European Escapade 7: We Love Acid Rain!

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Prague, Czech Rebuplic: August 10th - August 13th

We stopped off for a quick meal on the way back - Vaughan had a kebab & I had a schnitzel burger - really nice as well. We made it in plenty of time to get our stuff & find our way to the train station south of the city (not the same station where we had arrived), to venture off to Prague. The trip out into the countryside was nice - we had to deal with a lot of border guard/police stuff, as the Czech Republic was the only country on our itinerary not part of the EU, but we finally got some stamps in our passports rather than passing from country-to-country without any stops. Once we reached the Czech border it became very pretty with the sunset in the background. There were a number of small towns set around a flat town centre, with the centre-piece of the town (usually the cathedral), sitting on a wee hill in the middle. It got dark a lot earlier than we had expected (guess the Summer seemed like it was already coming to an end), & we arrived in Prague very late in the evening. The train station was quite large, but it was underground with a low ceiling - it was hot & quite claustrophobic. Our introduction to the place was seeing a drunk homeless guy keel over & start convulsing on the ground - welcome to Prague! AT least the paramedics got there quickly & there were quite a few of them - they are probably used to this kind of thing. We couldn’t find much open but managed to get some money out. Apart from Switzerland, the Czech Republic was our only other destination to have their own currency (everyone else uses the Euro), & it was also ridiculously cheap. Because of the time of day we arrived we caught a taxi from the station & headed off to our hotel. It wasn’t right in the centre of town, but not too far away & it didn’t take long - on arrival we had the same problem as at the last place - we entered the room we had been given only to find that someone else was already in it. Very bizarre! We got it all sorted out in the end, being able to stay in a really nice (luxury) room because of the cheap currency. The hotel was not a big place but it was so nice, with antique furniture & lots of refurbishment. Our room was quite large, with a TV that doubled as an internet computer so you could have your own connection in your room, as well as a spa bath in a large bathroom - nice!). It was really comfortable & I felt spoiled! I managed to flood the bathroom out with bubbles by accident - whoops, but it was a nice end to a long day. Good stuff!


Day 17 - Our first full day in Prague started off with our first cooked buffet breakfast in some time, which Vaughan was very pleased with. I’m certain we ate far more than our fair share of bacon (in fact, enough to feed a third-world country), but that’s what it’s there for I guess! From there we went for a stroll into the city, to get our bearings & have a general walk around. I looked in the Lonely Planet guidebook to find out a bit about Prague to find the following:
‘Acid rain caused by air pollution from intensive industry has damaged the forests but the situation has improved since the fall of communism, and once filthy rivers have since been cleaned up’. Nice! Our walk into town took us next to the Vltava River for most of our journey - this river divides the city in two, & there are several large bridges across to the other side, one of them being Charles Bridge, which is right below Prague Castle, & the main tourist area of Prague. The river itself has a lot of weirs in it, so there are also a lot of locks, so that boats can pas along the river. The water itself was quite brown, with some debris in it, but it was not as bad as the Thames River (back in London), & there were a lot of swans & other birds swimming in the water. The walk was fairly pleasant & we got a good view of Prague Castle from a distance (it’s on a hill). We wandered towards Charles Bridge & it was so much busier there with the summer tourists than I had imagined. The whole bridge was packed with people & you could hardly walk. Along the sides of the bridge were all kind of stalls selling great art & photography, as well as artists who will do a portrait of you in 5-minutes (they were awesome!). There was even a jazz band about halfway along the bridge, playing local-style music on old instruments - really fun! The bridge had heaps of statues on the side of it, & it was kind of cool walking around there, with the castle in the background. We reached the other side of the bridge, right below the castle, & had a look around Mala Strana where the shops specialised mostly in crystal & glass products, made locally, which were of a very high standard. We visited a large cathedral called St Nicholas Church, which was amazing - it was all decorated in renaissance & baroque style inside, with these huge coloured marble columns - really awesome for a bit of a look around.

From there we headed back across the bridge (leaving the castle for another day) & towards Stare Mesto (Old Town), which is the main tourist area. We just kind of wandered around all the small cobblestone streets, looking in the wee tourist stores & at all the buildings. Prague is known in Europe to be one of the most beautiful & historic places left in this part of the world, due to it escaping any bombings during WWII - this means that many of the buildings you see in Prague are much older than many other places in Europe. While a lot of the city was fairly run down, you could easily see how amazing many of the places must have been in their day. A lot of the architecture is still very colourful, with many buildings in greens, blues, oranges & yellows, not to mention all the old cathedrals & clock towers that are still standing. I imagine that in winter (when it snows), it is one of the most beautiful cities on earth, & I have heard this echoed by many people I have been in contact with over here. Unfortunately, because it is an Eastern European country, it is still very cheap - this is good on the one hand, but on the other this means it is being exploited in some ways, mainly by drunken English males on a bucks weekend, or those who just come to party in general. They don’t care at all about the culture or anything else really, so many locals can seem quite turned off to Westerners, but we noticed that they were very excited to meet us, once we could get through to them that we were not from the UK - very interesting!

