A wonderful day!

Sunday, 3 March, 2013

Hello!

Early morning in Prague

Market early in the morning

Prague Castle

Street scene

I’m hoping that our blogs are now finding their way back to you all by now!  I have no idea what happened – it seemed that the email notifications of blog postings was working so well!  But we have decided that it is THEM and certainly not us!  I’m just hoping that everybody who wants to find us is now able to, and will continue on our journey with us!  We’re just over half-way home!!

Not sure what happened to me last night, but at 8:00 I somehow grabbed the duvet from the bed and curled up on the couch in the living room – and Robert insists that that was the last I was heard of for the next 12 hours!  I find that’s a lot of sleep (even for me) but boy, I felt really rested when I woke up this morning!

Gate to the Charles Bridge

Charles Bridge

Charles Bridge

Prague Castle

Up this morning about 6, and out for a walk about 6:30 a.m.  It was sunny and blue sky, and we wanted to see the Charles Bridge (construction began in 1357).  Finally found it (not quite as bad as in Berlin, where we never saw the sun, so Robert couldn’t get the map oriented properly…but close!) – and had it almost to ourselves!  Still VERY cold (at least for someone from Tucson), even though the forecast said it would go up to 40 degrees today … I’m pretty sure it didn’t!  Back to the apartment a bit before 8 a.m. as the “ladies” were scheduled to arrive with breakfast then.  Right on time!  They set a lovely table for us, including cereals, yogurt, fresh fruit, coffee, orange juice, croissants, pain au chocolat as well as sliced bread and rolls – also cheese, wonderful salami and some ham!  I’m sure I’ve probably forgotten something – oh, yes!  Including some sort of omelet, which was also good!  

Building facade

Old Town Square

Breakfast

Breakfast

After breakfast, we decided to get 24-hour transit passes, so headed toward the Metro.  Pasquale was in the office downstairs, and very kindly led us to the closest station – but of course, being so early, there were no workers there, and all the tickets needed to come from the machine.  However, we had no change!  So, R into Albert (supermarket) to buy something – he chose Kleenex, which is always useful! – and voila, change!!  Bought our passes, and then headed to the tram line to head up to Prague Castle.

St Vitus Cathedral at Prague Castle

Guard at Prague Castle

Nice ride up; tram full, but not crowded; a bit jerky on the stops and starts.  We got off at the Castle entrance and headed to the ticket counter.  Problem!!  The incredibly beautiful St. Vitus Cathedral was closed today!!  So, we decided that we would come back on Tuesday, when the church is scheduled to be open, and do the entire castle all at that time.  (R thinks that Czech TV is doing something special in the church, as their trucks were parked all around it, with cables going everywhere!)  Started walking back down the hill.  Stopped for the vineyard, as well as several other small shops.  They do have some wonderful Christmas shops here – as well as all the crystal and glass – and amber and garnets!  Lovely place! 

Prague Castle

St Vitus Cathedral

Made it down to the river, and then up and over the Charles bridge.  Beautiful bridge with many statues across it.  I can imagine, in summer, it would be absolutely stunning.  Now it’s just COLD!  (Sorry; I’ll stop complaining…)  We did stop and buy me a pair of bright red ear muffs!  They feel WONDERFUL!  Decided to stop for lunch on the way back, and found a really cute little café – with tables, quite literally, in the window enclosures!  Robert had a salad with parma ham and a pesto balsamic dressing – yummy!  I couldn’t help myself – I ordered a “salt pancake with ham and cheese.”  Turned out to be a crepe!  Very tasty!  But since I was in the crepe mood, I ordered the “regular” pancake (no salt!) with hot raspberries, vanilla ice cream and whipped cream.  It was HEAVENLY!  Washed everything down with a couple of glasses of dry white Czech wine – have to admit, we are very impressed with the wine quality!  Very surprising!

Margaret and a view of Prague from Prague Castle

View of Prague from Prague Castle

Oh!  A comment or two about things in general.  It is obvious that the Czech people have a tradition of freedom and entrepreneurial expertise, as when the former Soviet bloc fell apart, the folks here had no trouble at all picking up the pieces and literally soaring ahead.  Smoking.  Ugh…I was a bit concerned, but so far (knock wood!) we have been fine.  The official smoking policy here in the city is that it depends on the restaurant.  So, on most doors you will see either a sign with a cigarette (meaning you can smoke) or with a slash through it (meaning you can’t) or there will be both, indicating a non-smoking section.  So far, as I say, we’ve been in the no-smoking places, and they are great.  Language.  Boy – it is really different.  Even last year when we were in Turkey, the letters looked fairly familiar (because they are the same) with only a few additions; we were able to make out many of the words, especially on shop fronts.  

Mill

Here, however, it seems that the secondary language more often than not is Russian, making things interesting.  Robert found a nice shop keeper who wrote down the words for Please, Thank You and Goodbye – but they are still difficult for me to pronounce; we’re trying, all the same!

At lunch

At lunch

So…lovely lunch and then we headed back to the flat.  After all, I had been up hours by now, and was in desperate need of a nap!  Slept for a bit, then up around 3 and back outside looking for concert tickets.  One of the many wonderful things about Prague is that classical music seems to be everywhere!  There are all sorts of flyers being passed out in the streets about concerts – in many different locations.  We decided to go to the concert at the now-closed-for-renovation National Museum on Wenceslas Square.  Not sure how, exactly, but we were able to get reserved tickets for the 6 p.m. concert tonight – “last chance” to see the inside of the museum.  As we still had over an hour to kill before the concert, we decided to look in the New Museum, right across the street from the National Museum.  (Note:  Some of the literature on the museum closing indicated that it would be closed for two years.  Now, however, it is estimated to be closed for FIVE years!!  That’s quite a long time!  And they haven’t even started yet!!)

Salad with Parma Ham and pesto

Salt pancake with ham & cheese

Crepe filled with ice cream, served with warm raspberries

To be honest, the New Museum wasn’t very impressive.  There was a show about the monarchy, but that was really about it.  Robert had been hoping that they would have taken some of the highlights out of the to-be-renovated-museum and displayed them somewhere else – he was mostly thinking of Neolithic findings.  However, no such luck, at least not in that museum!  

Returned across the street about 5:30 p.m. for the 6 p.m. concert, and were admitted into the building.  Our seats were actually less than 5 feet away from the musicians!!  Just amazing!  Concert was absolutely FABULOUS.  There were two violins, a viola, a bass, a cello and a piano, and on the mezzanine of the entrance hall, the acoustics were amazing.  They played pieces from Mozart, Bach, Vivaldi, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak and Smetana (including Ma Vlast, which made me cry!) as well as some Brahms; will never, ever forget tonight’s experience!

Back out into the cold, and walked from the museum to the flat.  Neither of us are hungry (sorry, blog fans!) so figure we will get the blog published, and I will take a bubble bath (I got a bath “bomb” at a shop this afternoon – simply cannot let that beautiful bathtub go to waste!!!) and figure out what we’re doing tomorrow!  I’m thinking we’ll take the bus to Karlovy Vary – we’ll see!

More tomorrow!

m

xxx

National Museum

Main staircase of the National Museum

Main staircase of the National Museum

Set-up for the concert.  Margaret is seated at the left.

The ensemble