Traveling
days are very difficult. They are the least favourite part of any trip. Today
we had to catch a plane at 6:00 am. I set my alarm for 3:30 and fell asleep
quite early. Gila also set her alarm for the same time, but somehow her phone
had switched to standard time on its own well ahead of time. I heard her moving
about and when I did get up she had been ready to go for well over an hour and
was spending the time editing her pictures.
The
taxi arrived promptly just as we had ordered and in less than half an hour we
were at the airport. There were a few people already there, some of them
stretched out on benches dozing, but there were no Lufthansa staff to take our
baggage or even airport staff to man security. It's very unusual to see an
airport that was wall to wall people practically deserted a week later. The
problem with using air miles is that you don't really have control of how you
arrive at your destination. Although Prague is not that far from Berlin, we had
a stop over in Frankfurt. Our connecting flight was an hour layover but it took
half that time just to walk to the next gate. The two flights, one at 50
minutes and the other at 40 felt as long as the transatlantic flight. Gila
managed to sleep through both flights. I just got more cranky. I suppose I
should be thankful that we were not routed through Helsinki.
There
are definite advantages to taking a tour. On arrival, someone from Gate 1 was
waiting for us and instead of negotiating our way to the hotel, we could sit
back and let everything be taken care of for us. What a luxury! Ditto for the
hotel. The Imperial bills itself as an art deco hotel. The building is about
one hundred years old and much more posh and in better shape than I am.
Porters brought our bags into the lobby and then delivered them to our
room. No dragging suitcases up five flights of stairs. We have a gold suite. The
bathroom is all marble and has a heated floor and gold faucets. The tub has a
pillow like attachment at the head. There is a shower compartment as well as a
shower in the tub. It's very upscale.
Usually
check in time is in the afternoon, but our room was ready for us when we
arrived in the morning. I took a shower, thick fluffy towels, slippers and an
elegant robe ready for me. Both of us rested a while (Gila actually slept!)
before we headed out to explore. Another advantage was evident. The concierge
can advise us where to go, how to get there and get tickets for us. No need to
find the tourist office and wait in line. We are in the city centre. This is
definitely a tourist area with many five star hotels and high end shopping. The
buildings are stucco with gleaming wooden doors, intricate ironwork and carved
or sculpted details around each window, door, roofline and niches in the walls.
All the streets are cobblestone with different patterns delineating the road
from the sidewalk. To make us feel at home, they've procured TTC streetcars for
public transportation.
Except
for the exteriors of the buildings we could have been in any North American
city. On one side of the street were a McDonalds, a KFC, Starbucks and an
American styled supermarket. On the other side was a shopping mall, complete
with all the name brand stores we have at home. We wandered into a square
dominated by a building that was well over the top in its ornamentation. It
turned out to be the Municipal House and is the venue for many cultural events
as well as restaurants and shops. Beside it was a very dark, gothic structure
with an archway that led into a pedestrian mall, complete with restaurants with
tents for outside seating, tourist gift shops as well as more high end leather
shops, massage parlours and bakeries and chocolate shops. We had a meet and
greet and orientation at the hotel at 4:30 so we headed back in time for that.
There
are 49 off us on this part of the trip. Our tour manager is a bubbly young
Hungarian who speaks English fluently although with a charming accent. There
are a number of words where the accent in on the wrong syllable like HO-tel for
ho-TEL. All his v's are pronounced like w's. He is enthusiastic and seems to
have a good sense of humour. After the meeting, he took us out for a walk
around the neighborhood pointing out the good restaurants and amenities.
By
now it was after seven. Gila and I wandered further into the pedestrian mall,
both sight seeing and looking for a restaurant to eat at. The crowds were huge and
you could hear a dozen different languages spoken. The narrow streets would
break out into a public square full of buskers, tour guides and hustlers. We
were looking for Czech food and walked by Asian, Italian and even Argentinian
eateries before we found a place called Pushkin's. It tried for atmosphere with
romantic murals of a nineteenth century dance. The service was slow and the
food was fine considering how weary both us were. On our way, we picked up some
pastry for a snack later on.
We
were back before nine and I fell asleep writing this blog. The bed is
comfortable, the trams outside the windows are noisy, but not annoying. This
part of our trip already has a different feel to it.
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