Stare Mesto was quite awesome, with many older buildings & a quaint feel about it. The main square was under some refurbishment, but the feel of it was great, with this incredible Astronomical Clock, which chimed every hour & drew large crowds, as well as a couple of cathedrals, plenty of outdoor cafes & some more horses/carriages, all looking fancy & ready to take tourists around the place. We watched the Astronomical Clock strike the hour, with all the wee bits & bobs spinning around on the face of it (& a mini-skeleton-type character ringing the bell on the side) - the face of it was on the side of a large clock tower, but it was not right up the top of the tower (there was a normal clock face up there). Instead, it was right down the bottom, almost at eye level, on the side of the tower - unusual, I thought. From there we wandered a bit wider around Stare Mesto & then walked over to the Jewish Quarter where we saw a Jewish Cemetery through a hole in brick wall surrounding it - the tombstones looked very uncut & kind of just like randomly placed square-shaped stones. It was interesting to see that kind of thing though, but it was a shame we couldn’t go right inside to have a better look.

When we had finished there we walked back through Stare Mesto & up into Nove Mesto (New Town) which was very close by. The centre of this area was the main street known as Wenceslas Square, which was mainly filled with ‘high street’ stores, as well as a few tourist ones. It was more of a commercial & shopping area, rather than a tourist area for trinkets & quaint charm. I tend to enjoy the Old Town areas much better so after a bit of a look-see, we headed back towards the older areas. We had heard that the better restaurants (cheaper/local food) were usually very near the tourist areas, if you were willing to walk just a block behind the main stores &off the beaten track just a little. We had actually seen one very close to our hotel which also advertised an English menu (very important, believe me!), so instead of staying in the city, we walked back (it took about 30 minutes from our hotel to the city area) & dropped our stuff off at the room before heading to the pub-type place which we counted as 50 steps from our door!

I have to say, I am so glad we went there & I know Vaughan was too. The staff were very helpful & spoke good English. We had beer/wine, & two huge meals for a ridiculously small amount of money. I had a traditional dish of goulash & dumplings, while Vaughan had the roast pork leg (of course), which came as in 1kg portions (!!) - Vaughan was devastated, as I am sure you can imagine, when the waitress came out & said that they only had one left which was 1.4kg!! It was a mammoth thing sitting in the middle of his plate, & the food was all presented really nicely, not just slapped on the plate like a lot of British food. We stayed for quite a while, as the locals got rowdy & Vaughan tried to finish his meal (which he succeed in doing eventually). It was really, really pleasant, although the bar was nothing special in itself - nice to be involved in local-type things. It was an excellent meal at the end of a long day’s walk. Of course, I wasn’t finished yet, & made sure I used the spa bath to soak my poor feet!


Day 18 - We had the idea to head to the main train station for a venture out into the countryside to a nearby town called Kutna Hora, where there was meant to be some relics made of bone, as well as a church (yes, the whole building)!! I am not too sure about the history of Kutna Hora, but I do know that about 40,000 human bones were used to make the church. I just thought it would be an interesting daytrip, visiting something probably not found in too many places around the rest of the world. Unfortunately we could not get the train timetable to work for us, as we would either only be able to stay for about 50 minutes (too short), or for 8 hours (way too long). In the end we reluctantly flagged our idea & decided to go to Prazsky Hrad instead (Prague Castle). We ventured back through Wenceslas Square & across Charles Bridge to get there, before climbing about a million stairs to get up to the top, where the castle was sitting on the hill. The view from up the top was incredible - there was a small lookout area in front of a square which led to the gates of the castle. You could see all of Central Prague, with the river snaking with through it, crossed by several large bridges. Of course, the older, larger buildings stood out against the skyline & although it was a bit hazy in the distance (probably all that acid rain), it was quite fantastic! We arrived just in time to see the Changing of the Guard - it went for quite a period of time (about 15 minutes) & we had a good view from our spot near the barriers. I thought it was the best of that type of ceremony that I had been to. There was a lot of shouting & marching, with several people from different groups changing places & stamping their guns on the ground. The best part was when the windows of the front of the castle swung open & there was a brass banding standing there, two people to a window. They cranked up the music & it was very upbeat & really quite cool. After a bit more marching around down the bottom, the guards eventually switched over, & the brass band pumped out a few more songs from up at the windows - I really enjoyed myself, & Vaughan commented that it was much better than the Changing of the Guard that we had seen in Monaco.

