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Prague 7/4/18

Posted on Jul 4, 2018 by in family, travel | 0 comments

Prague, July 2018

Tuesday 7/3/18 — Leave for Prague

-Limo to airport. Stretch. Everyone fit including luggage
-UA Liz, Cathie, Jack upgraded. Molly, Jeff, Mary moved to Economy Plus
-Left on time

Wednesday 7/4/18 — Old Town and Charles Bridge

-I didnt sleep, Cathie did
-Van driver was waiting for us!
-David checked us in. My old information from 2014 was still in their system
-3 rooms. King (Jack and Cathie), Queen (Liz), King Suite (Jeff, Molly, Mary)
–Only Liz’s
-First stop: Old Town Square and lunch at U Tyna
-Then we walked over to the Powder House and the Opera and looped back and walked to the Charles Bridge
–It was so hot and so crowded we turned around
-We took a two hour break in our rooms
-For the evening we started at a nearby pub for drinks: Karlova
–The weather had cooled down a little, and it was a little less crowded
–We stayed here for 90 minutes. Very relaxing
-We decided we wanted to have dinner on the other side of the bridge
–We slowly walked the Charles Bridge taking pictures and enjoying the scenery
–We walked the bridge and found a nice restaurant on the water front: Čertovka
-We walked back, except it was dark, so a whole different set of pictures
-I went straight to bed, asleep

Thursday 7/5/18 — Jewish Quarter

-Woke up at 7am, at the breakfast table by 8am
–We had a nice omlette and some meat and cheeses from the buffet table
–All nice, pleasant
–1960s american standards background music (Andy Williams, Dean Martin)
-We were at the Spanish Synagogue by opening at 9am.
–Maisel Synagogue
–Pinkas Synagogue
–Old Jewish Cemetery
–Klausen Synagogue
–Ceremonial Hall
–Spanish Synagogue
–Old-New Synagogue
-Inbetween the last two, we took a break at the Kolonial Restaurant
–Kolonial Restuarant, 12:25 http://www.kolonialpub.ca
–Bike themed
–Just drank beer and lemonaide
–empty when we got there at 11:30, almost full when we left at 12:30
-Walked over to the Old Town Square and bought Cathie’s glass bowl
–Prodejní galerie Moser Staroměstské nám 13:36
–https://www.moser-glass.com/sales-galleries/prodejni-galerie-moser-staromestske-namesti-praha-34
–She’s wanted that since 2011
–They are shipping it through DHL.
-Quick visit to the Church: St Nicholas — Hussite Church
-2pm lunch on the Old Town Square
–Hotel Lippert
–Snitchel/Cheese
-Walked back to the hotel, decided to order tickets for the concert at the Spanish Synagogue
-We took naps until 6pm
-After naps, we walked to the concert in the Spanish Synagogue. It started at 7pm
–The doors opened at 6:45
–We had to stand under a tree to avoid the rain
–We were let in and found 6 seats together in the 2nd row
–It was a 5 piece orchestra with a featured trumpet player and vocalist; we gave short applause whenever the returned to the stage
–They played 10 arrangement and finished exactly on the hour, including an encore of “Moon River”
–I was deighted with their arrangements of Leonard Cohen’s Allleighlua and Queen’s Boehien Rapsody
–The vocalists best performace was La Boehm
-Afterwards, we tried to go to the restaurant Kolkovana; across the street, but they were full
–This place was recommended by the United gate person in Chicago
-Instead we went to the nearby Nostress Cafe/Restaurant
–No Stress Restaurant, V Kolkovně 9 22:03 http://nostress.cz/
–They served contemporary food; no goulash or snitzel
–Salmon was the favorite. Mary and I had hamburgers
–We shared lengthy stories of Mom and Dad’s past — interesting and fun
–We enjoyed deserts; they had a big selection
-We walked back and when to bed by 10:30

