Greetings from Tupton :-)

It puzzles me a bit why I am not entirely keen on Eastern European breakfasts. I am perfectly happy to accept as breakfast food eggs, bacon, (cooked) tomato and mushrooms with toast. Why then, I wonder, do I view ham, cheese, (raw) tomato and capsicum slices with bread rolls as distinctly lunchtime fodder? I had a bowl of cereal for breakfast and a cup of very strong coffee. Although, at least the breakfast buffet in Prague wasn’t completely smothered in mayonnaise or salad cream as it was in Warsaw!!

We had to check out of the hotel by 11. By a happy coincidence, a mini bus was coming to collect us at about 11, so that was all right. We left the pink bag at the hotel and went, with the Travelling Hippos, in the mini bus into town where we transfered to another mini bus and went with two Spaniards (who I think might have been honeymooning), and Ukrainian lassie and a local tour guide down to the river, where we joined a large-ish cruise boat. We were off for a lunch cruise of the Vltava River. I must say, it was a beautiful day for it. Very sunny, although the wind was cold. The boat was kitted out with lots of lunch tables. Lots of other people, including some other tour groups, were there too. And off we set, up river, accompanied by an accordion player. Who for some reason was playing mainly tunes from early Elvis Presley, other American crooners of much the same period and some Austrian waltzes. Not sure why he wasn’t playing Czech music.

The lunch was surprisingly nice. Lovely goulash. The vegetables in the fish stew weren’t cooked, but everything else was lovely. The cherry cake and custard was a real treat. After lunch we went up onto the top of the boat and sat out in the sunshine and watched Prague go by. It was lovely. A very pleasant way of passing a lunchtime. Took about two and a half hours to go up and back.

We made our way via the Jewish quarter back to the Od Town Square and sent a very pleasant couple of hours sat outside with some white wine, just watching the world go by, enjoying the sunshine and happily relaxing.

Then we went for a walk through some of the back streets and ended up, more or less by accident, at the bottom of Wenceslas Square. We went to the top to look at Wenceslas’ statue and then walked slowly back to the hotel, where we collected the Pink Bag, called a taxi and went to the airport.

There is very much more to do at the Prague airport than there is to do in the Budget airlines’ tin hut in Warsaw! Shops. Restaurants. Bars. I admit that I was a bit disconcerted in the restaurant by the way the staff were flinging the food about. Splooch this on, splodge that on, whomp things about, pass plate to customer. The food, though, was really lovely. They might have been treating the food a bit roughly, but the chicken schnitzels were freshly cooked when I asked for them, the potatoes had clearly not been sat around for hours, and the salad (paid for by weight) was delicious.

In both directions I had paid extra to easyJet for Speedy Boarding. Money extremely well spent. You get to join a very, very short queue for checking in, plus you get to board the plane first and choose your seats first (easyJet doesn’t allocate seats - you select when you board). This had the happy effect that we got to sit right at the very front so The Builder had extra leg room. Makes flying in budget airlines quite a lot easier for him. His knee is not at all happy about having been squished into those mini buses where he was all jammed up against the seat in front.

We got home just after midnight and are now sat in our very own, nice and comfortable bed having enjoyed the first cup of tea we’ve had since Thursday (I missed tea - must remember to take the travel kettle and tea bags next time, and to find some proper milk). Suppose we really ought to get up. There are things to do!

It’s a bit on the chilly side though. Would it be profligate to put the central heating on?