Day 4
Following a late breakfast, we set off back into Prague, again by tram. This time, we weren’t going to knacker ourselves up walking all day. We went for a drink in the same bar where we were mugged yesterday – just to show them that we had learned from yesterday’s spanking, yet found that the beers had gone up to 50 Zlotaks. That still compared favourably to what we would pay at home and anyway, it was pleasant sat by the river, watching the boats go by.
We then went and booked a ‘City Tour’ by bus. This took us to some of the places we had trudged around yesterday, but this time we had a running commentary this time and enjoyed our two hours very much. It was certainly the first time I had ever paid to follow a man with a yellow umbrella, especially as the sun was bursting with heat. To ease Ben’s hunger, we had a late-afternoon Bratwurst, a hot-dog sort of thing, which was disgusting. We then went to look around one of the larger supermarkets in Prague. Not air-conditioned, but cool, compared with outside. We found a deli-bar in the lower level, where beer was 12½ Zlotaks per 500ml glass – bonus! We settled in here for quite a while, watching the customers come and go and the intriguing antics of the serving lady. [See comment on yesterdays post]. We christened her Ludmilla. She was a large lady with a penchant, at quieter times, for sneaking pieces of meat out of the salads and into her tummy! As time went by, we saw each meaty salad become more and more meat-free.
Given one more drink, we may well have stayed here to eat (it wouldn’t have cost more than a fiver to feed all three of us) but Ben didn’t fancy anything they had (he likes meat), so we decided to go back to the hotel for food.
This was a mistake. The food was still buffet service, like breakfast and had probably been there about three hours when we got to it. The soup was pretty fair. If a little greasy, but the main course was a choice between pot-roast pork and lumpy meat in gravy with something else I cannot remember, but with sauerkraut and lots of boiled potatoes.
We got up early and set off for Berlin. Breakfasted and washed, we were off by 09:00am and called at a small supermarket to buy food and drink for the day. We saw people queuing to get in, but there were no queues in the shop – which was weird. So, Stephen and I went in anyway and picked up the food and drink we wanted. A small comedy occurred when we tried to buy 6 slices of a nice lean meat they had on display. No one spoke English, French or German (and of course we had no Czech), but we managed and even got laughs from all around. We then queued up to pay.
It was now that we saw what the problem was. The Czechs no longer needed to queue for bread, or for meat as these items are freely available – they queue instead for SHOPPING BASKETS! As one was discarded, it was taken up by someone else wanting to do their shopping. So, please remember, back in 1995, there was a shopping basket shortage in Prague. Perhaps if, instead of making gnomes for German men to take home after visiting the ‘Sexy Girl Fun Palace‘, they could have made shopping baskets?
We also had a ‘Czechout Girl’ teasing us (we think), she was so happy.
My even older Holiday Weblog 