We finally left France behind us with a short flight to Prague, where we stayed at the same excellent hotel that we stayed at last year, in the very same room!
We got packed up, and then Lorna and Melissa had breakfast at the cafe next door while I drank coffee. We were to fly out from Orly Airport at 2:35 PM, and on the advice of the front desk, I ordered a taxi for 10:30. I thought that was early, as it's just a 30-minute drive under normal conditions, so we'd be three and a half hours early to Orly.
She was right. The 10:30 taxi arrived at 10:50 due to a partial taxi strike, and traffic was a terrible tangle, especially near the airport. We were early, but not very early.
The flight from Orly to Prague on Transavia TO4398 was a good flight after late boarding, and it took just an hour and 40 minutes to cross half of France and all of Germany.
The Hotel Paris Hotel sent a car, and we were unpacked and ready to explore Prague an hour later, It's a little confusing that we had just left Paris and we were staying in the Hotel Paris, but that's the name of the place. We'd stayed there a year previously on our previous trip, 2024 - Czechia, Austria, and the rest of Italy and it suited us perfectly, so I had made this reservation as soon as we knew it would be a destination for this trip. The room was on the first floor, which in Europe means the first floor above the ground floor, what we call the second floor. It was spacious and comfortable, with plenty of electrical outlets for getting recharged literally while we recharged figuratively.
We had supper at Tony’s Cafe and Bar, in the Hotel Paris. Lorna fondly remembered the excellent trout she'd had there in 2024, and in 2025 they did not disappoint. I got an excellent guláš (goulash) and Melissa got a fitness salad, and they shared an apple strudel. The wine list at Tony's is excellent, but we wanted to get out exploring, and after a busy travel day a glass of wine might have put me to sleep. The shops in the historic center of Prague were open late, many of them until 11pm!
Melissa went shopping for a moldavite ring for her friend Cheryl. Moldavite is a local gemstone formed by a meteorite impact 15 million years ago. Lorna was on the hunt for Czech art glass and classic dark red Bohemian garnets. If you like shiny things, you can't do better than Prague! In fact, Lorna had drawn up a list of items that she expected to find.
That evening's explorations were mostly getting reacquainted with the city and its shops, we expected to do some preliminary scouting and then do the serious shopping the next day - but they were both successful! And I got a deck of cards for the gin-rummy-playing baristas at Kiskadee, my local coffee shop.
With my shopping finished, I sat at an outdoor cafe and sipped a Legendario Cuban rum, across from the amazing Orloj, a medieval astronomical clock. It's over 600 years old! It shows the time and date plus the location of the sun and the moon, and it has a supporting cast of Catholic saints and a specter of Death to strike the hour.
Lorna and Melissa had gone into Erpet, an incredible and huge shop of glass, jewelry, and assorted knick-knacks and home decor. I knew from last year that I wouldn't see Lorna again for an hour or more, at which point I'd be taken on a guided tour of all of her favorites.
After a while, Melissa joined me, she had a delicious mint tea. Near 11pm Lorna came to get me for the tour, because the shop would be closing soon and she wanted me to see everything on her wishlist! On the walk back to the Hotel Paris we saw some irresistible fine sweets at Cerná Madona, which we failed to resist and enjoyed back at the hotel.