Not long ago, we hopped off to Prague for a few days of R & R – which in this case meant research and relaxation. Research, as we wanted to look for the origin of a 19th-century painting we bought in Italy a few years ago. The antique dealer we bought it from said it came from an estate in Hungary. Upon further study, we saw the piece resembled the Nazarene era in central Europe and looked remarkably like the Madonnas done by Czech Artist, F. Tkadlik. Having been to Prague before, we did not venture up to the Castle area above the town. A truly, lovely area but as the wind and snow kept coming down, so not the place to be for this trip. Instead, we stayed in Old Town at the Cloister Inn, a three-star hotel with good value for the money – convenient, with breakfast and a large tidy room with excellent facilities.
We made ourselves familiar with the Metro, bus and tram system to get around but still found the maps given to us there wanting. So as usual, we used our Eyewitness Guide
to point us to the right modes of transit, sights and places to eat. This happened to be during an Easter week, there were several markets. The Easter market in the Old Town Square was very festive with yummy things to eat and some nice things to buy as well. We were quite taken with the hot Trdlo, a doughy desert rolled on hot pipes served with sugar. Puppets are quite the thing in Prague and we couldn’t resist a handmade little girl holding a lollipop for our granddaughter.
What we liked most was the experience of being in the old town and seeing the varieties of interesting cafes and coffee shops to be sampled. All in all, even though it was cold and a bit snowy, we had a great trip. We can highly recommend Prague for any time during the year!
