Room 18, Red Chair Pension, Prague
We arrived at London's third airport - Gatwick - and checked in at the easyJet counter.
Gatwick looked a lot bigger than Stansted; it had a reasonably large duty-free area. We had around an hour to wander around the place, but it wasn't till the last minute that I popped into the bookstore to spend the rest of my pounds. I got three books for ₤18.
The plane ride was surprisingly short - 1.5 hours later we were at Prague's Ruzyně airport.
It took very long for us to settle on a mode of transport to the pension, but finally we exited the airport and took a large hired cab that was also shared by a (very big and noisy) family.
The airport, being 15 km from the city centre, meant a very long ride.
The city centre was a maze of tiny cobbled streets that were barely wide enough for a car to pass through - I was surprised the cab didn't ram into anything or anyone!
At long last we arrived in front of the Red Chair Pension and checked in. The reception area was a nice warm yellow, with the main decoration being a spooky suit of armour.
Our room was on the first floor and accessed through a series of electronically-locked doors. It turned out to be our biggest room so far - sans air conditioning.
We left soon after and got directions to the Old Town Square to see the famous Astronomical Clock.
So we set off down quaint little streets.
Along the way, we also entered St. Giles church (how coincidental, the name) with its elaborate baroque interior.
And we also wandered through the main shopping street!
...............but we couldn't find the Old Town Square.
Eventually we wound up outside the Municipal House, a grand Art Nouveau building that also houses Prague's largest concert hall.
It also happened to house two restaurants, one of which was a high-classed French restaurant.
We went to the other, which was in the basement.
The Plzeňská Restaurace was a cavernous restaurant that echoed with the patrons' chatter, the clatter of cutlery, and the live accordion music.
We had set meals, which for me consisted of soup, surprisingly tasty chicken, and gingerbread cake with cherry sauce.
After the large portions, it was almost a good thing that we had a long walk ahead of us. Unfortunately it had started raining, but somehow we managed to stumble blindly down those endlessly narrow streets and back to the pension.
posted by ¤jazzika¤ @ 10:44 PM
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