18th dec 09 - evening

After Mark had a rest we walked down the road in search of dinner. We found a small restaurant in a row of restaurants near the tram stop and Jo's bar (Restaurant U Kostela). We walked in and we could hear Coldplay. Good music so I thought we would probably get good food. The place was nice and the staff quite friendly. We had a tomato and vegetable soup for starter. It was nice but I bet I could re-create it using a combination of Heinz tins! Then mark had potato gratin and I ordered a Czech dish which consisted of duck breast, pork rib and ham. It came with Czech dumplings and two types of cabbage. The cabbage was like boiled pickled onions! I ate the meat and dumplings but couldn't quite manage to finish the cabbage. We were so full up that we decided to give dessert a miss. halfway through our meal Coldplay was turned off and a Woman started playing the piano. She was playing Christmas songs and what we thought were film theme tunes. Very surreal as we were the only ones in the restaurant.

Observations about Czech dining: MEAT!!! Czechs love meat. It is quite usual to have more than one meat in a dish. Lots of restaurants advertise -'Mixed Grill - three types of meat!' Luckily they accept that there are non meat eaters so most places have a vegetarian menu. The Devil restaurant didn't but after ascertaining that Mark did NOT eat meat or fish they cooked him up a pasta thingy. The Music in all the places we've eaten in so far is either film themes played on a piano or 80's pop music. We find ourselves playing 'name that tune' as we eat! Bread - with every meal you are given bread. Lots of bread of varying shapes colours and sizes. I have never seen so much bread on a table.

19th Dec 09

We went to Prague castle today ( Prazsky Hrad). It was really cold and the walk up the hill was a nightmare. Well, the castle is just above our hotel so it about a 10 min walk but the slippery, icy road made it a chore. The castle is breath taking. I'm not into architecture but even a philistine like me could see the beauty in the buildings. We walked through a a couple of courtyards and then bought tickets for St George's Basilica, Golden lane and the old Palace. We went back to the entrance of the castle to watch the changing of the guard. It was very camp and casual. President Havel changed the ceremony after years of communistic ritual, giving the guards uniforms designed by an Oscar winning costume designer and a fanfare composed by a Czech rock musician.

St. Vitus's cathedral was free so we went in there first. It was stunning! The exterior was stunning enough with it's Gothic spires but the interior was even more stunning. We spent a bit of time in there looking around and taking pictures. The other places were nice but I wished we'd seen them first as they paled in comparison to the Cathedral. Half way through our tour we went to a cafe for some hot wine so we could thaw out a bit. After we had seen everything we wanted to see we made our way back to the hotel. By now it felt like it was minus thirty not minus ten! We went into the Arcadia cafe in the hotel for hot chocolate and strudel as a treat.

We spent a bit of time in the hotel thawing out, Mark having his regular nap and me listening to him snore! We then decided to go to an Italian restaurant we'd passed just a little way up the hill. I ordered pasta and mark ordered pizza. After we ordered they bought us the regulation two ton of bread to have with our soup. We felt we deserved a desert after braving sub zero temperatures all day so I had tiramisu and Mark had strudel. We had a good nights sleep as we planned to visit the Jewish quarter the next day.