You find me sitting in the bar of the Hotel U Prince on the edge of the old-town square in Prague, watching the hours tick down towards the arrival of our car to the airport.
We had hoped to walk over to visit some of the gardens near the castle today, but the weather had other ideas – turning our morning into a wander through rain drenched cobble filled back-streets.
We decided on a visit to the Jewish quarter of the city, the Franz Kafka monument, and the oldest part of the city – the convent where King Wenceleslas is interred.
Flying in the face of the typically garish eastern European iconography, the convent was austere and plain. It houses a collection of religious paintings and sculptures from the the 1200s through to the 1500s, which I found fascinating.
Each room, and hall brought more paintings and sculptures of the same scenes – copies of copies of copies – with fashions, styles, and cultural changes showing through the various depictions of biblical scenes.
While being respectful, I will admit to more than a few depressing thoughts about how so many people over so many generations have been happy to believe what they were told to believe, rather than apply any sort of logic or reason.
Anyway.
On the way back to the old town, we stopped at an inviting middle eastern restarant serving a hybrid mixture of their own cuisine mixed with traditional Czech recipes. I went for Humus Goulash, paired with their own special lemonade recipe. It was really quite wonderful.
After another walk around the market – coming up blank with any ideas for home-coming presents – we returned to the hotel and made our way to the roof-top bar. We lasted an hour, courtesy of finding ourselves seated next to a table filled with early twenty-something californian girls – who’s entire topic of conversation seemed to be what they were doing for spring-break, or if it was ok to sleep with a stranger in an Air B&B.
The entire restaurant area got to hear their deliberations, if you were wondering. We also got to hear an old man from Liverpool say goodbye to his family on a video call perhaps fifty times. My other half looked at me silently over the top of her drink, asking “is this really happening?” with her eyes.
We’re now hiding out in the restaurant bar area – a quiet corner away from the world. The staff seem happy to leave us alone. A cheerful text from the booking agent informed us earlier that automatic check-in for our flight home is broken – so we’ll probably be joining a lengthy queue at the airport a bit later to get our boarding passes.
Wish us luck.