Czech Republic

Charlottetown, Montreal, Sunday, April 15th

It was a beautiful, clear and sunny, if not warm day. A great start for our trip. For me it was a bit better than for Gail. Scott drove me to the airport and after chatting with the Air Canada clerk, explained to her that yes she could ch(z)eck my bags thru to the C(h)zeck republic. As we were pretty much alone at the time – I had just followed a group and there was no one else after me, she was very accommodating. Kudos to her! Gail did not fare so well. She drove to Moncton with Gloria. They would only check her luggage to Montreal, and at Montreal, they would only check it to Munich – which goes to show, you have to explain to people about the c(z)hecked luggage! Except for the exception above, it is nice to clear Air Canada and fly with European airlines – Lufthansa and Air Dolomiti in our case – get smiles, service and real meals and good meals! In all fairness to Air Canada, I understand that they are no worse than Aeroflot during communism.

Anyway, on to Europe!

Munich, Praha, Monday, April 16th

Oh joy! After an eight and a half hour trip, we get to spend five hours in Munich. No use taking a train into town, the only thing open would be the German equivalent to Tim Hortons! This is another place for Gail to find her luggage. Deja vu! Gail wants to run through the short Passport Control line – 29 years ago, she wanted to catch the first train we could find at Victoria station so we could catch our Car Ferry – without knowing where the train was going. She did not listen to the flight information telling us to go the the Service Centre, before Passport Control if we had any questions about connecting flights or luggage. Again, a very pleasant young lady, called to baggage, found Gail's bag and transferred it to Air Dolomiti, and as I said to her, why don't you just scan my card and see if my luggage is anywhere near the European Union, which she did and it was there. Now you are probably wondering why I go on about luggage. Well, we are taking two full suitcase with stuff for relatives in Ukraine, with no baggage allowance to spare! The large suitcases came in a few grams under the 23kg allowance – after much repacking and the small ones again just under the 20kg max. We are taking a couple of old laptops over – one in each carry-on and I told Gail to look sad if they were going to charge overweight and ask for a receipt, so we could get reimbursed by the orphanage that was sponsoring us! They called for a large taxi for us because of the luggage!

Anyway, we got into our hotel room in the late afternoon, and after Gail got off the elevator on the wrong floor – I was getting the rest of the luggage, the receptionist running up and down with us, I'm sure she thought it was a scene from a Laurel & Hardy movie, and we had obviously escaped from somewhere! The room is great and we settled in and left for a walk to the Obecni Dum (Municipal House) – gorgeous architecture as well as everywhere along the way. On the way back we stopped for our first SCENIC BEER! Pilsner beer was invented here, in the town of Pilzen not far away. In the evening, after relaxing, we went out for that traditional Czech food – pizza and then wandered around Wenceslas Square (a kilometre long rectangle).

It is interesting as always to stay downtown and be able to walk to everywhere. First, our hotel is located in the Marks & Spenser Building which is from where the speeches were given during the “Velvet Revolution” of 1967.

Praha, Tuesday, April 16th

Our day started rather slowly – especially for us. Gail picked up some croissants and oranges, we had brought coffee (we have a complete kitchenette), got organised and were not out until about quarter after ten! The jet lag had caught up with us! By the way 23C today – much better than the -4C we left in Stratford! We started off by making sure we had tickets for Kyiv. Dennise our receptionist was great. She tried yesterday, but was unsuccessful, mostly because they were closed. We had to go and pick up our tickets at AeroSvit, which was not a problem as it was on the way to sight seeing anyway. The woman at the office refused to serve me in Ukrainian, she said she was Russian and did not understand Ukrainian. The fact that she spoke English was beside the point! When the hell are they going to get rid of all the bloody Russians?!?!?!?!

We were primarily in the old town square today which has many of the historic buildings, churches, cathedrals, etc. The city hall has the famous clock tower with a multi-faceted clock telling time on three different systems as well as an astronomical calendar. We went up the clock tower which gave us a fantastic overview of the square as well as most of the Stare Mesto (Old Town) and could not help but think of Verna and how she would have enjoyed the top of the tower with the wind blowing thru her locks. Lunch was outdoors at the old town square, overlooking the clock (Chicken Caesar Salad). Later we had our SCENIC BEER, did a bit of shopping – I bought a new Czech dictionary as mine has seen many better days as well as picture book on Praha. Later at dinner, I had a pork and cabbage dinner and Gail had a Czech goulash – nothing like eating a nice light slavic meal.

Historical note: Sts Methodius and Cyril, who first spread Christianity throughout the slav world, first brought it to our Czech cousins.