After we finished there & the crowds diminished a bit, we went into the grounds & had a look around at a few of the things you could see for free. We bought some tickets to see most of the features inside the castle & ventured off for a look at the Torture Museum, which had all kinds of suits of armour & crazy weapons that could do two things at once (like sword-guns, axe-guns, & crossbow guns - very cool but hard to explain!). The museum was housed in the walls of the castle, & you could look out all the wee gaps that the archers would use to fire arrows, & down into the fantastic gardens below. From there we had a look around Golden Lane, at all the old merchants cottages, also built into the walls - very cute, but impossible for Vaughan to fit inside! Prague Castle itself was a bit of a funny building - in fact, it was really a whole pile of buildings all joined together, over time. There were the walls around the outside (some of which had buildings things inside them, as I just mentioned), then all kinds of administration & housing, as well as a convent & cathedral, originally built around the outsides (apart from the cathedral) - over time all these buildings have been joined together, forming a square around the outside, & then a few sections sticking out into the middle to join the central buildings. Because all the buildings are joined together, this makes Prague Castle the largest castle in the world of its type. While the overall size is very impressive, it looks kind of funny with the mishmash of colours, buildings & roofs.

We had a look around the grounds & then Vladislav Hall (part of the original Old Royal Palace) - the floors were wooden & it seemed really quite ancient, like something out of a book. This building had a great balcony offering views of Prague as well. At this point Vaughan managed to cause problems with my large camera, & while changing the film, somehow stopped the camera from working altogether. This means that we don’t have too many pictures of Prague Castle (without the digital camera either), & yes, I have banned from Vaughan touching pretty much anything electronic &/or expensive for the rest of his life! He will need to communicate with you all telepathically from now on! We made it inside St Vitus Cathedral & up the 279 steps of the spiral staircase to the top, for an amazing view of absolutely everything. It was very busy at the top & people were crammed together trying to take photos, but it was very impressive. Going down the stairs seemed almost as much trouble as coming up however, & Vaughan smacked his head a number of times - there wasn’t much room & the people going up were competing for the single lane space with the people going down - quite a mission! At the bottom & back in the church itself, we had a bigger look around - it was quite massive & there was a large area up the front with underground crypts & all kinds of statues & monuments dedicated to past royalty - everything was adorned in gold & it was certainly the most visually impressive building & interior we had seen on our travels. We quite enjoyed the whole experience of the castle, as there wasn’t jus one thing to see, but many buildings, exhibits, & several gardens. You could probably spend twice as long there as we did, but we found that our 4 hours there passed very quickly.

After we walked back across Charles Bridge (it was starting to rain a little bit), we decided to go for some cocktails, so we ventured first to a cocktail bar (which proved to be out of stock of pretty much anything that would make it a cocktail bar), & then right into the city to a Cuban place where we finally managed to get a drink. We had planned to also visit a specific restaurant in town that was advertising over 200 dishes of local cuisine, in a local-type environment - it was on a sort of side street so we were thinking it should be priced fairly well too, but when we got there, they said that there was only 5 dishes out of the 200 available - madness! It seemed that Prague had a lot on their menus, but couldn’t actually provide most of what was on it. In the end we decided to go back to the wee pub by our hotel, as we knew they had everything on the menu, it was cheap, & we enjoyed the food. We got the same thing as we had ordered the night before, except we swapped meals - luckily for me there was no 1.4kg roast, as I could never have eaten that much, although I am sure Vaughan would have finished it all off for me!! We enjoyed ourselves just as much as the evening before - it really was just a relaxing local place, where you were made to feel quite welcome by everyone there. It was probably the tips we would leave, which was a lot to them, but hardly anything to us. Really excellent, not to mention the nightly spa bath - since we were leaving the next day it was my last opportunity to flood the bathroom with bubbles!


Day 19 - Today we had a few hours to kill in Prague before heading off to Berlin in the early afternoon. We didn’t really have anything planned so we just wandered around in town & bought a few bits & bobs for people in the tourist shops. We managed to fit in a horse & carriage ride (yay!), which I had been hoping to go on the whole time we were away - Prague was also cheaper for this kind of thing as well. The ride went for 20 minutes & just took us around the city centre, but it was really nice & we were glad that the rain held off long enough for us to go. It seemed like a really pleasant end to our visit to such a beautiful city. We made it back to the hotel in time to pick up our bags & then take the metro to the other train station (a different one from where we had come in) - we were off to Berlin!

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