Grotto — Diary of a Sugar Dandy

Will we ever get to the God Damn Danube?

Our last day in Prague was lovely and surprising. We took a walking tour from 830-12 around the old city. We crossed the Charles Bridge again but this time we had a guide so we learned about many of the statues, the people who were thrown off (and now Saints!) and other random tales.

So that little balcony? It's the ye ole turlet!

The highlight was the Senate which I assumed would be a bore. Turns out it was a palace built in the 17th century in the Mannerist era. It resembled so many buildings I have seen in Italy with amazing gardens, bronze statues with elongated necks, arms and legs and even a grotto!

For some reason the king decided three massive walls needed to be 'grottoed' so there they are in all their drippy sand glory. He also decided to have a grotto pavilion filled with three hundred singing birds to calm his nerves after a long day on the throne. Today the pavilion houses three massive owls.

As an added bonus we saw a white peacock in the tree above the carp pond.

We then said goodbye to this decadent city and cow herded onto busses for a four hour drive to Nuremberg. While I slept a good while, I did hear some pretty amusing conversations and 'pull my finger' jokes. It never gets old!

We arrived at the boat at 4pm and got onboard, organized and champagned. It really is a lovely boat that was just christened in April. The one beef I have with it is the artwork. Awful! They need to work with young artists and sell the work so it rotates. My two cents.

It's wonderful to be on such a small boat. Only 166 passengers and 40 crew.

We had to do a mandatory life jacket drill, then straight to a reception then directly to dinner. It's great to get to know some more people on our trip. I grew up with some of these folks but others are new to me.

As we dined we watched the sun set over the industrial complex where we are docked. We don't sail till Thursday. We were cooing over the colors of the sunset when Meg said, 'Oh that is sky blue pink, my favorite color!' Perfect description.

And that was it really. Off to bed in a tipsy slumber. Tomorrow we begin!