Magical Prague

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Ok, so lets get it over and done with early - I love Prague!!! I had been really looking ofrward to these few days and it has lived up to my expectations. I love the interesting history, beautiful architecture and of course the food!!

The train ride again was quite enjoyable, passport control got on quite soon after I left Vienna and put another stamp in the passport - joy! It doesn't happen too much anymore. I was entertained again by fields and fields of sunflowers going by and there were 2 sweet Korean girls in the train carriage with me, one of whom gave me a Korea bookmark when we arrived - cute!

I jumped off the train ready to treat myself to a taxi and went to ask for info at the train station. The man behind the counter told me "taxi drivers in Prague are theieves" (confirming good old Lonely Planets advice) and advised me to get on 2 metro trains and a tram to get to my destination. I was a bit hesitant about this, carrying a back and front pack + food bacg....but I neednt have been as the transport system here is frequent here and quite easy to negotiate with the right map!

I jumped off the tram in the right place (thank goodness, my travel instincts are getting quite good) and found Grahame & Jenny's apartment. Grahame used to head up Vodafone Australia and Anni was good friends with him & Jen & has stayed in touch. When Anni told them we were going to visit Prague they offered to have us stay - so of course we couldn't say no! It turned out that they were actually going to be on holidays for most of the time we were there so they left the keys for us. The apartment is gorgeous and in a great location in Prague - about a 10-15 min walk to the Charles Bridge. As Anni wasn't arriving until later I took myself off on an orientation tour of Prague for the afternoon.

I walked down and found the Charles Bridge, then wandered through the back streets until I found the Old Town Square. I luckily stumbled upon the Astronomical Clock at 5 minutes to the hour so got to see it chime, complete with skeleton to ring the bell! i had a bit more of a wander through the jewish area and then decided to go home to meet up with Anni. We got dressed up and went and went in search of dinner.

By this time it was around 9.30pm and the town seemed to be fairly quiet....we remembered it was a public holiday on 5th & 6th July and hoped this is why places were quiet. We had to try a few restaurants before being allowed to order something so with lightening speed I decided on the duck and Anni the goulash...pretty easy really! The staff weren't especially nice to us and I was a bit worried this was how Czech people are in general. We deduced that the staff had actually technically stopped getting paid, and they were not gedtting paid overtime so wanted to get the hell out of there! i am pleased to report the duck was fab (just like the duck in Prague restaurant in Sydney, with dumplings and cabbage). We went for another walk to the old town square and grabbed some cocktails to sit & watch the crowd go by.

By 1.30am we were heading home and it was really quiet in the streets. Anni said she had never seen it so quiet and when we got to the Charles bridge it had about 4 people on it - weird!!

The next morning Nik arrived early from Greece where he had been with Anni and stayed on for a week or so. Anni went to meet him and brought him home and when he arrived he said he would come out and show me Prague while Anni had a rest.

We went to the Charles bridge, Old Town Square etc and we got to the Jewish quarter left me for a little bit as I wanted to see some things which he had already seen. I first went into Pinkas Synagogue which is an old synagogue that has been transformed into kind of a museum. On its walls are the names, birth dates and the dates which almost 100,000 jews went missing during the holocaust. It is a massive sea of names covering many walls and I got quite overwhelmed trying to find Eric's family name in the sea of names. I kept seeing the names and losing them when I blinked. It really brought home how many people were on those walls-I kept thinking about how all of these innocent people lost their lives in such a horrible way and for no reason. It was also an opportunity to be thankful and grateful that I have been fortunate enough to meet all of my family and grandparents.

Nik's tourguiding continued after the jewish quarter. This sounds good in theory, but he had actually been up all night on 2 different flights and hadn't slept, and at one stage decided to try and find a restaurant he & Anni had found on their previous trip. It turned into a bit of a wild goose chase as he took me on trams all over the city and to no avail! Exhausted we decided to trudge home and wake up Anni but grabbed a quick snack along the way. I had traditional garlic soup which to my delight had floating crutons and cheese on the bottom - woo hoo! Sure to cure any cold.

We got home to find Anni had just woken up and we got ready to go out...only to find Nik had passed out on the couch and couldn't be woken! Anni and I went back to the same place and ordered a typical Czech plate, with different meats, dumplings and cabbage. yummo! Our lovely waiter then talked us into homemade honey cake for dessert....it was a pretty easy job to convince us though!

The next day we got up and headed out for brekky, and then up to the Prague Castle. Anni & I hadn't been in there so decided to have a look. We checked out the actual Palace and I was amazed to discover that it is the biggest palace in the world, and it is currently being used! It is also quite fascinating as the first building was built on the site around 850, with the last building being completed in the early 20th century so there are a wide variety of different architecture styles.

