Impressive Impressions

We were told by so many people that we would love Prague that we were worried it wouldn't live up to our expectations, that we would be disappointed on this last leg of our family adventure in Europe.  We needn't have worried.  Within a half hour of arriving in Prague we were already in love with the place, we were impressed to say the least.

Our apartment was the first impressive encounter in Prague. After a great flat in London, followed by wonderful accommodations in Oxford, we were somewhat disappointed by the Paris apartment (the location was great, but everything else less than we had hoped for). Would we be further disappointed in Prague?  No, the exact opposite - because of a double booking we were upgraded and thus ended up with a beautiful and spacious apartment with a huge bathroom with both modern shower and large tube, washing machine and dryer, and two sinks.  There is another small bathroom (and nice feature because sharing one bathroom has been tricky at times on this trip. There are three large bedroom, a sitting room, a kitchen and a large entrance.  The appliances are modern, the beds are comfortable and there are easily accessible power outlets everywhere.  We are on the second floor of a historic building, in one direction we are just a few blocks from the town square, in the other direction we are only a couple of blocks from a main shopping street (with the largest Tesco grocery store we've seen yet - much to Joshua's delight).  In short this place is the best accommodation yet.

Our apartment in Prague. We are on the second floor - where the brown brick starts. It wraps around both sides of the corner - the master bedroom has windows on three sides!

The cleaning person was not quite finished with the apartment so we simply dropped our luggage and headed off to do some exploring.  We wandered the cobblestone streets marveling at the historic architecture, took note of the various museums and cultural activities available, and we located the main tourist information office which appropriately was right next to the famous astronomical clock. We grabbed a pile of brochures, did some more wandering and made our way back to the apartment to plan our time here.

Part of the skyline around the historic Prague square.

Beth and I went to the Tesco store for some groceries and discovered that food here (in the grocery stores at least) is cheaper than in Canada.  The alcohol is certainly cheaper, but so to is bread, cheese, yogurt, meat and so forth.  Our eating pattern in Europe has been to have a light breakfast (toast or cereal with yogurt and juice) at the apartment.  Then Beth might pack a lunch (depending on whether or not we will be close to the apartment that day or not).  Sometime in the afternoon we will have this light lunch (my favorite has been the baguettes with cheese and ham that we had in Paris).  Then for supper we would look for a restaurant that served traditional cuisine of that region.

Before supper on Saturday however we took in a concert of classical music in the historic Mirror Chapel of the Klementinum complex.  The group was a string quartet called the Chamber Ensemble Musica Pragensis, accompanied by a organist (playing an historic Baroque pipe organ).  The concert included works by Mozart, Bach, Handel, Schubert, Smetana, Dvořák, Pachelbel, and featured Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons". A few notes about the concert - it was very lovely to hear such music in such a wonderful setting - I could imagine myself time traveling back to the era when this music was first performed in rooms such as this.  The players were very competent, though I agreed with Joshua that while technically superb there wasn't a lot of emotional expression (I'm not sure if that was because of an artistic decision, or simply because the musicians were tired of performing the same program for tourists day after day - something I deduced the next day when I noticed the exact same concert being advertised again).  There were some tourists sitting in front of us talking throughout the concert - that is always irritating to me, I wanted to write a note and hand it to them asking "Why are you even here?"  I learned later that even Beth wanted to kick their chairs (so I wasn't the only one getting frustrated by such behaviour).  Regardless of these rude tourists the concert was still wonderful and a beautiful introduction to the cultural opportunities that Prague has to offer.

The Mirror Chapel where we heard a wonderful concert featuring a string quartet and baroque pipe organ.

Following the concert  we set out to find a restaurant serving Czech cuisine.  In the area around us there are countless places to eat - in fact our apartment is right above one of the best places to eat in Prague according to the Michelin guide.  That restaurant seemed a little upscale of what we were looking for, but a little bit of wandering in the historic area and we came across a place advertising the best goulash in town. I got some goulash (which wasn't quite what I expected but still very yummy), so did Anna (but with dumplings instead of rice - really big dumplings), Thomas got roast rabbit (he discovered he liked rabbit in Oxford), Beth's dish included some red cabbage that was similar to way our family prepares red cabbage for special meals (this has been the only time I have found red cabbage in a restaurant that is even remotely similar to the Hendricksen version).  Joshua ordered an apricot liqueur that was a lot stronger to what we are used to in Canada, it took a while for him to finish it off.  All in all a very satisfying meal, which being satiated we returned to our apartment for a good night's sleep.  A wonderful first day in Prague.