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Published: August 6th 2008
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I arrived in Prague at 9:30pm on the night of the Euro 2008 final. I met Martin (my Czech flatmate from London) at the train station, and we took the underground to the flat we were staying at, owned by a friend of Martin's Dad. We met the owner to grab the keys, dropped our stuff off, and went to the pub for a one dollar fifty pint (!) (a good one at that) and watched the end of the game. Spain beat Germany, and people seemed to like that. Maybe there's some anti German sentiment still lingering from WWII...
On Monday we went into the city, Martin showed me the touristy Wenceslas square, which is as expensive as any European city. A few tube stops out, everything is about one third the price. We then went to the old town, Charles bridge, (named after the Czech's most famous son, Karel Quatro, former Holy Roman Emperor) and then to Prague Castle. We also saw the parliament building and the prime minister's place. We had lunch of soup, goulash, beers and czech sweets, it all was very cheap. This is a standard Czech meal, and to be honest I felt like
sleeping after. The Czech diet isn't that great. That night we bought groceries, went back to the flat and cooked some pasta.
On Tuesday morning I did my laundry, interspersed with a visit to the communist museum. It was really good, gave me a sense what it was like living in a communist country during the cold war. We saw spy equipment, learned about the ideology and all the shops and their shortages and how the shopkeepers would hold items for certain customers. We also learned about the massive expensive structure that Stalin built of himself in the middle of Prague amidst suffering just after WWII. What an arsehole. They tore it down just after he died. After the museum, we went to Prague's version of the eiffel tower, had a picnic in the park and then went up the tower for some great views. In the foreground you can see the beautiful old town of Prague, and in the background you can see row after row of drab, uniform Communist highrises. We then went down to the old Jewish sector (before WWII, Prague had a large Jewish population. Not any more.). We walked around the old town some
more, had some dinner and then went back for an early sleep.
On Wednesday we went to Karlstein castle, not far from Prague on the train. We left really early. The trains in the Czech Republic are pretty run down and noisy. At the castle we did a tour, which was ok. This was where Charles (from the bridge) lived at times. Turns out he had lots of wives. After that we took a train to Pribram (the first sound is somehow "sh"), and hitchiked from there to Cesky Krumlov. I'd never done the hitchhiking thing before, but apparently I have a knack. We got picked up staright away by a couple of the Czech equivalent of bogans. They only took us ten minutes down the road, but then we got picked up again straight away, and were taken almost the whole way. From where he dropped us we got picked up again straight away by a musician type and he took us the last little way. Martin said it's one of the easiest hitchhikes he's ever done. We got there in only three hours, which was quicker than the train would have been, and far freeer. Cesky Krumlov
is very much a tourist town, but is very beautiful. We watched the canoeists trying to make the rapids, and then went to a local pub (Martin's Czech language ability helped us find a good place), and I had a Tartare steak. I'd never had it before, but it turned out to be raw mince meat, with fried bread, garlic, raw egg and some spices. It was really good. We also had potato cakes and Martin had goulash (and beer of course). We then walked to a campsite, paid, pitched Martin's tent and slept.
On Thursday we went to the castle at Cesky Krumlov, and I did a tour while Martin waited in the grounds (he had done the tour before). The tour was quite good, but the guide was a bit mechanical. At times I had the feeling that she didn't actually speak English, but had actually just memorised the sounds for the whole tour (bad jokes and all). The castle was interesting though, it was littered with bear skin rugs (which were fake). Apparently bearskin rugs were big in the middle ages in the Czech republic. Probably a little too popular, considering there's no bears in the
Czech forest anymore. After the tour we walked around the castle grounds which were good. We then went back to the campsite, and went for a swim in the stream and yelled in Czech at passing boaters. That evening a storm was brewing. It was a big one, so we spent the calm getting our shit together, and when it hit at 10pm we were in the tent. It was a monster. The campsite just before the storm hit was a bit eerie.
On Friday morning, we packed our gear and headed to the boat rental office at the campsite. We put all of our stuff (tent included) into waterproof barrels. Our plan was to boat to near the train station, leave our stuff there and then hike up the mountain. There were 5 rapids along the route. We capsized only on the second one. The waterproof barrels were not as waterproof as the name would suggest, so some of our stuff got a bit wet, but luckily phones and cameras still worked. We spent the rest of the trip freezing our arses off and bailing water out with a cut off empty bottle after the rapids. We got
out, changed clothes and went to the train station. I left my bag there for the whole day for six Czech Crowns, which is about 40 cents. In most of Europe it would cost ten to twenty bucks. We then hiked 6.5 kms to Klet. Klet is 1084m elevation, and great views of the southeastern Czech Landscape. We had lunch up there, and then picked up our bags and went in search of an (illegal) camping spot that was close to the train station, as I had to be there at 4:15am. We found a great spot on a hill with an awesome view of Cesky Krumlov, but we may have scared off a young family with a dog, who probably thought we were homeless. Oops.
I went to bed early that night, got up at 4am and went to the train station for Vienna.
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