Quadrio Shopping Centre
At Quadrio was was one of the sights that we had just been recommended to see – the rotating head of Franz Kafka.
Lunch inside Quadrio
Inside, we stopped for a rest and to have a quick lunch. I chose Bombay Express in the food courtyard and had a chicken tikka wrap plus a bottle of Indian beer – delicious.
Rather than retrace our steps to the river. We walked down Spalena until we reached Resslova. This was the road on which the Dancing House stood near to the river.
The Cathedral of Sts Cyril and Methodius
By chance we came to an Orthodox cathedral on Resslova and there we saw the entrance to a museum in its crypt.
This museum remembered the Czech participants that were killed there after Operation Anthropoid. These were the SOE agents who had assassinated the Nazi governor, Reinhard Heydrich, in World War II.
Inside, we read about the background to the attack, the attack itself and the reprisals afterwards, and then the siege that took place under the cathedral.
We then went through a very large iron door to enter the crypt itself. This was where the betrayed agents were cornered. They all died in the subsequent siege.
The Dancing House
When we reached the river again, the so-called Dancing House was on our left.
On our side of the street there was a patch of worn grass with a dozen or more tourist taking pictures of the building.
Over the Jiraskuv Bridge
Below us we could see one of the weirs on the river.
Behind us we an alternative view of the Dancing House.
We watched the birds resting on the bridge’s piers below us.
On the banks of the river were these two towers.
Metro back to our hotel
By now our step count was very high and rather than walk back to our hotel the plan was to walk to the nearest Metro station and to ride back. We knew from our paper map and Google Maps that we were on the correct road after we crossed Ladika. We eventually asked a couple where the station was and they pointed to the building in front of us! The signs in the entrance were all hidden behind a Christmas market.
This was a very busy station and I’m not sure our holding up the queue while we worked out how to get our tickets was much appreciated. Then we were confused that tickets didn’t seem to be needed to get through to the down escalators and the platform below.
Once at our destination, we came out onto Celnici and there was the Prague Hilton hotel where I had stayed years before for a conference.
Walking back to our hotel we came to the small Christmas market and had another look at the stalls in the daylight.