Blogs from Bílá Hora, Prague, Czech Republic, Europe

War? A Battle in 2012? In Prague? Smoke swirled across the battlefield. Bodies lay, some moving, others on the ground as still as death. Women, camp followers, moved from body to body. For some there was nothing they could do but shake their heads and wipe a tear away. For others they offered drink to sate their thirst and for others they bound wounds. The battle ebbed back and forth. Cannon roared, muskets spoke, both sending great clouds of smoke into the sky. Men with pikes moved forward to meet advancing groups carrying battle axes and swords. What is going on here? This is 21st century Prague. Why the battle? Who is fighting? Why is a battle with medieval weapons being waged here? The Battle of the White Mountain The Battle of the White Mountain that ... read more

My first four weeks back in the Czech Republic have definitely been blog-worthy despite the fact that no travelling has really occured, it's been such a different and in many ways, heavy experience. Coming from an absolutely skewiff London which I ended up leaving a day later than I was supposed to because 3 inches of snowfall had closed Gatwick Airport for a day, to Prague riddled with at least 4 times this, and temperatures averaging around freezing by day and -5 by night, but then dropping as low as -20 on the nights when the clouds finally subside. The area I live in is somewhere between the airport, civilisation and hyper-civilisation. To the north is the sleepy, traumatised district Ruzyně, which gives its name to the airport and appears to have once been a tranquil, ... read more

Fully rested and bright and chippy from not drinking for the first time in perhaps 7 days, i woke up relatively early and went to get breakfast (something i would not usually do anyway) with Enda. In a surprise shock, Conor slept in. After Breakfast we did some research for getting out of Prague (those first few encounters had us hankering for Austria ((which by the way i can now say we were right to do)) which of course was the next step of our journey). Enda got talking to an annoying little fu#ker from Austria (most Austrians are lovely, but this guy was terrible) but i managed to avoid the little......guy.....for now. We went back up to Conor and got him out of bed before heading out to get our culure on. We took a ... read more