Prague

The Good: Astronomical Clock.  Charles Bridge.  Tyn Church.
The Bad: Cancelled flight.  Flight delay.  Lost luggage.

We headed to fabulous Prague on our second trip in July!  Per usual, it was a smooth and quick, stress-free trip to the airport.  We hit the Swiss business lounge while we were waiting, excitedly anticipating the weekend that lay ahead.  Unfortunately, we soon learned that our flight was delayed.  Ah well, they were handing out chocolate, so we were okay waiting a little bit.  Well, the next announcement was the kind you never want to hear at the airport – our [direct] flight was cancelled due to mechanical issues with the aircraft.  They were paging me and Matt to return to the lounge to sort it all out.  It was slightly chaotic, but they put us on a flight to Munich, then on to Prague and told us to “run”.  We made it onto the plane and figured it was all still okay, and we would arrive in Prague just a few hours late, no big deal.  Well, the problems continued.....the flight we were put on was delayed because there was a system failure with the radio tower in Munich and no planes could take off or land.  So, we got off of the plane and returned to the lounge, to wait some more.  After a few hours, the Munich tower was back up and we were finally off!  Munich was a total and complete zoo when we arrived, with the local TV crew on-site to capture it.  The queue for the service center was so incredibly long, with several hundred people (a thousand??) – I took a pic but it doesn’t do it justice.  Even the queue to the business lounge had about 50 [extremely frustrated] people in both the gold star and silver star lines.  At least we could get our boarding passes at the gate and could bypass the madness.  This flight was also delayed, but Munich is a nice airport with free coffee stations and English newspapers. 

Well, 8 hours after our original arrival time, we made it to Prague, our luggage however did not.  Sigh!  Why did we even check our bag, you ask?  Many of the planes flying out of Basel are tiny and they tend to make you check your luggage anyways since the overhead bins are micro-size.  We shared a rolly and checked it in Basel, never thinking there would be a problem with our direct flight.  We reported our lost luggage with the claims desk, received one “male” and one “female” vanity kit and left to meet our driver.  Well, we saw the car service we coordinated with, but their signs had different names, none of which was “Chrysler”.  Matt had to point out that two guys had a card with the same name, so could one of them take us instead?  The flight delays etc. created a domino effect that also bungled the car services etc.  Okay, after some back and forth, we were finally in the car heading to the hotel.  It was raining, but we didn’t care much – it was still warm out and we were happy to be *in* Prague.  We walked around the main plaza, snapped some photos and found a cool beerhall type place (“Lokal”) with Czech cuisine and big, cold beers!   With full stomachs, we went back outside to explore and it stopped raining, hurray!  We walked across the Charles Bridge, and the spotlights mixed with the rain created a glittery effect on the clock tower, church and castle – it was so pretty!   After a long day, we called it a night and returned to the hotel, hoping our luggage would arrive by the morning.

 

Day #2 – Still no luggage, dangit.  Well, on the bright side it made getting ready a lot quicker!   And the vanity kit had toothbrush/toothpaste and deodorant, which came in handy.  There was no time to fuss about it, so we headed back to the old town (staré město) and went to the top of the clock.  Wiki fact – Prague’s Astronomical Clock is one of the oldest and most elaborate clocks ever built (1410).  At the top we had spectacular, panoramic views of the city’s red rooftops.  Really beautiful!

 

We then walked back across the Charles bridge up to the Castle.  The bridge was much more crowded than the previous night, with painters and musicians hawking their goods.  At the Castle, we did the “quick tour”, hitting St. Vitus Cathedral, St. George’s Basilica and the main street.  My feet were killing me at this point as I was wearing TB ballet flats and the heat was making my feet swell – I was getting blisters.  Ugh.

 

Did I mention my sunglasses also broke on Saturday, which was like adding salt to the wound!?  I was taking them out of the case to put them on, and the left frame “arm” remained in my hand (screw fell out).  Really?  Yes, really.  I was so bummed!  Lost luggage, and now broken sunglasses.  Big sigh.  Matt says he can fix ‘em though, back in Basel.

We returned to the main square for lunch al fresco across from the clock tower.  We were amazed at how bustling the city was – it was crawling with tourists and we heard a good deal of American English.  There were also numerous large groups wearing matching t-shirts (should've taken a photo).  A huge crowd gathered to watch the clock strike 1:00 pm (called "The Walk of the Apostles", it’s a clockwork hourly show of figures of the Apostles and other moving sculptures, striking the time, and has a calendar dial with medallions representing the months).  At this point, it started to pour, which made it much cooler.  We finished with our lunch and returned to the hotel to check on the luggage situation and get out of the rain.  The claim ticket online said our luggage was still “lost”, which is not a good feeling!  Matt tried to get through to baggage claim for over ½ hour with no luck – so we tried the Lufthansa service center, but they couldn’t help and referred us back to the baggage claim desk.  Ay yay yay.  Well, the weather cleared up so we meandered around the beautiful Jewish quarter (Josefov), leafy streets with high-end shops, and took an hour cruise on the river.

 

After the cruise, we hit the main shopping area (Wenceslas Square), right below the national museum.  We also treated ourselves to a Starbucks latte since it was regular “American prices”.  Woo hoo.  And then we ended Saturday with dinner on a terrace near the Charles bridge, followed by a night cap back on the main plaza.  Good people watching!

Day #3 – Luggage, luggage?  No luggage, but the online claim ticket now said it had been "processed" and was "in transit", heading to our hotel.  Oh well, we didn’t have time to wait around so we put on the same clothes yet again and took the metro a few stops to walk around the grounds of Vyšehrad ("castle on the heights") which had glorious views of the city.  It was a beautiful, sunny day and the walking path in the park surrounding the church was great.  The church and cemetery were also lovely.  We kept seeing “Rodina” on the tombstones and thought it was a popular name until the light bulb turned on and Matt said it must mean “family” in Slovak.  Aha, that makes more sense (I checked, he's right).  My feet were dying though, I must say.  Again, TB ballet flats are not the best option for walking around in hot weather!  We returned to the hotel and our luggage  *finally* arrived, just in time to change to head back to the airport, ha ha! 

Although we had snafu’s with lost luggage, Prague was absolutely beautiful and everything was very affordable (bonus)!  It’s definitely on our list of places to return to, if we have time.