I tried to get the standard shot of the river, bridges and the castle on the hill. Of course there was never a clear day. This what I took.
Mostly I was interested in what was going on, like this interesting begging pose.
I also enjoyed how many naked women were holding up buildings or protecting them from bad things.
These three watched over my room in Olomouc.
I can’t seem to upload any more images and our plane is getting ready to board.
TTFN.
The market in the square was still going strong when I returned from dinner.
The light was really nice on the church.
There were Ukrainian eggs for sale.
A statue I had not noticed before reminded me of my daughters.
There was a Frank Sinatra clone singing.
Even the old tram looked good
The tram and bus stop is at a little square less than 10 minutes from the apartment. I have been there many times. Today was a surprise. There were many little booths selling everything from vegied to pancaked. People we lounging in the sun.
Some of the sellers
People even on the church steps. Wonderful energy.
I was looking for the Alfonse Mucha museum and as usual I became lost. The streets run which ever way. Intersections often have five or six streets. Many streets have a bend at some point. So you are walking down street A, say, and looking for street B at the next intersection when you get there there is no B even if the map says so. That is because there is a snippet of street C connecting them. What I did not say was this was basically all one street. I could not figure out where North was either because of the tall buildings and the general overcast.
In any case I was lost again and also distracted by the city’s beauty and quirky charm. The biggest distraction was a huge toy store, three floors, there was even a full size carousel. 
There were toy demonstrations of flying airplanes, UFOs and tiny drones.
Plus all the usual Lego, Super hero stuff etc.
Kids could pay to use a miniature backhoe to pick up toys.
Downstairs there were various for pay activities yhat I could not photograph. There was a tropical room where you could commune with butterflies. There was some kind of time machine game that took you in the past. Lots of early teen boys lined up for that one. There was more but the noise, the smell of candy and the bright primary colours sent me out to find the Museum.
….and the crowds won. Every where I went today in Praha, it is Saturday after all, the tourists were thick.
Predominately Italians from the sound of it.
First I went to the Strahov Monastery library. Allready there were crowds being led by guides. Now this was 10am on a 4 degree C. morning.
Once inside the ticket prices had gone up from $2 for seniors to $5.50. Then did i want to take photos? Yes well another $3. I chose not to take photos because I did not know what I would see.
Good for me because the libraries were roped off so you could only see them from the end. Those tourist crowdd became helpful because they took out thier cell phones to photograph and the matronly “guards” started arguing anout the $3 charge. In that moment I unleashed my iPod touch as a record of the site.
I also saw that they sell thier own beer brand.
The best part was a really nice small church in a modern style. There was no charge for those photos.
It was still pretty chilly even though approaching noon. I stumbled upon a fancy hotel with free WiFi and Toilets just around the corner. There was a neautiful sitting room.
Outside there were wonderful sculptures. I have not photographed many but all the sculptures I have seem in the Czech Republic have been superb. They top the painters in my estimation.
More to follow.
We left Olomouc this morning. First we took the tram to the train station. 70 cents.
Once there we were a little early and our train to Prague was 15 minutes late so we sat down at one of the two cafes at the station and ate a kind of rasberry turnover with an espresso on the side.
Walking around this smaller train station I saw a grocery store, a fast food place, a farmer selling at a vegetable stand, a magazine store, a bulk candy shop and a kind of junk store.
I guess I forgot to mention there was a bakery too. Pretty amazing to me compared to most of my North American train travel experience.
Our train was called so we went up to the platform where it was 4 C and windy. Soon our train showed up.
The two hour ride cost me $2.68 US.
WOW.
Once in Kutna Hora I was nusy settling in and didn’t pay too much attention to the food. I was excted to meet up with my friends. I remember the sunlight coming through the beer during the first dinner. I think I may have had Chicken Snitzel.
I remember also the utensils came in a basket all together.
Breakfast was a problem because most cafes, except the hotel ones did not open until 10 or 11 and closed on Monday. The hotel cafes only served thier guests. So I ate yogurt and trail mix and drank the instant coffee provided by my host.
The last nights dinner was the most interesting meal so far. Wild Boar goulash with dumplings of ginger, cranberries, apricots and some nuts.
Before that there was a chanterelle mushroom soup.
Afterwards dessert was a multi fruit tart.
Total price in US$. $13.13!
Next morning it was time to go catch a train for the next town. Michael emailed me that the train left at 10:46 AM. I read it as 10:56. I am always early and anxious about time. I’ve been trying to be more casual as a way of relieving stress. So it was supposed to be a 12 minute walk to the station. I left at 10:33. Turns out it was a 20 minute walk. I got to the station with what I thought was a minute to spare. Luckily for me the train was delayed by 10 minutes. I just had enough time to get a ticket and jump on.
Whew!
After my not-so-warm experience in Prague it was great to stay at Lenka’s place.
It is compact but has almost everything you could need. A comfy bed, three chairs, microwave, hot plate, fridge with beer and cream for coffee. Also coffee, tea, sugar all the urban survival gear. And, whoa! TV.
Here is what it looked like.
There is even a small walled courtyard.
After meeting my friends for dinner I tuned into the TV hoping for BBC or CNN. Of course there was only Czech channels except one sounded Russian. I ended up watching the Simpsons and Futurerama in Czech. Afterwards I tried getting some news and was a little surprised at the presenter’s attire.
Not that I minded.
A friend asked me if the reason I had not posted anything about Czech food was because I did not enjoy it. I thought it must be time to digest some food information.
The first meal I had on arriving was some yogurt with bread and a little local meat paté. I washed it down with some Polish vodka and went to bed early after showering.
The surprise was the yogurt. It was made with sheep’s milk! I had never had that.
Next morning I wanted to get going and Google sent me to a local chain for breakfast. There I had a “longo” (americano) along with what looked like an eggMcmuffin. It was fatty because of lots of bacon and two eggs with cheese, tomatoes on two English muffins. All for about $3. I did not need lunch after. I was too confused and too hungry to take a photo.
Next came evening. I found this beer bar. Actually ‘bar’ doesn’t do it justice as it was more like a cafe but only beer, only craft beer, no food but a nice ambiance. I only wanted to try one beer so I settled on Clock. It is an IPL. I had never heard of an IPL only IPA. It turns out it is an India Pale Lager. Extremely smooth, bitter, but lots of fruit flavour.
Then I went to find dinner. The bar person indicated a small traditional Czech place a few blocks away. I tried to find it but must have got lost. I went by this cafe my host had mentioned. I remember the name started with the letter Z. There were two main course choices. Duck or beef. I chose the duck. The waiter returned almost instantly to tell me they had run out of duck. Now this was about 5:30. OK so the beef. Well I was far from disappointed. The meat was thin and perfectly cooked with wonderful flavours. The potatoes with rosemary, garlic an olive oil were to die for. This was probably the best restaurant meal I have had in ages.
On the way home I got a piece of organic carrot cake to est at home.
Next morning I returned to the Z cafe for Slidané (breakfast). There too I had a longo. The hot water came on the side. How thoughtful.
I ordered the eggs benedict. The eggs were perfect. The yolks were an incredible orangy yellow. Either very rich in vitamins or chemicals. In any case they tasted very good.
I’ll get to more food stuff later. All this is making me hungry and it is getting late to out for dinner.
Cheers!
Met this guy on the train from Kutna Hora. Noticed he had a Canadian cap and Canadian sweat shirt. We never understood a word that he said but he sure liked Canada.
darkroomcat 