Day 5 - Solo Wandering in Prague

-Woke up Monday morning to snow outside! Nothing too heavy, but enough to beautifully dust the trees, cars, and any open lawns/fields. Irena was off to work for the day and Pavel was working from home, so I set off to tackle Prague on my own.

snow!

part of the hill I climbed

-Started with the Loretta church, which was up a VERY steep hill (reminding me, yet again, how terribly out of shape I am). It was a lovely church though, and worth the climb.

-On my way back down the hill I stopped at the KGB Museum - this little building womewhat tucked away up the road from the US Embassy. This little Russian guy owns/runs it, and is overflowing with information, and gave a wonderful tour, encouraged picture-taking and questions.

It says "Keep quiet!"

Museum owner posed this picture lol

This one also

Women's wilderness uniform - they attached horse hair to it so that the dogs used to find them would only smell horses and not them

Each red dot was one of the KGB's prisoner camps

-Made my way down to the Charles Bridge, bought some awesome green earrings from a vendor who asked if I spoke English or Russian, haha, then followed Krizovnicka street to Staroměstská metro station, rode it to Vyšehrad, where I finally surrendered to my cravings and had Thai food for lunch. My food was exceptionally delicious, though I can't say it tasted authentically Thai (and shamefully, that's probably part of why I liked it so much). They provided me with knife, fork, spoon, and chopsticks, but since Thais do not use chopsticks for anything except noodles, I only used them to pick out the bean sprouts, and finished everything else with the fork and spoon. (I did, however, enjoy watching all the other customers, who I'm sure "eat Thai food all the time," fumble around trying to eat their fried rice with chopsticks. lol)

Another of David Cerny's pieces of work

My yummy delicious food

Ahaha! It says "toilet" in Thai...well, with English letters

-After a too-frothy cappuccino and a visit to the hong-naam, I ventured back out into the brisk March air, this time in search of Vyšehrad Cathedral. I didn't have to look far, as there were plenty of signs to point me in the right direction. Just before the cathedral and its stunning cemetery of famous/important dead Czech people, I stumbled upon a magnificent lookout spot with a breathtaking view down the Moldau river, and started contemplating a rash decision to come live in Prague simply for its beauty.

The view

Talk about the understated next to the overstated lol

-Once through the cemetery, I crossed a noisy (and windy) bridge to a street with no name (that I could see anywhere), so I turned right and followed my frostbitten nose until I found one that did. Matched it up on my map, then followed it along until I reached Anděl metro station which is in the middle of a busy shopping square with a once-a-month farmer's market in full swing out front. Irena was due to get off work soon, so I hopped on the metro, switched to the tram at Dejvická, and trotted 'round the bend to their place for a delightfully warm casserole dinner and an evening of youtube comedy sketches.

Farmer's market

The long escalator down to the metro