Prague

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Loving Prague so far, such a great city! Arrived Saturday afternoon and immediately warmed to the city despite the cold and overcast weather. Had to catch a bus and two trains to get to my hostel but even that was okay with no dramas or delays, the people on the trains were nice and my week long transport ticket to/from the airport and within the city centre was a bargain for around 12 aussie.

The hostel that Claire recommended is well located, well priced (20 aussie or so a night, on the high price for Prague but worth it) and is pretty funky inside - lots of polished concrete, exposed brick, a lift (!), free internet/wi-fi, really nice private bathrooms and the comfiest hostel beds yet. There are 4 beds in my room, first night it was 3 guys and 1 girl and now its reversed and I’m the only boy. There is a mother and daughter from Peru in the dorm - strange traveling combination for a hostel.

Saturday night I went into the city centre to check out the area, found myself a really lovely vegetarian restaurant (Lehka hlava or ‘Clear head’) and had fried goats cheese as an entrée and a huge bowl of pasta for mains - yum. Will definitely head back for another meal before I leave.

Sunday I went on a tour of the main sights of Prague just to get some history and perspective. Although the tour was a little run of the mill (showing the normal touristy places instead of getting to the heart of the city), it was still fun and interesting and met a decent group of people.

My old camera died the night before I left for Prague so I spent Sunday arvo buying a new one. With internet research done (Mum - I’m sure you will be disappointed to hear I didn’t use Choice magazine), the Sony DSC-W80 sounded the best bet - pretty pricey (and Prague is not cheap for electronic goods) but one of the best small mid priced digis. Fortunately the gang from the small firm I temped at last month gave me some Euro as a leaving present so that helped with purchase.

Resisting the temptation to be a geek and play with my camera all night, I headed out on a pub crawl Sunday, the USP being the promise of a shot of Absinthe. A pretty small group of us (10 or so) headed out at 8:30, made our way to the first bar for an hour of all you can drink beer and wine. The absinthe was apparently the good/proper stuff (Van Gogh on the bottle) and tasted really nice (pear flavour - yum).

We then made our way to several other bars, did some dancing and of course heaps of drinking. The crew were all pretty good, all aussies or yanks. Made friends with some yanks studying in Dublin, all 20 or so which made me feel like a grandpa - but I outlasted most of them (no passing out this time) making it back to the hostel at around 4:30, a decent effort.

Now that I had a camera (and fighting the effects of the night before), on Monday (today) I went and revisited some of the touristy spots to take some pics. I’m pretty stoked with the quality of the pics.

The Petrin Tower is a cute little replica of the Eiffel Tower and offers some stunning views of Prague.

The walk up to Petrin Tower (a half hour walk up some steep paths) snaked through some lovely park areas. The trees have all turned a lovely combination of reds, browns and yellows and there is plenty of greenery around. One lovely rose garden made me think of something out of Alive in Wonderland (delayed reaction from the Absinthe ???).

Prague Castle and St Vitus Cathedral are very impressive buildings, the Castle de its immense size and the Cathedral for the wonderful architecture (a mix of Roman, Renaissance and Baroque styles and took 600 odd years to complete).

Along the way I stumbled down the embassy area with some scary security precautions including stopping every car entering the street and check for bombs under the car with one of those mirrors on a stick and inside the car and the hood for bombs - didn’t think Prague was a terrorist hot spot.

Next was the John Lennon wall named as such as it was a focal point for the pro democracy movement following Lennon’s assassination in 1980. Protestors would write anti communist messages on the wall and the government would then paint over them and imprison anyone found writing on the wall. You can still write on the wall (apparently Yoko Ono has written on the wall) but no longer need to fear arrest (it’s a pity they couldn’t have arrested Yoko a few years back …).

Charles bridge is tourist mecca. A lovely bridge with statues dotted along the way representing various figures in Czech history all centering around the monarchy, religion, death and persecution or any combination thereof.

Old Town Square is another tourist focal point. Lots of shops, restaurants and interesting buildings. The Astronomical Clock is pretty cool and features a clock face that displays the time in current and ancient Czech formats and the sun and moon with another calendar face that shows the signs of the Zodiac, the ‘sun’ days and Czech ‘name days’.

The weather has been pretty bad, luckily it has only rained a little but it has been damn cold. I think the daily max has been around 7’c and might have dipped below zero last night. Not to worry, hopefully it will help prepare me for impending Manchester winter.

A quiet one tonight, hope to check (no pun intended) out some interesting museums and exhibitions tomorrow.

Bye for now. Pete

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Comments

[Claire]

Hi Pete Looks like you are doing a great job of seeing all the sights! So sorry I'm not there to show you around - but am having a great time in London! There is another great vegetarian restaurant called Beas - is indian - near the tine church just off old town square that is worth a visit if you can find it. Glad you found Clear Hear - is one of my favourites!!