Friday, August 15, 2008

Arrive in Prague


Well finally made it to Prague and it is all that we ever thought it would be and look like. Too many years of stereotypical conditioning make it hard to stop hearing the approach of jackboots on the cobbles but a beautiful old city, though to be fair limited in the number of its attractions.

Its beauty lies really in the profound sense of historical ambiance that exudes and it is swarming with bars and cafes crowding the narrow cobbled lanes.We had a good flight from Barcelona with CSA and the amount of societal control in the Czech state is in some ways good. At the airport the smart skoda taxis wait and the dispatchers approach you ask where you want to go give you an estimate in crown and euros and point you to a taxi. Result a stress free ride to hotel no worries at the scale of the rort you are going to have to deal with, on arrival fantastic friendly service a printed receipt, and virtually kiss your hand after the tip.The hotel was a touchdown for Don Macalister, Gend most impressed with position and style/class, a beautiful old 14th century building about 500m from the palace and a gentle stroll to the Charles Bridge. Really cleverly quaint with a good buffet breakfast included.Spent the morning at the castle which includes the Cathedral of St Vitus, really good audioguide technology and really enjoyed just sliding around the crowds to get in as much as we wanted.It actually is quite cool today at 19 and drizzling, actually not a problem so came back down for lunch close to the hotel. Gend had the goulash and bread dumplings and I the old bohemian platter of baked duck sauerkraut and dumplings both washed down with very large delicious beers. The beers/pilseners are legendary and cheap.






Had a walk across the bridge last night with lots of buskers and portrait artists and will and will take on the old town and town centres later on.It was a 12.9k day!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hi - this blog is amazing! Each day just sounds fabulous you paint such a wonderful picture of Prague, it sounds just so beautiful. What a fabulous time you're having, the hotel sounds awesome and the first thing I said to Mac when I saw the pcture of the Hotel was "wow". We're all back safe and sound from the Mountain no official skiing as the weather that typical National Park weathe- blustery and snowing hard. We did manage to make a sonwman and get Hugey onto a pair of skis at the fron of the Chateua so all in all a success. It was a lovely family holiday for us all and Hugey definately into the snow - you just ask him "are you a skier"? and he "nods" and laughs! Ems and the girls came round to our place this afternoon (sunday) and we caught up - great afternoon of mayhem at our place. We saw Lollie and Dougs today. Lols all good and ejoyed hearing all about the ski tripp. Doungs had brought her morning tea so we left them to catch up. Everything all good here at this end - love you both, Sars, Mac and Hugey. xxx