Happy New Year

From 2013-12 December

We’re very happy about how we met 2014. After a lot of searching, trying to balance entertainment, view and quality of experience based on what we could learn from Boston, we booked ourselves a table at the Bellevue Restaurant (in Prague.) They won because of what people said about their food and because the pictures on their website convinced us that we’d enjoy a good view.

Not only did we enjoy fantastic food with a beautiful view, we were pleased also to meet a very professional staff and a group of funny and outgoing English people at the next table. The menu included many courses, and we had lots of time to enjoy them because we arrived around 8:30 and didn’t want to run out of distractions before midnight. We decided to make a point of enjoying our delicious food, eating slowly and chewing each bite more thoroughly than we would ordinarily consider necessary. We had fun stretching our meal out until we finally finished the incredible desserts at around 11:30.

At midnight the sky lit up with fireworks outside our window, and restaurant guests wished each other a happy new year in several different languages. (Šťastný nový rok in Czech.) Then we had to get home to our hotel, on the other side of Old Town Square. Our guidebook said that the fireworks in the street would be safe, but just barely. I guess that’s about right. We had to walk through lots of broken glass while avoiding skyrockets, showers of sparks and various kinds of small explosives. I guided Alla carefully, since she was already somewhat wounded from Christmas Eve and was at this time wearing a green sparkly mask. We passed several fireworks vendors, but didn’t buy any ourselves. We got to see plenty without lighting any of our own fuses.

From 2013-12 December

Alla slept in on New Year’s Day, so I went out alone to see the view from the top of the Powder Tower, tour the Moser museum and gallery, and listen to an opera performance on an open stage in Old Town Square. The sales lady at Moser told me about a delightful restaurant at the Hotel U Prince, where Alla and I ate dinner this evening. They have a beautiful rooftop terrace with glass walls and ceiling so we enjoyed a fabulous view with our quite tasty and modestly-priced dinner.

All told, I’d say that we’ve gotten 2014 off to a good start, and I hope the same goes for my readers. Happy new year!

Holidaze

From 2013-12 December

I was going to write about Christmas. I wanted to say something about contrasts, about the fact that we started our celebrations in cold/snowy Boston and continued them in warm/sunny San Francisco. I would have talked about the wonderful people whose company we enjoyed in both places and referred to pictures of happy people opening presents.

But Alla got hit by a car. She’s surprisingly OK, considering what happened, but it’s been pretty rough on her. The driver knew that Alla was walking behind the car when she stepped on the gas. She just thought she’d shifted into a forward gear. In reverse, she struck Alla from the back, knocking her to her face on the pavement and then driving over her. Fortunately, Alla was between the wheels and the driver managed to stop before breaking any bones. We ended up in the hospital twice, first treating the superficial wounds and then checking for complications from concussion.

The doctors assured Alla that she could fly and Alla was ready to go home to Belarus, so we continued on our planned journey, though we left San Francisco a day late and Alla wasn’t able to prepare for her next trip in all the usual ways.

We traveled unusually well from Boston, since we had enough miles to book ourselves some “free” travel on British Airways’ lay-flat seats. We did lie down and sleep a couple of hours, but got less sleep than usual because we were distracted by wave after wave of delicious food and we didn’t want to miss anything. So when we got to Prague, we took a nap. I don’t usually nap when I travel because I’m eager to adjust to the new time zone, but since I want to stay up until midnight tonight I figured it might be OK to take a little nap. Just this once.

From 2013-12 December

Alla took a big nap, so I entertained myself alone this afternoon on the streets of Prague. It’s a giant party out there, and I think I’ve only seen the warm-up so far. I think we’ll enjoy a lively evening.

Boss for a day

We are in Prague with Nika, her boyfriend Tim, and Nika's dad. We realized right away that we couldn't make quick decisions by consensus so we agreed to appoint leaders one day at a time. Yesterday I got to be boss, and I included in our itinerary a walk in Stromovka Park. Apparently the locals like this place, but tourists don't get there so much. That appealed to Viktor, who had already gotten his fill of streets crowded with tourists.

We had a little trouble finding the place, probably because I hadn't been sufficiently careful in the planning stage. One we got there, we walked over to the exhibition grounds, where our tour started. 350 Crowns to get in. That seemed to high for what we could see, so we decided to skip ahead to the green area. It turns out, however, that all other doors to the exhibition area were open and free, so either the fee applied only to gullible tourists or paid for something more than we wanted anyway.

Inside, I found the Lapidarium, a museum full of (mostly stone) sculptures removed from old buildings. Wow, I loved it. I don't know what happened to all those old buildings, but the decorations live on delightfully.

We liked the rest of the park too, and the walk that finally took us to the zoo. We didn't expect to reach the zoo and hasn't allowed time for it, but didn't really need it for a delightful and entertaining day.

Today we stayed more in the center of things and saw more regular tourist attractions. We liked that too. It would be hard not to like Prague.

I still like Prague

I got off to a poor start in Prague and spent an inordinate amount of time finding the bus station. (I wanted tickets for a couple of side trips.) The funniest part was when I got close enough to see the buses and saw a window that said tickets, with a huge line leading to it. I stood in the line for a while and it didn’t move, so I asked the guy in front of me if this were really the line to buy bus tickets. It turns out I’d been standing in line to buy tickets to some kind of concert.

