Here it is: our flight from Philadelphia to London was too darned short.
BA’s business class is perfectly comfortable. The meal was okay. It’s just that a six-hour flight from the eastern U.S. to LHR gave us little time to sleep. Kathy might have dozed for an hour, and Brian spent his time watching reruns of Curb Your Enthusiasm and sporadically texting, a service free to passengers who sign up via their BA mileage program account.
Once landed (a few minutes early), it was a longish taxi to the gate, and a 20-25 minute wait for a ramp crew to guide us in.
Once “deplaned,” we found LHR’s Terminal 5 fairly uncrowded and soon we were aboard a bus taking us the 10 minutes or so to Terminal 3, home of some great OneWorld lounges.
Security was a relative breeze, and before long we were ordering breakfast in Cathay Pacific’s marvelous First Class Lounge.
Champagne is obligatory.
Soup for Kathy and Dim Sum for Brian…
We each followed up with excellent Eggs Benedict, washed down with more Champagne. Below is actually Brian’s Salmon Benedict.
We even found some decent chairs hidden away in one corner. We’ve found the chairs problematic on previous visits.
From there it was mercifully only a two-hour flight to PRG in BA’s knee-punishing European business class seats.
Immigration didn’t take too long, and David, an ex- pat Britisher, was there from Prague Transport to greet us and deliver us to the Prague Old Town Hilton.
As a bonus, he offered us a friendly and helpful introduction to the city. One key takeaway: violence is rare, but beware of pickpockets.
Checkin at the Hilton included the pleasant surprise that we’d been upgraded to a one-bedroom suite. It’s terrific.
We briefly napped, visited the Executive Lounge at Happy Hour, and went to bed early, sleeping fitfully after Midnight.
The next morning, having slept in, we set off to wander around the Old Town, stopping for a filling lunch at the U Sopa Brewery and Pub, duck confit for Kathy and a beef roll with a giant dumpling for Brian.
Beer is a very big deal in Czechia, and this pub is a prize winner.
We started with crunchy sauerkraut salads.
Kathy relished her duck confit, topped with dried garlic.
Brian’s beef and dumpling was complemented by the sauce.
After lunch, we managed some scenic gawking before retreating to the Hilton.
The famous Astronomical Clock…
The Charles Bridge was uncrowded, compared to other times.
This morning we hopped on Tram 15 (transport free for 65+ including foreigners),
We crossed the river, and detrammed (if deplaned is okay, detrammed should be too) six stops later, and met up with Vladimir of Prague Foodies.
We spent four hours on an enjoyable private food tour of the Old Town, visiting a pub, a butcher, a baker, and a candy maker, among other establishments.
We walked the length of the Charles Bridge in the opposite direction from yesterday’s stroll, as we headed back toward the Hilton,
We tried out samples everywhere.
Here’s a pub located in a former bank.
We finished up sharing a fancy pastry (all we could handle at this point) in a cute little candy and pastry maker.
We thanked Vladimir for an enjoyable afternoon, finished the day with a brief visit to the Executive Lounge.
We already have a better sense of Prague than we did on our first visit upwards of 20 years ago.
Tomorrow should be a treat, a performance of Mozart’s final opera, The Magic Flute. It takes place at the Estates Theatre, used in the filming of Amadeus.
Mozart himself conducted the premiere of another of his operas, The Marriage of Figaro, and it’s the only theatre still standing in which he performed.
First, we’ll hope for a good night’s soup. No snoring in second act!
