Prague

Tuesday, 15 September

What a great day we had today. This morning we paid our respects to Good King Wenceslas in Wenceslas Square. Lorraine nearly serenaded the wrong statue - he was the man on the horse, not on the chair.

Next stop was the gorgeous Art Nouveau cafe at The Municipal House, one of Prague's famous coffee houses. We enjoyed coffee and hot chocolate, and resisted the cake trolley because we were on our way to the "Eating Prague" food tour.

Our food tour commenced at "Gingerbread man's dream" where we had three traditional Czech biscuits including a gingerbread with plum jam and walnuts in it. From here we walked to "Sisters" and sampled three types of open sandwiches. The beetroot and goat's cheese one was most popular. In the same arcade was a butcher shop which sent out delicious sausages, ham and pastrami style beef.

It was about a twenty minute walk to our next stop, a restaurant on the eighth floor of Henry's Tower where we sat down to Old Bohemian Soup. Another long walk took us back across Wenceslas Square to "Styl & Interier", a cafe with a pretty secret garden. We were introduced to black currant wine and some very tasty goat's cheese.

On the way to our last venue we stopped to admire the amazing revolving head statue. Horizontal slices of a man's head revolve and move his face to a new position every few seconds. You could watch it move for an hour and not become bored. It's the work of a Czech sculptor who also made an upside down dead horse with a politician he didn't like on it. We didn't see this but it was recommended.

A few metres down the road was "The Louvre", another of Prague's coffee houses and a favourite haunt of Franz Kafka and Albert Einstein. Once again, gorgeous Art Nouveau decor. The cafe was closed and all its fittings thrown out the windows during the communist regime and was reopened again in 1989. Well worth a visit if you are come to Prague. We also liked the little fountain in the foyer, with dishes that tipped water out when they filled. At "The Louvre" we ate Czech dumplings, braised beef and cranberry compote with whipped cream on top! Surprisingly good too. Dessert was apple strudel and more whipped cream. We weren't at all sure that we would be able to leave the table after this last course of our progressive dinner, but eventually staggered out and back to our apartment where we collapsed with a cup of tea and another of Lorraine's crosswords.

Way too exhausted to go out again and certainly not wanting dinner.

 

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