May 6, 2024

 Arrived last night at our accommodation (Hotel Tivoli) around 7 pm after 30+ hours of travel so we were pretty beat.  Not too tired to head out to grab a beer and a bite to eat at a little restaurant on the corner though.  We can already see that we are in for a diet of bread and meat and cheese (and beer) in this part of the world.  Don’t get me wrong….no complaints from either of us……we both love that kind of diet!  LOL

But before I get too far into what we did today, I need to say that Lynda’s suitcase was literally destroyed on the trip here.  It must have fallen off a trailer and been driven over multiple times!  All four wheels are not where they belong and the body of the case of so smashed in on every side, as well as the bottom.  Only the top is sort of okay which is fortunate as that is where her baggage tags were!  The good news is that her suitcase had an inner shell that kept all the clothes inside the case so she didn’t lose anything - other than the case itself which at this point in the trip is kind of a catastrophe!  Initially at the airport the Baggage Claim rep assured Lynda that she’d started a file online and that if Lynda phoned the number as soon as she got to the hotel, the baggage folks would send someone to pick up the smashed bag and bring her a replacement.  It sounded almost too good to be true and in the end…..it turns out that it was!  Our hotel desk clerk has been trying to get through on the number for us all last night and then again all day today.  When she finally did get through to a human that human yelled at her said they only deal with lost luggage-NOT damaged luggage.  Sooooo……in the end, Lynda is not doing her best to submit an electronic claim online and tomorrow we will search out a new suitcase for her.  The good news is that once we get on the red line subway (station is about a 5 minute walk from our hotel) we only have to go one stop before we find a store that sells suitcases for a reasonable price.  

Now back to our adventures today…….After a good nights sleep (on a very skinny twin bed) it was time to eat again.  Luckily our hotel includes breakfast with the room so we only had to go as far as the lobby to discover that bread, meat and cheese were once again on the menu.  Actually, it was a delicious breakfast and in addition to the bread there were eggs, and bacon, and sausage, and wieners, and granola, and yogurt, and cucumbers, and fresh fruit, 4 different types of cheese, juices, milk, coffee and tea.  Yep, we won’t go hungry here!

One of the fantastic things we’ve learned about Prague is that if you’re over 65 you travel for free on all public transit (buses, subway, trams, and even the funicular). This was great news for us as our first venture on a tram was unfortunately in the wrong direction so we decided it would be best if we got the lay of the land before attempting to use public transit.  That meant an investment in a hop on hop off tour ticket on the antique historic trams that run around the city (not part of public transit so not free).  This worked out perfectly for us and by the time that line closed for the day at 6 pm we felt like we knew what direction was what (well….we sort of knew….LOL). By the time we got back to our hotel tonight we had used the metro (subway), the trams (electric), and the funicular in addition to our “hop on hop off” historic tour trams.  This city is meant for walking too and so in addition to all the transit…we used our feet - A LOT!!

When paying for the “hop on hop off” tram ticket the conductor noticed that one of the 100 krona notes I had was not legitimate.  I’m not sure who….but someone had given it to me as change the night before!  It had to either be at the restaurant we visited for dinner or at the airport when I paid for the Uber to our hotel.  Either way…..I hope they didn’t do it knowingly!  The Czech government replaced all their bank notes a couple years ago and you can tell which ones are the old notes versus the new ones as the old ones have a skinny gold stripe and the new ones have a wide gold stripe.  The good news is that you can just take that old note to a Republic of Czech bank and they will replace it with a legal one.  Lots to learn and what better way to learn it than to have to deal with it in real time!

Speaking of real…..Lynda is really really really good at meeting people.  At one of the stops where we got off the hop on hop off tram I looked over my shoulder only to see her photobombing someone’s picture.  Turns out the couple she “met” are Tomasz and Christine from a tiny village of 100 people in the Pyrenees region of France and they want to do a house swap with me…..hmmmmm…..might have to give that some thought when we’re looking for our next adventure.  Gotta get this one done first though….  LOL!  It really was a fun meeting.  They speak only a couple words of English and Lynda and I speak a couple words of French, and Tomasz speaks Polish, and Lynda and I have a little bit of Spanish, and spanish and French are very similar and where they live is right next to Spain soooooo where there’s a will and a lot of laughter, there is a way to make it work.  The end of the story is that we are now connected on FaceBook.

To close this post I will add that Prague is a city where we’ve met a ton of friendly helpful folks, been shocked by the number of sirens we’ve heard, surprised by the lack of motorbikes and scooters, marvelled at the beautiful old buildings, impressed by the clean sidewalks and streets, and…..we’ve only been here a day!

L & L

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

June 8, 2024

 Well, Pristine, Kosovo (pronounced Prishtina) has been a bit of a roller coaster.  LOL. Our arrival with the two young men coming to the rescue of our taxi driver in finding our accommodation was just the beginning. On the upside, we have an elevator (thank god as we are on the sixth floor) so that is a treat but I neglected to notice that there is no air con in this unit when I booked it.  Aggggghhhhh….that is usually one of the first things I look for.  On the upside, it cools down pretty well at night so we haven’t really had too much time here when we would have put it on anyway.  Although I would have used it yesterday when we got back in from walking for about a hundred miles in a hundred degrees! (I may be exaggerating just a bit but honestly it was smoking hot and we really did walk for hours). In truth, we walked so far and it was so hot that when we stopped at a caffe where we’d normally have a coffee…..this time it was a coke as cold as they could ge...
Read more

May 29, 2024

 Well we’ve taken a little sabbatical from all things techno for the past couple of days.  But….we are back now.  :-) We left Sarajevo at 10:00 on the morning of the 26th (Lynda’s 75th birthday) with our driver Kemal.  We knew it would be a 5’ish hour drive to get to Cavtat in Croatia so the plan was that we would take a short coffee break before we crossed the border out of Bosnia & Herzegovina.  It was a lovely little stop where there were only locals including a few gypsies (the first we’ve seen in our travels to date). Kemal explained that it is common for locals to give the kids a few marks as they’ll be trying to get enough for an ice cream or some other treat.  It became clear very quickly that we’d have to give each of the three kids their own coins as there was seemingly no love lost between them.  LOL. Kemal took care of it in their own language and everyone went away happily.   It was a beautiful drive!  A similar one to that w...
Read more

May 25, 2024

 Sitting on the bed in our TINY room in Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina typing this on my lap.  LOL. This room is the smallest we’ve had so far and yet it has a character all its own.  We are directly across the lane from an Irish Pub where the singing and carousing goes on late into the night.  We were super grateful to discover that the windows on our room when closed virtually lock out ALL the noise!  Our two tiny beds are each against a wall and there is just enough room between them to side step to the end where you can actually turn around.  Yep….it’s pretty small!  And the other interesting thing here is the shower (which is also tiny) where the shower head is stuck to the wall at about hip height.  What kind of tiny people stay here!? LOL. Alls well that ends well though and we can both say that we are clean (enough at least)  Oh ya….and the stairs up to our room are just one flight but….it is like a ladder with rungs that are doub...
Read more