Czech out Prague!

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On the way to Prague I stopped off in Dresden for 2 hours, not long but enough to see the town centre. Dresden is full of very grand buildings, but very pretty! One of the best things was on the wall of one street is a ‘’Procession of Princes’’, a kind of huge mural made entirely of porcelain, it was stunning! And the restored Frauenkirche, (which Caro in Berlin had kindly told me the history of) the original was completely bombed to the ground in the war, and it was such a major symbol to the people of Dresden that the people rallied together and raised all the money to build a new one. It looked beautiful on the outside but inside was a bit gaudy, the stone was a bit pink for me! I liked Dresden, it’s a peaceful, pretty city, definitely worth a visit!

The journey to Prague was beautiful; the train went all through valleys with cute little villages, wonderful countryside! I stayed with a girl called Emi (there was a bit of confusion when we introduced ourselves at the train station, as our names are pronounced pretty much the same!) Emi has just finished a masters in Czech language - she is Polish - and wrote her thesis on street names in Prague. After eating the noodles Emi cooked for us, we went on a walk and she could tell me some wonderful things about Prague. We wondered through the back streets of Prague, Emi pointing out to me pretty stairways; a huge bridge that 62 tanks went over to test it, and where loads of people used to jump off to commit suicide until they put a barrier up; stunning viewpoints over Prague - and so many of them! - and interesting streets and their names, some buildings have writings on the walls from where shops used to be and things. It was so great to walk with Emi because I noticed many things I wouldn’t have as a normal tourist. We got to the TV tower and my immediate reaction was ‘’oh, I don’t like it!’’ which I think wasn’t the reaction Emi was expecting! It has a load of black babies climbing up it, as some kind of weird artwork, and it reminded me of Trainspotting- horrible! Nearby was a British food shop, which I spent quite a while looking at through the window, they had alpen, wheatabix, Cadburys cocoa powder, Jacobs crackers, birds custard, hovis, irn bru, Heinz tins, John Smiths and Newcastle Ale, loads of stuff!

It was dark when we got to the Castle, but it was fantastic to see it at night. The cathedral was so impressive in quite a small square for the size of it. It was all lit up, it was breathtaking. We wanted to see Golden Alley, where some famous colourful houses are, but it was closed for repairs. We walked down another staircase and through another winding alley, to Charles Bridge. I don’t know why I expected it to be bigger, or maybe more imposing, than it was. It wasn’t too busy so I could really feel the atmosphere of the bridge, wonderful! We stopped for a drink in a cafe called the ‘Black Cat’ and we discussed things like veganism (while I was drinking hot chocolate with cream..) because Emi is vegan and about travelling, as Emi spent a lot of time in Korea and wants to go back there. We got on the tram to go home just as the heavens opened, so we were lucky!

In the morning Emi and I had breakfast together, then I went off on my own to explore Prague. I walked to Vysehrad, a park high up where there used to be a castle, so the fortifications are still all the way around. There are wonderful views over Prague and of the river. There is a church there with the most amazing graveyard I have ever seen, the graves are so ornate, (obviously rich people are buried there!) and some were really unusual like one had a statue of a woman who looked like she was about to fly off into the sky. I walked all around the edge of Vysehrad to take in all the views, then headed down into the town.

Along the river are some interesting buildings, churches, a modern building that was built to fill in the gap left by bombers in the war, but it fits into the surrounding architecture really well. I eventually, after lots of wondering around and gazing in awe at all the lovely buildings, reached the old town square, of course completely full of tourists. I listened in to a bit of a tour to find out some history, and went inside St. Nicolas church. There was a man outside playing saxophone and singing, first of all he was playing Summer time, then he put on a CD of some kind of R&B music and was singing and playing along, I thought he was fantastic so gave him some money! After walking around the Old Town area a bit more, I decided to go to the Jewish Quarter. I wanted to go in the Jewish Cemetery and Synagogue but it was expensive so just followed everyone else’s lead and peeped through the gate.

I crossed over to the other side of the river to go through the park, and had to climb loads of steps to get up. Prague is so hilly! But the park was nice and lead me into the Castle again, because I decided I wanted to see it in the day as well, and go in the Cathedral. It was even more impressive from inside, so many ornaments, pictures, stained glass windows, other things to see. Below the Castle is some gardens so I wandered around there for a bit and headed towards Charles Bridge; much busier this time! And surrounded by guys on stag do’s singing very loudly! I was really hungry by this point so found the first restaurant I came to off the Charles Bridge, never mind that it was touristy! And had a rather expensive Czech goulash, with beef and bread dumpling (exactly like bread), which was good!

I headed back to meet Emi at Vysehrad and she was there with a friend. She took me to a marvellous little tea house, with every kind of tea you could think of on the menu! I had normal tea with milk, but it had caramel in too, it was amazingly tasty! The place so really relaxed, people lazing around on cushions with low tables, and we sat in the ‘granny part’ as Emi called it, more like an English tea room I suppose! They played really relaxing music. And the best part was - 2 cats.. and 4 kittens! They were so cute to play with, at that age when they are all clumsy. One of them was sat on my knee then he fell off! And they kept attacking the plants that were behind us, and each other! Emi’s other friend, Tony from New Zealand, met us there, we were there for hours! We went home, I was rather tired, I walked 26.52 kilometres this day- that’s 33158 steps!
Next morning it was pouring with rain so I went to a museum of Ethnology, a really strange, small museum, with an exhibition of the peoples of South America downstairs, it was made to look like a jungle and the room at the end was like a hut where they would live. The other floors had exhibitions about the Americas, including North America and Canada, and Oceania. I think I was the only visitor there! Emi told me that while I was in Prague I had to eat fried cheese so I went to the student cafe at the university - cheap food - and tried some, it was yummy! They do it with potatoes and salad, it was so nice!

I went to a modern art gallery next, it was huge! I did 2 floors by myself then met up with Emi, Tony and another friend Vera. We saw the bottom 3 floors together (still 2 floors I didn’t see!) and by that time I was completely museum-ed out (and it had just about stopped raining), so we went to a vegan Asian restaurant, which was really good! I had wanton soup (and a bit of Vera’s spring rolls) and some gorgeous vegan cake- yummy! We walked back home and that was my Czech adventure pretty much over!

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