The Hotel Paris in Prague was our last opportunity for laundry until Munich, so we had the hotel do enough to get us that far and maybe to home. We got a fairly early start, and most of the day was dedicated to shopping for Lorna and Melissa while I caught up on writing and visiting. Last night Lorna and Melissa had done their reconnaissance and found good candidates, but today they had the whole city before them. Lorna wanted to go to the Prague Garnet Center for comparison before returning to Erpet to pay their price. Melissa wanted to do the same with regard to Cheryl’s Moldavite ring.
As far as the shopping went, the Prague Garnet Center won completely with better prices, free sizing, and free gold-plating, so that's where Lorna made her purchase: a cabochon garnet ring and a heart-shaped ring of dark Bohemian garnets. Melissa found a pendant for her friend Cheryl that was nice than the ring that she had seen the previous evening, and at a better price, too!
While they were shopping, when I caught up on my notes, I set out to explore some more of the city until early afternoon when I had a date to see our old friends Jana and Filipe at their new residence.
I came upon a medium-sized outdoor market that was packed with people shopping and eating, but it was not a farmers' market. There were a few stalls with fruits and a few with other food products, but there were more vendors of finished ready-to-eat foods, especially sausages and other pork products, and breadstuffs.
Nearby I found a blacksmith studio and shop where I declined to buy any of the assortment of medieval weaponry that was on offer. Not that I have any deep objection to battle-axes, I just have no use for one, and I could foresee only difficulties trying to get it home on the airplane.
In the afternoon I went to see Jana and Filip at their new residence, a lovely apartment on the 3rd floor, up 48 steps with no elevator! It was a 25 minute taxi ride, so it's a reasonable commute for them to work downtown. We had a great time with lunch and pastry, then talking about the new place, sitting inside and out on the balcony. They both enjoy music, and I got to hear them perform Girl of the North Country and other Bob Dylan songs, with Jana handling most of the vocals while Filip accompanied her on guitar. It was a wonderful afternoon, and we finalized plans to meet again on Monday on the train to Dresden.
Supper was late: an 8:00 reservation at Tony's Cafe and Bar, at the Hotel Paris. We shared two asparagus soups. (In May, asparagus is everywhere in Czechia, Austria, and Bavaria, in all sorts of preparations, and especially including the white form.) I got steak with pepper sauce and Lorna got trout, Melissa got a risotto. We'd been busy since morning, so after dinner we lingered, they over sweets from the display case and I also tried a rum Old-Fashioned from their cocktail menu but it didn't work out for me so well - I always return to the classics! Then we brought the day in for a landing up in our room to rest up for another busy day on the morrow, exploring the castle and the other side of the River Vltava.