Tuesday 20 to Friday 23 June 2017 Prague and APT
Arrive in Prague about 6pm. Our transfer is not here, well I can’t see our name. Walk around for about 10 minutes and I see a man with an APT sign. A forty minute trip to our hotel with the driver giving us a running commentary on Czech and Prague. Somewhat interesting if we hadn’t been so tired. The hotel , Radisson Blu, is definitely a move up market from the other hotels we’ve stayed in on this trip. At the reception I thought I’d ask if an upgrade was possible? Why yes sir, but please don’t tell the other APT guests, oops.
The beds fantastic, soft and firm, and a little bigger than a kingsize. Had tea in the hotels second restaurant, we couldn’t get into the Michelin Star Alcron. Great meal and service.
Early night tonight.
Wednesday: Down for breakfast at about 8 am. We get shown to a table but decide to eat outside in the courtyard. I ask the waitress if we helped ourselves to the buffet and she just looks at me. “oh you mean the booffet, yes sir” fancy. After breakfast we went for a walk around the Wenceslas Square and then off to the Old Town Square. This is a great place, so much to see and at this time of the morning not many people. We’ve bought a ticket to the Martin City Tour but its leaving from The Old Town Square at 12 noon. So a little bit of time to look around and have coffee and cake.
The tour took us around the historic parts of Prague, Over a lot of bridges and up to the Palace.
Back to the Hotel and caught up with old friends Moira and Trevor from Adelaide. I used to work with Trevor and we found out about six month ago we were going to be on the same APT trip. It was great to catch up and hear all their news.
Time for the APT orientation talk and meet some of the other tourists. Off to tea with Moira and Trev in Wenceslas Square and a lot more talking. Slept really well tonight. It was a combination of being really tired, a comfortable bed or the wine and scotch I had drunk tonight.
Thursday: Early start this morning as there is a tour to the Prague Palace leaving at 8 am. Down for breakfast then catch the bus that will take us up to the Palace. It’s going to be a hot day, one of the reasons we’re leaving early. Bit of a bumpy ride in the bus. Got to the palace in time to see the changing of the guards. We’re finding that certain types of tourists are so rude they seem to think that because half the population of the world lives there they do as they please. One jumped in front of everyone into what was clearly the exclusion zone and had to be removed by an armed soldier.
Had a bit of a look around in the palace grounds and then into St Vitus Cathedral. Quite a good place had we been able to get further than the back pews. It seems that APT spent all the money on the hotel but didn’t have enough left to pay the entrance fee to get into the rest of the cathedral.
The stain glass windows inside were beautiful and there were others further down but we couldn’t get there.
It was pretty warm in the cathedral especially when a thousand tourist are jammed in. Out into the courtyard for a quick look round and then back to the coach and return to the hotel.
The welcome tea from APT in the Radisson Blu hotel was exception. Met a few of the people on the tour who are from Adelaide as well as other places in Australia.
Friday: Up early again for another tour, this time to a Chateau, but was advised that we’d need to be up earlier tomorrow as our luggage would need to be outside our rooms by 6:30am. Breakfast, back to the room to clean up and then off to the bus for an hour drive to the 18th Century Baroque Chateau Jemniste. We’re here mainly to watch the falconry show. It’s very Medieval and probably a little upsetting for some but it was a very entertaining show.
A good look around the chateau and all it finery from days gone by.
Then there was the dinner in the restaurant attached to the chateau.
Come halfway around the world to see wallabies as well as cockatoos. The sign for the wallabies states that the babies are called ‘cubs’. Who knew.
It’s been a long warm day and at the end of it when the bus returns to Prague we decide we’re going to have dinner in the Old Town Square and catch the Astronomical Clock chime the hour and checked out some of the busker type entertainment going on.
This is our last night in Prague, we’ve got to try to get an early night as I said before it’s going to be an early start tomorrow. No-one is looking forward to the 8.5 hour bus ride to Budapest.