert at the Spanish Synagogue. Everybody is looking forward to the chance to sleep in after the past few days' hectic pace.
See you tomorrow!
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