Weekend in the heart of Bohemia

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After a long winter it was time to get back on the travelling circuit again. Saskia and I decided we'd spend a weekend in the heart of Bohemia. We booked the flights and set off on the 3rd May.

Unfortunately, I wasn't really that on to it and didn't realise it was a Bank Holiday weekend, so we could have stayed an extra day, but as it was, we arrived later on in Thursday and stayed till Sunday evening.

When we arrived we grabbed a taxi to take us to our hotel. Saskia thought we were being kidnapped as the driver drove through town then out again winding through all these narrow backstreets. He had all these girlie club pamphlets in the back and we thought he might make us work for our fare. If he spoke any English, he must have been having a good laugh at us!

We did of course get to our hotel safely. We stayed in a really quaint hotel called Hotel Bonn (http://www.hotelbonn.com/) which was in a really quiet area of Prague while only a few tram stops from the city centre. As we arrived quite late we settled on a walk around the hotels vicinity and ended up at a local supermarket where we bought ourselves a picnic and gorged ourselves in our hotel room.

It's the first time me and Saskia had travelled together and the first time we've shared a room. I thought it prudent to warn her about my sleeping habits. I'm a very active sleeper and have a tendancy to chatter away and even get up and wander around. The next morning I realise it was lucky I'd warned her ;-)

We got up fairly early. Ok, it was a sleep in for me, but Saskia loves her bed so the compromise was that it was fairly early. The night before we had booked a tour and after a quick brekkie we went and met our tour van.

Prague is divided into 5 significant areas: - the Old Town, the New Town, the Jewish Quarter, the Lesser Quarter, and Prague Castle.

We started in the Nové Mesto (New Town) which according to this kiwi isn't really that new as they started building it in the 14th Century. Our first stop was at Wenceslas Square (Vaclavske Namesti), one of the main city squares. It's a really long boulevard which is regularly used for all kinds of rallies. When we got there, there was a massive student demonstration in full swing. The place was completely packed and it took ages for our van to fight it's way through. It was a little intimidating being surrounded by the boisterous student element. My guide book says the square holds 400,000 people. I'm not sure there were quite that many people, but there were loads! At the end of the square is a statue of the Czech hero, St Wenceslas on a horse. There are also a couple of plaques dedicated to the memory of a student who set himself on fire in protest of the Soviet invasion. It seemed a fitting place for the student demonstration.

Once we had fought through the student masses we met up with our tour guide and the rest of the group. Our guide was a native and it only took me about half an hour to figure out she was speaking English :-) Even Saskia struggled with the accent, and Saskia's Flemish rrr's already roll 5 times longer than anyone else's I've met! The guide knew her stuff though and once I'd got a hang of her accent, she filled us in on the history of the area.

We drove through the city, by the dancing towers of the Fred and Ginger building, past the National Theatre, over the Vltava River, through the Mala Strana (the Lesser Town), and then up to the Prague Palace (Praský hrad). This is one of the biggest ancient castles in the world and is perfectly situated up high overlooking the city. You can pretty much see it from most places within the city centre and the view from up there was amazing. The Palace complex is made up of the several palaces, the Royal Garden, galleries, the Cathedral, St Wenceslas Church, a convent, the Basilica of St George, and so much more. There was too much to take in on our tour, so we left with the plan of heading back to the palace grounds later in the day.

The tour then took us back through the Jewish Quarter and the Old Town Square - Staromestské Námestí. This place has a great atmosphere and is very photogenic :-) The Old Town Hall has a giant clock on the side of it, better known as the Astrological Clock. This clock is very intricate and tells not only the time, but the date, which isn’t too bad for something built around the 15th century. Every hour the procession of the apostles takes place (which includes a skeleton ringing a bell). Definitely a crowd pleaser!

We then strolled back to Wenceslas Square where we finished our tour. We found ourselves a very nice cosy pub which served goulash. One of our goals for the weekend was to eat goulash and we weren't disappointed. In Prague it's a thick rich stew with dumplings and is served with thick moist bread. It's absolutely devine especially when washed down by a local brew.

Went made our way back up to the castle later in the afternoon but it was just shutting up shop so we didn’t explore it much further.

We had made a booking to see one of Prague’s infamous Black Light shows so we headed back to the city centre for a quick dinner beforehand. I had a traditional Czech dish with pork, dumplings, and sauerkraut, while Saskia had more goulash. Glutton!

The Black Light show was very entertaining. It wasn’t the most professional show I’d seen, and I felt a little like I was at a school production, but it was clever. The stage is in darkness and the actors and props reflect the black lights for a cool effect.
We were pretty much done after the show so headed back to the hotel.

The next day we decided to head back to the castle. On the way we took a few more photos and had fun taking some ‘Find Saskia’ shots.
We then caught the right tram to the castle, but got off at the wrong stop somewhere way below the castle grounds. Feeling fit we decided to walk up. It should have been really easy, as you can see the castle from anywhere, but no, we got lost. We managed to find the Strahov Monastery where we met an English couple who asked us directions to the Castle. They were definitely asking the wrong people, and to top it off, the bloke commented how my English was so much better than his German! What! I don’t sound German. I don’t even speak German :-( His comment cause Saskia endless amount of amusement for the rest of our trip. And she is the one with the accent!

After wandering around lost for what seemed like ages, we finally found the palace grounds. Only to find out everything was just about to close. Go figure. We walked back down to the Lesser Town and explored Charles Bridge which is a beautiful gothic bridge which joins Old Town to Malá Strana. It is a popular place for artists to hang out with their wares and I bought a print that I absolutely love.

We found another cool pub with a cosy feel to it to have dinner. This time I had potato soup served in a hollowed out loaf of bread. Saskia didn’t have goulash this time.

We then went to explore the city centre further and came across Pragues Sex Machine Museum. What an odd place. The imagination boggled. I couldn’t figure out what you’d do with half the stuff. Was interesting though and me and Saskia had a good laugh.

We then planned to hit the town, but we were pretty much swamped by one stag do after another. The local beer is dead cheap. About 1NZD per pint. So it attracts the English men like flies to dead fish. And drunk English men aren’t the most attractive and their social skills don’t really rate, so we gave it up as a bad job and headed back to our hotel.

The next day we finally made it to the palace at a reasonable time. We bought a pass that allowed us into Vitus Cathedral, the Old Royal Palace, St George’s Basilica, plus much more. It’s a grand old place and definitely worth our three trips up there. We also visited Golden Lane which is an old, picturesque lane lined with very small and colourful houses where alchemists used to live long ago. It’s now filled with knights in shining armour.

We spent most of the morning there, then popped back into town for a quick lunch before picking up our bags and heading out to the airport for our flight home.

All in all it was a very successful trip. We managed to see many of the sites and enjoyed the Czech hospitality, plus we well and truly got our fill of goulash.

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Photos

Wenceslas Square
Looking up the boulevard that makes up Wenceslas Square

Milunić and Gehry
better known as Fred and Ginger

St. Vitus Cathedral
at Prague Castle

Spanish Synagogue
In the Jewish Quarters

Statue of Franz Kafka
Based on one of his early short stories "Description of a Struggle." Kafka wrote of a young man riding on another man's shoulders through the streets of Prague.

The Old Town Square
With the Church of Our Lady in front of Týn in the background

Church of St. Nicholas (Kostel sv. Mikulase)
There are 3 St Nicholas churches in Prague

Lost in the City
Ok, this was meant to be a clever shot of us looking at a map while being completely lost. If you use your imagination, you can just see it.

On Charles Bridge
Looking back towards Malá Strana