Prague (Part 2)

So Tuesday was what Maria called "Jo's Reward Day" - which meant she got a day off as well.

After a good lie in and a leisurely breakfast of toast and coffee (or tea if you're weird like Maria) we headed out to explore.  The morning was just touristy wandering.  Prague is very beautiful and needs to be enjoyed on foot.  To save my hip a bit, we took a metro towards the Karla Most (pronounced moost, Charles Bridge to those of us who don't speak Czech) which is the best of the many, and then wandered across into the old town and up towards the castle, although this visit we didn't go all the way up.  As you can see, it was a very grey day, and rained on and off.  There is a legend/myth/saying, call it what you will, that if you touch the foot of one of the statues on the bridge then you'll return to Prague.  Of course, as I've already bought my ticket for Silly Santa in March as Maria said that's a moot point really, but I played safe.  (Probably wise since I've paid a mere £68 return by Wizzair from Luton, no room for camera again - except of course Maria has a washing machine so I could just make her use it every night - she had to use it every other day for me this time! - so this could be seen as protecting my vast investment.)  You  can tell that everybody does it all along the bridge, where small areas of every statue are all glossed and shiny like this one.  (A hint, these aren't stone statues in case you haven't worked it out!)

We had a nice lunch of potato soup with meat ravioli (me) and ribs (Maria) in a great little place called Jo's Bar (honest!) halfway up the hill to the castle (sen in the photo above behind Maria).  The chief entertainment was watching the gold Porsche Cayenne parked opposite.  Hardly anybody went by without stopping to look, and most people took photos, usually of all their friends with it.  It would be a hard car to nick, far too easy to spot.  I became the only tourist that day who didn't photograph it, it wasn't worth it in that setting.

Then we headed back across the river and gradually browsed our way through some of the Sales, working back towards Vaclavske Namesti (Wenceslas Square - Namesti is Square).  Maria lives a 5 minute walk above the far end of the square, just 2 minutes to the metro station.  Great location.  We ended up with an awful lot of bags, but some of these are Silly Santa presents from the Christmas Markets again, and remember it was both of us!

 

It looks far better when you empty it all out.  We headed up to a local Italian restaurant that night.  A bit more expensive than the Czech on the first night, but almost as close.  We had 2 courses each, a bottle of wine & a bottle of water, and paid under £30.  Love it!

Maria had the next day off as well, so we were back to household goods.  This time we took the metro in the opposite direction to IKEA and went to a centre that has another huge household store.  Maria couldn't resist a few more Sales buys as well, but I restrained myself.  We bought a bit less this time, and managed to lug it all back on the metro.  There was somebody in when we got home, fixing the shower (the head collapsed the first time I tried to use it - they replaced the whole attachment in the end) and the spare bed (the slats were broken when Maria first saw it, so they replaced them - except with slats that weren't the right size, so the first time I sat on the bed it collapsed under me; it doesn't now!).  Once they'd gone I crawled off to bed for a good nap before drinks and dinner.  This was my last night, and we tried another Czech restaurant only a 2 minute walk from the flat.  Very nice.  2 courses each, a beer each and a bottle of wine.  About £25 I think.  Also worth going back to.

Prague is a bit odd in some ways.  Most places are cash only and there are no smoking laws (yet anyway!) so everybody puffs away like a chimney.  The restaurants all have smoking & non smoking sections (except the Italian which was actually no smoking), and on the first night we were practically the only ones in the non smoking section.

On Thursday Maria was going into work properly, and I headed home.  Pickup 8am, flight back via Zurich again.  If I'm going to do a non-direct flight then another time it will be from East Midlands, but Maria was arranging this and we went out together from hers.  Via Luton in the future will be far cheaper (provided I can do without hold baggage), even needing airport parking.  Of course, this time we went SwissAir and had a hold bag each.  And as her household goods didn't arrive until Friday my hold baggage was full of vacuum packed bedding.  But at least I had lots of space to take stuff home - and the Sales in Prague were REAL sales, with up to 70% off, in nice stores that you don't get in the UK.  Although I did still manage to fit everything I'd taken out in my hand baggage into my hold bag to go home, so I was fairly good.