This also carries over into the palace museum where they have artefacts from all of these times, the most interesting being burial shrouds that are hundreds of years old and still intact, and the crown of St Wenceslas who was also a king here.

After the castle we attended a concert in St Nicholas cathedral. The church has been on my list and Anni suggested that what better way to see the church than to hear a concert inside it?? The concert was choral and I have never been to a choral concert before, so was intrigued. In reality I was bored after about 10 minutes! Although it was Bach and Tchaikovsky, and I found the second half (Tchaikovsky) much more interesting to listen to. The accoustics in the church were amazing, and the church itself is pretty fabulous with elaborate baroque interiors and marble everywhere.

We then went on another search for the mystery restaurant to no avail and we had to stop it at some point and just pick a restaurant to go to which was ok - near the Charles Bridge & a bit touristy. By this time it was Friday night and Prague was packed with weekend visitors, including the obligatory groups of English guys on stag nights, who you can usually hear a block away due to their lager induced singing!!

On Sunday I left early and went up to St Vitus cathedral at the palace. The queues the day before had been huge so I decided to get there before opening (midday) which proved to be a good move as I got in straight away. St Vitus is a gothic church and amazing. The ornate spires & flying buttresses on the outside are beautiful and inside the stained glass was spectacular. In particular the chapel by Muchas was really interesting.

Anni met me afterwards and we checked out the picture gallery & grabbed some lunch. We then headed back into town for some internetting & in the cafe we were in I noticed Wimbledon was on. What joy to be (almost) in the right time zone to watch it! I decdied to go back to the flat and watch it on telly there.

After the game we headed to the restaurant Nik had been trying to find for the previous 2 days. He had jumped on every tram he could think of and finally found it - so close to where he had thought it was!! Anni and I had said that we would only go to this mythical restaurant if Nik could prove where it was, and he produced a digital photo of the tram stop which was good enough for us! It proved to be very worth the search!! This place is a brewery and restaurant in one. I had goulash (of course) while Nik tucked into a whole pork knuckle, and managed to finish it!! It was too big it evven frightened me. Anni & I then ordered fruit dumplings which i had been wanting to try all week & they didn't disappoint. This was all washed down with the local brew including sour cherry & blueberry beers!!

The next morning Grahame & Jenny arrived back just in time to say hello to Anni & Nik before they had to leave for the airport. I bade a sad farewell to them and a hello to Grahame & Jen. I then set out for an express day of sightseeing to make sure I had seen everything that was on my list.

First I did an Intro To Prague tour, which I would have liked to do on day 1 but not to worry. I cntinued my weird hex of having the tour guide all to myself! This time his name was Peter and he spoke qbout 7 languqges so was quite interesting. The tour was great and when we got to the Charles Bridge he informed me that it was 650 days exactly since they finished it - a special day to be there! A guide points out so many things you can never see yourself and as we both found we love Gothic architecture he pointed out many more relevant things. Another good thing about having a personal guide is I get to ask him all the questions I want so of course I took full advantqge of this.

I then headed to the Mucha museum to see its collection of Art Nouveau. I now think that this style of art is my new fave, alongside gothic. It is a pity that there was not more there but I will be sure to hunt some down in Paris, in particulqr the jewellery shop Mucha designed. Anyone been there?

As it was bucketing down when I finished Mucha it was perfect timing to go to the Communist museum. This is situated behind Prqgue's biggest McDonalds qnd in the Casino... anyone else think that is weird?? It was quite interesting, more like a displqy than a museum. The thing that stuck with me the mst was the propoganda the communists fed the people about the enemy and how they were going to use weapons of mass destuction to kill them, eg poisoinging the waterways, atomic bombs etc. Sound scarily familiar to what Mr Bush says??

After the communist museum I did some last minute shopping and can confess to having bought some czech garnets. When in Rome!! I headed home to find a fadin Jenny & Grahqme - they had both been up all night & Grahame had of course been intowork. Jen decided to stay home & Grahame & I went out for a quick bite. I hav never spent that much time with Grahame & so it was a special opportunity to catch up and ask many questions about living in Prague!

Yesterday I bade them fareell with a huge thank you and did a marathon day of travel - tram then metro to the airport then flight to Geneva, train to Lyon, then another tram & funiculaire. Needless to say I was knqckered!! I did however go out for the evening & I will save Lyon for my next post as this french keyboard is weird & very difficult to navigate - my brain feels totally fried!!








today brekky at home then St Vitus then met Anni for lunch then picture gallery. Walked down through golden lane.

Communist Museum they talk of the enemy who will use weapons of mass destuction and use poison to pullute waterways, atomic bombs to kill many people etc. Sound familiar??

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Comments

[Georgie D]

Love your work!
Hey Anj, I'm loving your entries - man you do your research - these blog entires are becoming my weekly global fix in the same way Uge takes me away from the office with aquabumps, you take me around the world with the blog!! G x