Fri 22 Aug- National Museum, GCT Cruise

Fri 22 Aug- after breakfast buffet and watching some of the Olympics, we packed and got ready to leave our home for the past week. We checked into the Dorint Don Giovanni, our Grand Circle Travel (GCT) starting point. Our room is much smaller, only one room, one bathroom/toilet area, no terrace or veranda.
Fortunately all our registration was in order for the cruise, much to our relief. We settled into our room, relaxed a bit, then took the Metro to the National Museum (http://www.nm.cz), famous for its architecture and interior, since it used to be a palace. Many of the floors are a fine mosaic, many of the ceilings are painted, as are many of the walls. The grand staircase is impressive. The Pantheon is filled with statues of famous Czech historical figures we'd never heard of, but the room is magnificent. The museum houses exhibits of mineralogy, zoology, anthropology and paleontology. The exhibits are interesting, especially the history of the Czech area since billions of years ago. After the museum, we walked a way down Wenceslas Square (yes, the good king of the Christmas carol was a ruler, but not a king, of Prague), the ground zero of the Czech revolution in 1989. They call it Vaclavske nam., with several accents on the vowels. We then decided to walk back to the hotel so we could see the scenery and stop by interesting stores. It was a long walk, but interesting from an architectural point of view. Many of the facades were very ornate and beautiful.
At 6:30 we officially started our GCT adventure with a welcome drink, briefing, and welcome dinner buffet.