December 6 - More exploring in Prague

Just a reminder - click on the the big picture to allow scrolling through all the photos.

Well, this has been a busy day! Breakfast was at 8:00 a.m. Forget the high fibre cereal - I hit the omelette bar and the pastry section this morning. We discussed how to organize things because it poured rain all night and it was continuing to rain. We eventually decided to head out bravely about 9:30 a.m., equipped with umbrellas supplied by the hotel. First, we navigated our way to Peace Square which sits in front of the Church of St. Ludmila. A lovely lady from Dallas helped to point us in the right direction – she was a chiropractor and had her fold up treatment table strapped to her back. Cool.

We made a short stop before this at the memorial to Jan Palach who was a Czech student of history and political economics at Charles University in Prague. His self-immolation (burning himself) was a political protest against the end of the Prague Spring resulting from the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact armies. The funeral of Palach turned into a major protest against the occupation. On the 20th anniversary of Palach's death, protests ostensibly in memory of Palach (but intended as criticism of the regime) escalated into what would be called "Palach Week". The series of anticommunist demonstrations in Prague between 15 and 21 January 1989 were suppressed by the police, who beat demonstrators and used water cannons, often catching passers-by in the fray. Palach Week is considered one of the catalyst demonstrations which preceded the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia 10 months later. (Thank you Wikipedia.) Lyle from Ohio had told us about the influence that Jan’s act had had on Czech history which is why we made a point to find the memorial.

We eventually found Peace Square after a detour into a vintage shop. Detours are standard on this tour. The market in Peace Square was quite small but had nice things and wasn’t busy as it had just opened for the day. Most of us found just the right thing for someone on our list. Thankfully, the rain let up by about 11:00 a.m. which made shopping and exploring a bit easier. We took a few minutes in the church to say a few prayers for our continued safe travels and for all our family members back home.

By 11:30 a.m., we were all in need of something warm to drink and a bit to eat. Theresa had spied a lovely little café on our way to Peach Square, so we chose it. It was delightful, with lovely décor, a funky washroom, and a huge selection of exquisite pastries. As well as being small works of art, these pastries were incredibly delicious. (I like to think we are warming up our taste buds before descending on Vienna’s cafés!) We laughed our way through lunch and took before and after photos of our pastries. Absolutely no attention was paid to calories counts or nutritional values at this lunch!

We headed back to the hotel to ditch the umbrellas and our morning shopping finds. I had put Prague Castle on the list of things to see today, but we decided that we really didn’t need to visit another Christmas market in Prague or see the castle. We did decide that we all needed to see Charles Bridge since only some of us had seen it the day before, so off we went. We detoured into a fabric store but there were no quilting cottons to be had. We got to the bridge and huddled. Sheilagh, Vicky and Mary Ann decided to head back to the hotel, and the other four went ahead. Sue had spied a figure yesterday that she hadn’t bought but then decided that she did. She found the store and got the item. Angela wanted to go to the Franz Kafka bookstore. Theresa, Sue and I were game to keep going. Yikes – uphill!! Turns out it was up at Prague Castle. There was a small Christmas Market there, but were were really running short of time and energy by this point.

Franz Kafka was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It typically features isolated protagonists facing bizarre or surrealistic predicaments and incomprehensible socio-bureaucratic powers. It has been interpreted as exploring themes of alienation, existential anxiety, guilt, and absurdity. His best known works include the short story "The Metamorphosis" and novels The Trial and The Castle. The term Kafkaesque has entered English to describe absurd situations, like those depicted in his writing. Angela’s husband, Peter, has studied Kafka extensively, and has taught many courses on his writings. I doubt I will ever read Kafka’s works, unless someone shows how it directly relates to quilting.

With sunset upon us, we hustled back down the long staircase to street level where I ordered an UBER. Our feet were tired. We were back in time for happy hour. George, the patient rookie waiter from yesterday was on duty again. We knocked back some Porn Star Martinis to help us unwind before dinner. For several of us, our alter egos appear during happy hour. Those alter egos seem to like drinking.

We had dinner in the hotel restaurant. The service was mediocre and erratic. The food was okay, but not spectacular. While we dined (and waited) we each answered the question, “What three things have you spent money on that have given you the most joy?” The answers included a dishwasher, a chain saw, a house and this trip. Question for our loving partners - can you guess what three answers your lovely lady gave?

We have a 6:30 a.m. date for breakfast tomorrow. The taxi will be here at 7:30 a.m. to take us to the train station. The station isn’t very far away, but trundling suitcases over cobblestones is not our favourite activity. We are off to Vienna tomorrow for more exploring of Europe’s wonderful cities and Christmas Markets. See you in Austria! Czytaj więcej