Things didn’t immediately improve after that. I tried out a café the author of my guide book listed as one of the top ten things to see in Prague. He liked it because authors hung out there. I didn’t like it because authors apparently all smoke. The waiter put me in the non-smoking section, which had practically no view at all, while the smokers looked out at the river. Frustrated by the discrimination, I went out and bought a gyro sandwich from a hole-in-the-wall place and then walked down to a much more pleasant art deco café where I got a good tuna salad Nicoise. It was a variant on the salad I know and love, but still good.

My better salad came later. I had been snacking and didn’t want a heavy dinner, so I stopped in at an unknown restaurant advertising salads. My Caprese salad would have been at home in Italy, and I couldn’t have been happier. I got lots of great tomatoes under lots of superb sheep’s-milk mozzarella cheese, served with homemade Serbian bread. The owner moved here from Serbia, and we had a devil of a time communicating, but he remained cheerful in spite of our confusions. (The restaurant is called Gitanes and it has live music. I’d go back, but I’d ask them not to salt my food in the kitchen. They like salt more than I do.)

In between meals I took a long walk and a few photos. I found lots of interesting back alleys, weird art, the American embassy, and numerous details I’d overlooked last time. At the end, I arrived at St. Vitus’ cathedral exactly at closing time. The guard asked me if I’d like to go to the church service, and I accepted. As I entered, I saw a bunch of tourists (I thought) being escorted up a very exciting-looking winding staircase. I walked up with them and found myself in the organ loft with the whole choir. Oops. I went back and took a seat near the choir and organ. I found one empty space in a section near the front with a bunch of school kids all wearing ID badges. Once again, I think I found myself in a place where I hadn’t been invited. I learned this when the Cardinal came out and greeted one of the guys a few rows ahead of me.

It turns out that the Poland has just begun a stint as President of the European Union and the Polish Ambassador asked for the blessing of the church. Other EU ambassadors also came and the Cardinal led the service. The choir and organ carried their end of the program quite well, and in spite of the fact that I understood only a very tiny fraction of the Czech-language service I didn’t feel bored. Oh, and I sat right beside the famous Royal Mausoleum and enjoyed fantastic stained-glass windows and lots of beautiful sculptures around me. I took pictures after the service.

From 2011-07 Prague

A full day in Prague

We set out this morning for an efficient day of sightseeing, but some of our favorite things weren't on the original plan. We started out by walking to the “Eiffel” tower, a metal contraption on the hill above our hotel. I didn’t fully appreciate how large and how steep the hill would be, but we really enjoyed the walk. There are various paths criss-crossing each other all the way up the mountain, but as long as we kept going uphill we couldn’t get lost. The morning sun warmed us, and near the top we found several sheltered areas filled with early spring bulbs. We felt very fortunate to be there, especially since today’s weather forecast indicated snow in Minsk.

After exploring and playing at the top of the hill, we went across a valley and up another hill so Alla could see the inside of Saint Vitus’ cathedral. We walked through a meadow, traipsed down a lonely cobblestone road with walls on either side, took a false start across a monastery yard, and finally found our way up a spectacularly quaint little street leading up from the German embassy

After enjoying the inside of the church, we scurried back down the hill for lunch and on to the old Jewish district. Following our highbrow entertainment we moved ahead to shopping, the Museum of Chocolate and finally toward dinner. As we crossed the Charles Bridge we discovered a huge snarl of people carrying a wide variety of musical instruments, including drums, violins, bagpipe, various wind instruments, tubas and even an electric keyboard hung on a cord around the musician’s neck. We had found some sort of anarchic parade, with various groups of people playing together or taking turns, or competing with one another. The participants wore colorful clothes and reminded me a whole lot of the hippies I used to hang out with in college. Even though the music was really lousy, I loved the parade and we followed it all the way down to the island at the foot of the bridge, where we found them still playing as we walked home from dinner.

I read that Prague has historically tolerated nonconformity. Apparently it’s still true, and I love this city for that.

Prague

Two nights ago we stopped in Poland, in a spa town called Kudowa-Zdrój. Our tourist-class hotel, the Sans Souci, proved to be a very pleasant two-star place with cute small rooms in a classic building and pleasant environment. Now we are staying at a less-impressive place in Prague, with bigger rooms but little else to recommend it. It's clean and efficient, but has no soul.


Notwithstanding the hotel, we’ve both fallen in love with Prague. I can’t describe it as well as any number of professional travel writers, but I would like to comment on the pleasures of seeing Prague with grade-school students. I’m pretty sure these students are special, but they’re amazingly good travel companions. They arrive on schedule, clean up their messes, complain very little, appreciate the beautiful things they see, carry on conversations with adults, and generally amaze me. That’s not to say that the trip has been completely free of problems, but the only problems we’ve had would be typical of almost any large bus trip. I’m particularly glad to be traveling with a group that shows up on time, because that mitigates a whole lot of other problems.
Yesterday we took a guided walking tour of the city. The guide wore a microphone and transmitter, and the rest of us wore headsets connected to little radio receivers. We also wore yellow neckerchiefs. The combination made the walking tour really easy. We could wander about and take pictures while the guide talked, and we still heard the guide. And if we wandered a bit too far, we just had to look for a few yellow neckerchiefs in order to rejoin the nucleus of our group. I’m not sure how easy it would be to get a bunch of adults to wear anything matching, but it really simplifies a large guided tour. [Maybe our daughter should propose bright feather boas for her charges on Harvard Art Museum trips. Just a thought.]

The school group heads towards Minsk tomorrow, and Alla and I will be on our own until we get onto the train in three days. We’re looking forward to going inside some of the museums and perhaps hearing an opera or concert. We really don’t have enough time, so we’re already talking about a next trip. Prague is a really great city.