Kinda Gorgeous

This is a bit like my first visit to Manhattan in 1982. It took a while to warm to the place, but then it was all love and roses.

I think I'm annoying the kids because I keep pointing to narrow side streets with pastel-coloured buildings in paroxysms of delight. It's just so pretty.

On our walk to Petrin Hill, we saw the swans at their morning ablutions.

The plan was to go up the tower. We decided to forego the lift, and so climbed two hundred and ninety-nine steps.

I counted.

The view was pretty fantastic from the top.

The lower station doesn't look that far away, but trust me, it is.

I'm somehow fascinated with the view from the inside through the latticework of the struts.

We then walked down the hill to Strahov Monastery and brewery, where we had another lengthy and delicious lunch, and then walked to Old Town.

My daughter the college graduate (every time someone might by a lengthy stretch of the imagination be said to be crossing her, she inserts "I have a BA". It's quite cute actually) is quite the traveller, but definitely has a different sense of what she likes to do. I could probably spend a week here, going into every museum and church and old or vaguely interesting building and looking at neighborhoods and just walking around, whereas she won't see "old" art unless it's really seminal, like the Mona Lisa (she went neither to the Van Gogh nor Rijksmuseums in Amsterdam), and has to be dragged to churches.

My son is even less interested, unfortunately. He wants to relax. I think he could have done that at home. Yes, you could say there's not quite as much congruence as I'd hoped for, but perhaps it's a question of aligning expectations.

I might have to come back sometime by myself, so I can get to all the places I'll be missing this trip. I should start planning, because otherwise it might not happen.

After lunch, the boys went bobsledding (yes, I said bobsledding, no, I don't know why) while us girls went to have pedicures in the way of fish nibbling on our feet.

Yeah, ok, I know it's a stupid tourist gimmick, but we're on vacation and I've never done anything like that and it was mother-daughter bonding, and now that's one thing I can cross off my list of Things To Do Before I Die (it wasn't actually on the list) but my daughter plans on looking into buying a set of our own private pedicurists. Personally, I think they'd need more than twenty-five minutes to make an appreciable difference to my feet, but it did feel kinda good.

Before dinner we had time to see the Mucha and Dali exhibitions, both of which I really enjoyed.

After dinner (wild boar with potato croquettes, yum, yum) we passed through another pretty subway station.

Did I mention that the weather turned gorgeous?

And that tomorrow is our last day here?