Prague and flight to Dubai - Saturday 6 August

Our last breakfast in Prague, and I only felt like eating the refreshing melon and some yoghurt, plus a cup of coffee. That dinner last night might be a good way to start a diet! Not a great night's sleep either, I ended up extending my walking pole and hammering on the ceiling above... It did the trick :-)

We had done a little packing, and had a taxi booked to take us to the airport at 12 pm. It was handy that checkout didn't need to be until that same time, because we wanted a short local look around, then showers, before finally packing. It was another hazy and very hot day.

We headed back up the short distance to Castle Square, and then in the opposite direction to the Castle. We found our way past the Loreta Church, in time to hear it strike 9 am with its bells playing a hymn.

Then a little further on we came to the Strahov Monastery and Church. Boy, was it hot! The guys decided to sit in the shade, but Jan and I took a fancy to looking at the Library. About 45 minutes later we emerged after viewing some amazing exhibits, including items in a collection that led to the idea of museums in the first place. Two rooms housed the library books dating from the 10th to the 17th century. The time, skill and effort that must have gone into hand-printing the words, and illustrating these books, usually Bibles, is amazing.

We had a quick look at the Monastery Church, through a grilled window because it was closed, and it looked beautiful. We then moved around to the garden area behind the monastery for some amazing views over the city (still looking very hazy though).

After this we took the downhill road to join up back with the road we were staying in. We sat in the shade of a small cafe's umbrella, across the road from our hotel and sipped smoothies to try and use up some of our Czech cash. We headed back to the hotel to shower and finish packing, then before we knew it, our taxi was there to whisk us to the airport, 25 minutes away.

We were about 40 minutes early for check-in, so Jan and I sussed out what food we could afford, and I could eat, to use up the last of the Czech money. It was back to McDonalds for me :-) ! We didn't mind the long wait till the flight. I found that, although my seat was supposedly a window seat, there was actually no window for my particular seat - just the fuselage. Luckily, I was able to turn right around and see a little of the view out the window for the seat behind me, with some obstruction from the wing. But I could see enough to get a great view of the Vltava River flowing through Prague, and the bridges crossing it - lovely!

Special diet and children's meals always get handed out first, and mine arrived, containing a delicious and genuinely wheat-looking bread roll and cream crackers (that style anyway). I questioned this and the hostess told me that some items had fallen on or off my tray so she wasn't sure how accurate its gluten free status was, although the hot meal was pre-labelled as GF so that was safe. I couldn't bring myself to eat the roll or crackers, and asked another hostess later, who went and checked. Again, uncertain, and upon conferring with a male steward, he felt he'd seen those crackers only on lactose-free meals. No one else on the flight was GF, so they couldn't compare. Interesting. So, I left both items, and had David's cheese and chocolate instead.

I spent the rest of the flight catching up on the blog, which I'd got behind with because of the migraine. This was time well spent because you soon forget the detail of what you did and saw, even a day later, and I do want to keep a record to refer back to.

We arrived a little early in Dubai, just before midnight. The screen on the plane had told us that our luggage would be found on carousel 11. It said it several times, Steve saw it too. So, that's where we headed, and waited and waited, also wondering why so few other passengers were waiting... Eventually, Steve went to look around and found our flight's baggage listed as sitting on carousel 3, and our bags were there - BAH! Off we went, through the gate for people who had nothing to declare, and wondering what we were supposed to declare anyway! My word, Dubai Airport is a stunning airport architecturally. And their system of organising huge numbers of people to get into the excellent taxis is wonderful, too.

We got to our hotel (the Pullman Mall of the Emirates) after a 20 minute drive. Our 'Executive King' room was on the 20th floor so the views across the Dubai haze were great, night or day. We weren't sure about wireless Internet access, it looked very expensive in the hotel information (not in a folder, but on our TV screen), but Jan found out that it is free for those of us in the Executive rooms. Buffet breakfast was also included in the price. We both had a good night's sleep.