Day 53, Prague, Some Shopping, Some Rest

Tuesday, April 23, 2019

We woke up around 8 am today and went to breakfast for our usual buffet. We discussed what to do today. I am tired of seeing castles and churches. The Prague Castle is one if not the largest castles in Europe but it has no great unusual displays inside. It is on a hill. It would involve considerable walking and we were not up for that. We checked the weather and it was to be a high of 64 with strong winds. It was 47 when we checked it at 9 am. A cold and windy day did not speak well of going up on a hill.

We took our time getting ready and about 11 am we left to walk around the Old Town part of the city. It was windy, temperatures had risen to about 55 or so as we left. We were surprised as to the number of people up and about. It was more than on Saturday. We walked slowly to the older part of town stopping in many small shops and seeing their wares.

We made a few purchases on the way. Once again I am sworn to secrecy as to purchases. We have to have a little suspense here and some surprises when we get home. We were particularly looking at Czech made items, not something from China you can find at home. We did find some. We took a few pictures along the way.

When we got to the main inner city square at the Municipal Building and the Astronomical Clock, we noticed many Easter Market stalls had been set up since Saturday. Hundreds and hundreds of people were milling about and shopping the stalls and filling the area. Again, there were more people here today than Saturday. Many were young adults. Several large tour groups of Chinese were about also. It made for a festive atmosphere.

Sandy loves these types of markets. I would say half to 60% featured some food item, from sausages and hams to candy to the round dough hollow item (called Trdelnik here) we had found in Vienna. Here, however, they also filled it with cream or custard or ice cream for additional charges. They had skewers of chicken or beef kabobs cooked over charcoal. The other stalls had hand painted Easter Eggs, either real eggs or wooden eggs. They had stalls with handmade items. Several blacksmiths were in the area hammering objects they were marking and displaying. We took our time walking around.

We got a chicken kabob which was very good and I got a beer to go along with it.

We walked toward the river and the Charles Bridge. On the way we saw windows on the second and third floor stating “NC State University”. I guess they have something going on here.

The wind would pick up now and then making it feel colder than the 62 degrees it was. I put up my hood doing parts of the walk. We just took our time and looked into all sorts of shops.

By 2:30 pm we were getting tired and headed back to the hotel. I suggested to Sandy we find something to eat for tea. I remembered an Italian place in the mall which sold Italian cookies and cannolis. I suggested we get some cannolis. They had a sign up the other day if you bought three you would get one free.

We got to the mall and ordered the cannolis. There were two young men serving us. We chatted with them. They are from Sicily. We told them about Carmella’s Pizza in Reidsville run by a family from Sicily. We bantered back and forth while they filled each cannoli shell. They want to visit the USA one day. They gave us two free Italian cookies when we left saying most customers do not talk to them and they are not very friendly. We thanked them and wished them well.

We got back to the room shortly after 3:15pm. We had tea and the cannolis. They were delicious. I had downloaded some NCIS shows and we watched several of them laying in the bed and relaxing. The wind had picked up before we got back here and we decided to just stay in for the afternoon. I checked us in on line for the airlines tomorrow. We head to Rome, flying out here at 2:30 pm. We will be picked up at the hotel around 11:30 am.