Friday 7/6/18 — Castle

-Slept ok. I got up at 3:30 but fell back asleep
-At the breakfast area by 8am. It was crowded; we couldn’t sit together
-It was cooler and overcast. I wore short, but was tempted to dress more warmly
-We walked to the Metro station on the other side of the river and got tram tickets
–Number 22 or 23
–Credit card with chip did not work; the Apple pay did. It was 24CZK per person
–Caught the tram right away
-The castle was just like we remembered it
–The ticket line was empty, good!
–Sprava Prazskeho hradu SD 1 9:36
–https://www.hrad.cz/
–St Vitus’s Cathedral
–Old Royal Palace
–Basilica of St George
–We stopped at the cafe on the grounds for a break
—It started to rain; we sat on some tables under some umbrellas
–Golden Lane
–We then exited down the stairs and turned right to take the Furstenberg Garden exit
—We paid a small fee and winded our way down to the bottom of the hill through some nice garden areas.
-We then walked over to the New Town Square area
-We had lunch at the Malostroanska Restaurant accross the street from the St Nicholas Church
–We had a pretty big lunch
–We were half outside and all the Harley Davidson motorcycles were noisy.
–Our server was moving to Aruba
-We walked to the Church of Our Lady Victorious / Infant Jesus of Prague
–There was a moving 100 year tribute to Czech including a moving retrospective of August 1968.
–The beautiful copper alter pieces were being remodeled
-We walked back to the St Nicholas Church it was closed for the day. Maybe tomorrow
-We found the John Lenin wall. Lots of street art and a live performer
-We then walked back over the Charles Bridge and back to our hotel for a break.
-At 7:30, we met in the lobby to plan dinner
–We met a couple who are on the first leg of a Danube river cruise.
-We walked over to the nearby Hotel Prince / Black Angel outdoor eating area.
–Hotel U Prince outdoor cafe area 22:16 https://www.hoteluprince.com/
–We had a long dinner going to past 10:30
–The weather cooled down nicely with a clear sky
–The Belgian / Brazil soccer match was going on at the same time. Many Belgian fans in the plaza area
–Liz was sketching scenes beautifully painted onto the Hard Rock Hotel facade
–Really nice server told us the history of the nearby building
-We took Molly shopping, briefly
-Then went back to our hotel.
-This was our last night in Prague.

Saturday 7/7/18 — Wenceslas Square, head to Frankfurt

-Cooler day, in lower 60s, warmed to the high 70s

-Breakfast, as normal at 8am

-Back to our rooms: pack ed and checked out.
-The hotel very nicely stored our luggage.
-We set off for our last day in Prague. We started to walk to Wenceslas Square
-On the way we stopped at the super crowded Harley Davidson Theme shop
–They didn’t sell any of the 115th anniversary t-shirts. They were only for event attendees.
–We met a couple from Calgary. He runs a Harley dealership, and she thought they were going away from Harley,
–Instead their vacation “got high jacked” by Harley 8-)
–The nearby streets were full of Harley’s. The store was packed and the poor store clerk was barely keeping up
-Next we stumbled upon the famous Havelský Trh / Havel’s Market
–It was pedestrian street with lots of quality flea market style goods.
–Liz found a wonderful woven fabric; Molly and Jeff found souvenirs
–Molly was taking pictures of mice
–I took pictures of fruit
-We then walked up to Wenceslas Square. At this point we stopped for drinks at Cafe Trinity
–Mary and Jeff got us some cooked spiral sugar dough
–Trdelnik was the name on the tent. This was new to us and served everywhere, in popup form
-We continued our walk, but Wenceslas Square was closed off
–There was a Harley parade! Pair-wise a huge line of motor cycles were traversing the Wenceslas Square loop
–Lots of people taking pictures, lots of cheering, lots of noise!
–Then they were done. Silence, whew.
–We then walked up to the main statue of the Square and took pictures
–Really nice, lots of people, clear sky
–We started walking back, and another parade started!
–We read that the Harley convention had arranged for groups of 4000 bikes at a time to parade through Prague
–We found a couple of book stores:
—Knihy Kanzelsberger
—Kanzelsberger Bookstore 12:36 https://www.dumknihy.cz/
—Academia Knihkupectvi — Komicsky books
—Academia Bookstore www.academia.cz
—Cathie bought some clothes from the nearby Marks and Spencer
-We left the square, even though the motor cycles were still parading
-We stopped for our last lunch at Il Gusto
–Restaurant Il Gusto 14:36 http://www.ilgusto.cz/
–It is an Italian Restaurant.
–We had pizza, lazagna, pesto pasta, etc.
–Pacific Rim was playing on the TV (not sure why)
-We then walked over to the Tyn Church
–More formally: The Church of Our Lady Before Tyn
–Featured Tomb of Tycho Brahe
–Beautiful church
-We still had an hour before our ride to the airport so we stopped at the Restaurant U Tyna
–This outdoor cafe in front of the Tyn Church was the first place we stopped at when we arrived on the 4th.
–We just had drinks
-We walked back to the hotel and took our taxis to the airport
–My taxi was watching the World Cup game: England won
-We caught our flight to Frankfurt in plenty of time
–We had to check our luggage
–We walked from the baggage claim to the Hilton Hotel
-At the Hilton, they had our rooms waiting for us. We checked in by 8pm, and we ate dinner in the bar at 8:30
–We watched Croatia beat Russia, in overtime
–We had cheeseburgers and beer for dinner

Sunday 7/8/18 — go home, through Frankfurt

-United 945 8:10am-10:30amCT
-We checked out at 6:15, walked to the United desk
-We were checked-in by 6:35. We checked our luggage
-We were through security lines by 7:05
-We were a realatively short walk to our gate, boarding started at 7:25am
–I had to go through secondary screening, so I boarded separately
–I boarded right after group one.
–Liz and Cathie saved me some overhead space
–I slept at least 5 hours!
–We arrived 30 minutes early
–No problem with re-entry
-Stretch limo home
-Kitties were fine. House was clean
-Taylor left them with lots of food and water.

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