We managed our trip to the airport in St. Petersburg just fine, arriving in time to check in right when our flight opened up. We had time to eat breakfast without any hurry. Our flight to Prague was also with Rossiya airlines, but shorter, and a bit more comfortable than our first flight. We arrived in Prague at about 10:30 local time, but it took us an hour to get through passport control. Flights had arrived at the same time from London, Kiev, and Tel Aviv. We met our driver when we got through passport control and had a nice drive to the apartment. Our apartment was quite centrally located. It was large with two bathrooms and two bedrooms with a large living room with another bed in it. We were plenty comfortable.
 |
| Heading to the Metro station at 5:30 a.m. |
 |
| View from our bedroom window in Prague |
Once we were checked in, we decided to head out and look around. Our most important task of the day was to get to the train station to get tickets to Krakow. We walked for a few minutes and onto the old square. The Old Square has a really neat church that we immediately started calling "Hogwarts" because of its resemblance to the fictional school of magic. We saw a bunch of little kiosks where they were cooking cones out of dough on the open fire. We bought a Check treat (a tower cake) filled with ice cream for each of us and ate it in the shade. After hanging out for awhile, we continued on toward the train station.
 |
| Walking out to explore the city. |
 |
| Street scenes in Prague |
 |
| Art gallery on the Old Town Square |
 |
| Hogwarts in the background |
 |
| Having ice cream |
We didn't get far before we ran into some sort of a women's pole vaulting competition. It looked like they were just getting started as the women and girls went through a series of warm ups. It was really neat. After about twenty minutes an announcer started talking, so we thought for sure that the competition would start, but then he kept talking and the girls kept warming up. Finally we had to leave. The girls were all sufficiently impressed with the skill and athleticism of the pole vaulters.
 |
| Pole vaulting! |
 |
| Girls engrossed watching pole vaulters |
It turned out that we took an indirect route to the train station, and had to re-route a few times because of construction, but we made it. Buying the tickets took some time because the lady helping us was trying to find the best deal for us. We got reserved tickets for the day we needed and everything worked out. This was the only part of our trip that we were not certain about before we left, so having transportation lined up took the stress off for the next few days.
 |
| Museum on the way to train station. |
 |
| Rail yard at main train station |
 |
| Inside the station. |
By the time we left the station it was about 5:30 local time and we were hungry and tired. We got back in civilization and I saw a nice little restaurant that looked good. We went in and ate. It turns out that it was a pretty famous place where famous athletes and local celebrities eat. The prices were okay, but a little higher than we usually pay. We told the girls their limit and they ordered on their own. Lexa had her heart set on steak, and so we let her order - even though hers was the most expensive order. Our little kid who just a year ago would try to avoid eating meat if at all possible was eating a full steak. The food was delicious. I am an Eastern European at heart - meat potatoes, and good vegetables make my mouth happy.
 |
| Dinner!!! It was delicious. |
After dinner we went back to the apartments and settled in for the night. Our first day in Prague was in the books.
No comments:
Post a Comment