Advertisement
Published: August 20th 2006
Edit Blog Post
When you turn on a TV travel show, or open a travel book on Europe, Prague is always one of those cities that is singled out as one of the most beautiful and must see cities in Europe. Well it is and it isn't.
I (Simon) have been to Prague before, about 17 years ago when it was still a full on Communist country and definately not your average tourist destination. I was fortunate to know some Czech's from Australia who were going to be visiting their families at the same time as I was going to be in Europe, so they invited me to meet up with them and spend a week living with their family in Prague. It was a real highlight of that trip and I loved the place. It had a real mystery about it and I felt honoured to have really experienced the real 'local' Prague. In those days a tourist was a real novelty to the locals who had very little idea of what lay beyond the 'wall' to the west.
So on this trip Prague was going to be one of the highlights and we were really looking forward to it and
had adjusted the intinerary on route to make sure we still had plenty of time in Prague to soak it all up and make the most of it. What we hadn't realised I guess is that the 'postcard' Prague is only a small section and we were going to see a lot more.
When you drive into the Czech Republic from Austria you can immediately tell you have crossed the border as it's tacky tourist shop one after another. I wish we had taken some photos but imagine a shop that sold every possible size and shape of garden gnome (I am talking thousands here) and blow up toys and you'd get an idea of what these places looked like. Add to this that every other shop was a brothal, and your first impression of Czech Republic is somewhat tainted. Oh! Catriona, you didn't show that on Getaway.
Arriving in Prague, all the campsites were well out of town and we found a great one which was like a holiday resort with a swimming pool, etc, for long stay trips, but the problem was they could only guarentee 2 nights and we wanted 5, so we decided that
The Ribs and the Fly
I had really enjoyed these ribs and was delivering my last mouthful when Rachel yelled STOP. Wedged in the meat was a completely intact big fly that had obviously been slow roasted from the start. The waiter was really embarressed as he had recommended them to me and of course they then bent over backwards to give us drinks, etc to make up for it. No charge obviously the next day we would move to a site that we could base ourselves in for the duration. We called a few that were in our book and they said yes no problem, we have space. We figured that the holiday camp one was extra popular as it was now school holidays and this place had everything a family could want.
We went to the 3 sites we had rung and we quickly figured out why they had space - you would rather stay in Guantanamo Bay detention centre than these places. They were filthy and we reckoned they hadn't been cleaned since the end of the 80's. But the best part was that the ex-KGB Communist General types that now ran these places were really oblivious to the current conditions and thought that their site would look good on the cover of Vogue. One which was not too bad, was quite surprised when we said that pitching a tent on the solid concrete was not really going to work.
Anyway, we ended up in a really nice site a little north of the city, although after spending most of the morning searching we had nearly given up
Trip around the town
Yes we succumbed and in our (nearly) last city did the horse and carriage thing. and gone to a hotel. In that time we had seen the Prague that the travel shows never see, which was a pretty dirty and decaying place. Remember at this stage we hadn't seen any of the sights so Rachel (with some help from Catriona and her mates) had built Prague up to be one of the ultimate Europe destinations.
We went to the local station (recommended by the site) to catch the train into the city, but the station looked like a train hadn't been through it since the war. It was all falling down with weeds growing all over the place, so we thought oh shit here we go again. You can imagine our surprise then when the newest, sleekest, almost sexyist train you have ever seen pulls into "desolate central" - we were shocked.
The city of Prague which you do see on all the travel shows really is a beautiful place, filled with spectacular buildings, open squares, a massive castle on the hill, impressive old town, really nice Jewish Qtr, and lots of small little streets full of interesting shops ready to separate you from your cash.
We did really like the 'postcard'
Prague and that did live up to what we had expected, but we also knew that lurking not too far away was a different city, one that a lot of people who fly in and go straight to hotels would never see.
I found that the place had really changed from my visit 17 years ago, and gone was the innocent approach to tourists that I had seen, replaced by people trying to extract as much as possible from the tourist trade as they can. We openly saw people getting ripped off (currency rates) and it seems they have an attitude that we have a great city so people will pay what ever we think we can get away with. The sad part is that I think a lot of people know they are being openly ripped off and won't be in a hurry to go back, so when the intial tourist burst starts to slow they will have alienated a lot of people who may have left with a different attitude and returned in years to come.
Don't get us wrong, we did enjoy it, and we're glad that we went, our only problem was that we
were expecting a lot more. If we had simply flown in and done the city sights we would have been leaving in awe of the place like so many before us, under the false impression that it was all like this. I would recommend to anyone that they should go, but be aware that what Catriona says is not always reality.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.134s; Tpl: 0.051s; cc: 12; qc: 28; dbt: 0.0252s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 3;
; mem: 1.1mb
Veronyka
non-member comment
As before, I have loved, loved , loved catching up on your travels - and can't wait for the next installment. Especially loved the pics of Vienna - at last somewhere I had been to and recognised beyond Catriona and pals LOL. You are both looking very relaxed and happy - eternal holidaying really suits you, pity it can't become a career move. In awe and envy - yours, Veronyka xxx