Finally, a clear day

One of the items on list of places to visit was the Zizkov TV Tower. For the last three weeks the weather just did not cooperate and days were quite hazy - until today. We took advantage of the clear day and headed to the tower. The tower has an observation platform at 93 meters or 305 feet above ground and is accessible by a high speed lift that travels at 4m/s!

The views from the tower are spectacular. Here are a few pictures from today's outing.

The crawling babies are an example of some unconventional art by a Czech artist David Cerny. 

October 17 - Prague

Not much happening in the last couple of days. Both Cathie and I tried to stay in and get rid of this cold or whatever it was. Mostly bad cough.

I think we are now on the right path and both are feeling much better.

We ventured out on Friday night to catch some of the exhibits displayed during the Prague Signal festival. More here http://www.signalfestival.com/2016/en/ The Signal festival uses many different venues and primarily deals with lights, sounds, lasers and projections on various buildings in the city.

We did see some projections and some lighted kinetic art but mostly had a chance to take some photographs of some beautifully lit buildings.

Friday October 7th.

Both Cathie and I are under the weather. She has a sinus infection and I have a bronchial infection. For the last couple of days we pretty much stayed put and only went out if absolutely necessary (get groceries)

We have a little supermarket about 100' from our front door so shopping for food is easy. Today we hopped on the metro and rode it to a stop called "Andel" to a huge shopping centre in Prague to get some medications for our colds.

If I haven't mentioned it before, the metro stop here is very convenient as it is literally a two minute walk from the front door, the trains run every three and a half minutes during the day so we can be in the centre of Prague in about twenty five minutes.

We made a trip to Venceslas Square on Wednesday night to help celebrate, postmortem, Vaclav Havel's 80th birthday. This date also happens to be the same date that my cousin Milos was born.  

Since Milos has a birthday that ends with a zero, there is going to be a big party at one of the local tennis clubs tomorrow afternoon so we have to get better and get rested.

Hopefully the weather will improve so we can get out and do some sightseeing next week.

This is our building

The Kitchen

Living room

Dining nook

We are on the fifth floor and this is a view from our balcony. The structure to the left of centre is the Metro (subway) entrance.

Bedroom/office

Prague

Today was an easy day. We had to get some cash from the bank, stock the fridge with groceries, get our transit passes and a couple of SIM cards for our phones. The rest of the day was spent resting after the last sixteen days of go go go touring through Europe. If it does not rain tomorrow we will hit the streets and do some sightseeing and shopping.

Our apartment, rented via Airbnb, is very nice, it has all we need for the next six weeks. The building is located pretty much on top of a metro stop which makes it very convenient to get around this town, there is a supermarket and a deli across the courtyard and a couple of restaurants within a five minute walk. We are on the fifth floor so we have a bit of a view as well.

If I think of it I will post some pictures at a later date.

London

I just realized that I haven't updated this blog since Paris. Lot has happened since then. On Friday morning we boarded the Chunnel high speed train to London. We arrived at our hotel at around 2pm just in time to do a quick trip across the Westminster Bridge to take a few pictures of House of Parliament and the Big Ben.

Big Ben

House of Parliament

London Double Decker bus

Tower Bridge

Canada Gate at the Buckingham Palace

St.Paul's

London Phone box, don't see too many of them any more

London Eye

House of Parliament

On Sunday morning we were planning on taking the tube to Tower Hill which is the closest Underground station to the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge. We got our tickets and went through the turnstiles only to remember that we still had our room keys from the hotel and they were due back by noon as that is the check-out time. Since we already went through the turnstiles we couldn't go back as that would count as one trip on the tube and would have cost us ₤9.80! So we decided to see what we could in the two hours we had before noon. Did manage to see the bridge and the Tower of London. Unfortunately the Tower Bridge was closed to traffic and pedestrians due to filming.

In the afternoon we got our transfer to Heathrow and after passing security we had about three hours to kill before boarding but our 7:45pm flight was delayed and we did not leave until 9pm. My cousin did pick us up and by the time we got to the apartment it was about 1:30am. I hope he's ok as he had to go to work early this morning..

Hello Prague!

Paris - day 2.

Last day in the Eurozone for while. Tomorrow we're boarding the Eurostar hight speed Chunnel train on our way to London.

Today we spent driving around Paris with a local guide showing us most of the local landmarks. There were some photo opportunities along the way

Arc De Triomphe 

Eiffel Tower

At this point we left the group and took a nice stroll along the Seine to Ile De Cite and Notre Dame.

Notre Dame of Paris

From Notre Dame we rode the Metro back to our hotel had a simple meal of pizza and some past at an Italian restaurant just around the corner from the hotel.

Tomorrow London.

Paris

We arrived in Paris at about 3:45 and after loading our luggage on the bus we were driven to check in at our Hotel get a bit refreshed after a five hour train ride (at some points during the ride the train reaches 320 km/h on this 975 km trip)

A dinner and a ride around Paris was on the menu that evening including the ascent of Eiffel Tower to the second floor level.

Good night Paris