Latest news, 6/29/07, 10:52 pm:

More news & photos from Steph...

Breakfast at 8 today with a 9 o'clock departure for Wenceslaus Square, where the kids got to see the museum and a statue honoring the martyr St. Wenceslaus ("Good King Wenceslaus" himself). The statue also honors another kind of martyr: Wenceslaus Square was the site of numerous demonstrations during the Soviet era, and so it has become a monument to the young people and other resistors killed under the Communist regime.

The guided tour then moved on to Prague's gorgeous Old Town Square, the nearby Astronomical Clock and the Charles Bridge. Near the bridge, in the courtyard of the Church of St. Francis of Assisi, is a statue of Charles IV himself.

Lunch was free time again, and then it was time to return to the hotel and get changed for a concert at the Municipal House (Obecní Dum). Click on any photo below for a much larger image:

The Obecní Dum is, as you can see, a beautiful structure, with six different halls. The Smetana Hall (Smetanova Sín) hosted tonight's concert:

Steph says the Czech audience responded wildly to the performance--especially the Superman March, as well as a rendition of the Stars and Stripes Forever that had the CYMO chaperones getting a little teary--and she adds that the soloists in Vivaldi's Concerto for Four Violins were especially superb:

After a late buffet dinner at the hotel, the gang went to bed to rest up for tomorrow's trip: beautiful Cesky Krumlov, followed by the musical city of Salzburg.

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