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Published: October 4th 2009
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Prague, Czech Republic
BUDVAR!!! aka, the other, better Budwieser... ahhh, delicious beer. Prague is said to be the most beautiful city on earth, and though I would personally have to disagree and say that Bruges was better, I would definitely agree that Prague has its moments. Parts of Prague were absolutely fascinating, but for me there were simply too many people, a fact that is pushing me towards the understanding that my Dad has been right all these years, the woods are perfect because they are quieter and certainly less chaotic.
When we first arrived in Prague we had two goals, a real meal and Czech Beer... lots of Czech beer. After having lived off sweetcorn and paprika chips (or various other nasty flavored European delicacies) we were in desperate need of some sort of sustenance of substance. The first night in Prague we had decided to camp at a city campground that was highly rated in the "Lonely Planet" book Della has used throughout her travels. The place itself proved impossible to find as we realized the SatNav also didn't work in the Czech Republic, and we didn't have a map that included the entire city. We knew that we needed to be above where our map ended, in no man's
Prague, Czech Republic
A bug that I found, cause I like bugs. land, but we had no idea what lay beyond the reaches of the useless map. We circled around the city ending up in a horse camp with an event going on and a gear box that made a terrible grinding noise whenever the car was put into reverse. After pulling into the camp and having to reverse out again when we realized that there weren't really any other cars driving through the area, we decided to ask for directions at a country club. Luckily they were nice enough to help, unluckily they thought we were walking and gave us directions back into the horse camp and over a footbridge, which was less than useful as the car simply didn't fit on that particular bridge. Eventually after another hour of detours and turning around we were able to get to the camp on the otherside of the bridge. After finding the campground, which was much like you would imagine, various campers and dirty looking hippys in camper vans, we set up our tent and set out in the direction of what we knew to be a liquor store in the hopes that food would also be on the horizon.
For
the first time in days we finally had a decent meal in an Italian restaurant, but we were so hungry we decided to get an appetizer in addition to our meals, which filled us up before dinner was even served. Again, luckily they had doggy bags, though they were given to us with a surly expression from our Waitress whom I assume was thinking "damn Americans." Then it was onto the beer, so many choices so little room in our bellies. The night was spent drinking Czech beer and making lists of what we wanted to do in the next 5-10 years with our lives, much like a bucket list, but with a narrower parameter. The following day we packed up camp and headed out to the hotel we had booked for the night so that we could begin our first real day in Prague (again with the added enjoyment of navigating with a quarter map and no street signs.)
Prague itself was amazing once we finally worked out the public transporation to get there. We used a method we had developed throughout the early part of the trip which generally seemed to get us somewhere, though not always
Prague, Czech Republic
Bustahut, one of the dirty hippy vans, filled with Australians. where we wanted to be, we picked a random person and followed them. Prague is split up into four different parts, New Town, Old Town, Prague Castle and the Jewish Quarter. We decided to start our walk in the Jewish Quarter which is home to the oldest Jewish Cemetary as well as one of the oldest still active Synagogues. We then worked our way through Old Town home of the Astronomical Clock, a giant clock on a church, which goes off every hour. The chime begins with a skeleton ringing a bell, and then various doors open at the top of the clock and mechanized people rotate through in a dance of time. We then worked our way over to Charles Bridge, one of the most famous parts of Prague. The bridge sadly was under construction as was most of the Czech Republic, so I was unable to get a picture of the bridge to match all the famous images of it. We then worked our way up to Prague Castle, where I got yelled at for bringing Ice Cream into the church, and back down into New Town where the Infamous Dancing House, aka Drunk House sits. We walked
for about 10 hours, probably at least 10 miles to land in an Irish Pub because we couldn't seem to find any other bar other than the Irish one, where we sat and had a few Czech beers before exhaustion overcame us and we had to once again figure out the public transporation to work our way back to the hotel, this time following a group of Japanese tourists who seemed like they knew where they were going.
The next morning we had planned to see more of Prague, but after looking at the distance to Berlin we decided perhaps it would be wise to leave earlier in the morning in order to ensure that we arrived in Berlin before they gave away our hotel room. As we were driving away from the hotel Della noticed that there was a warning light on in her car. We tried to go to the mechanics, but as they didn't speak English and couldn't be bothered to help, we decided we would just have it looked at in Germany... a decision that proved to be the wrong one. More on that later.
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Maggie
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