Advertisement
Published: April 20th 2012
Edit Blog Post
Misty Prague #1
Walking over Charles Bridge Usually with my trips overseas, I aim to get back on the Sunday night to maximise time abroad, but on this occasion, I arrived back on Friday morning. The first reason was that I moved into a new flat for my last 8 weeks in London. The second, and more important reason was that the Rugby World Cup Semi-Final was on Saturday morning. I met up with Renee, who was visiting London, and headed bright and early to the bar to witness one of the best All Black performances in my memory - and against Australia no less! A World Cup final beckons.....
After a week of catching up with friends, Sunday morning arrived and I, like more than 1,000 others was at the Walkabout at 7am to get a prime spot for the World Cup final against France. Clay, Meg and Ben joined me and by kick-off, we were packed in so tight, we literally couldn't move. As the game progressed, we moved from euphoria at Tony Woodcock's try, to frustration at missed kicks, relief when Stephen Donald put us 8 points up, anxiety and a sense of panic when Dusatoir scored for France, butterflies-the-size-of-elephants nerves, and unbridled elation
Prague #1
Old Town Hall and Astronomical Clock as the final whistle went and the Cup was finally lifted above Ritchie's head. There were videos of me screaming with relief when the final whistle went but even they couldn't capture the emotion. The day got even better as Man City dealt to manchester united 6-1!
Despite not having a public holiday on the Monday like New Zealand, I still had a wide grin on my face as I turned up to work on Monday, and still do writing this! The week crawled by, but at the end of it I flew out for a new country and my second to last big trip of this OE. I headed out to check out the Czech Republic (See what I did there?.... I'll get my coat.). I landed in Prague and headed to my hostel on a misty evening and by the time I had dropped my stuff off, it was already after midnight but despite that I decided to head into the Old Town and have a look around. In retrospect, I probably should have waited! It is said first impressions stick with you and I would not have liked mine of Prague to be of drunken stag
Old Town
Impressive church in the main square and hen parties drifting around the streets and people throwing up everywhere. Though if I looked up above the headline to the buildings, the gothic architecture was perfect for a Halloween weekend.
With only two days here, I was up early the next morning and headed to the Old Town Square where I joined a couple of back to back walking tours. As the mist cleared and the sun came out, the first walked us around sights like the famous St. Nicolas Church, Wencelas Square and the Astronomical Clock - which has been voted one of the worst tourist attractions in the world, and according to our Czech guide, he agrees! Though the tour was fascinating, my favourite was definitely the second half as we went over the Charles (Karlov Most) Bridge and up to the Prague Castle and the church of St. Vitus. They were some incredible buildings with great views looking back over the Old Town. In the evening, I avoided the drunken hordes and went for a ghost tour - it was Halloween after all. It was pretty interesting but didn't give me nightmares.
The next day I joined the tour out to Kutna Hora.
Old gate
Part of the only remaining section of the old city wall Kutna Hora is a small little town in the countryside made famous by one thing. A church with various crests and objects made of human bone. Back in the days of pilgrimages to the holy land, a priest brought back some soil from the holy land and sprinkled it over the church grounds. Because of this people came from far and wide to be buried here as they thought it was a sacred place and guaranteed them access to heaven. Eventually the number of bodies grew too great and a specialist was called in to organise the bones in a way to maximise space. With this in mind, he created several pyramids of human bones, various other objects like the crest of the sponsoring family, and even a chandelier! Despite (or more accurately, because) of the morbidness, I found it fascinating.
But there is only so long you can star at bones and after a short tour of the rest of the town, we headed back to Prague where I picked up my bags and was quickly on my way back to London with only one trip left of Europe. It's starting to hit home!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.108s; Tpl: 0.054s; cc: 11; qc: 25; dbt: 0.0439s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb