ME :)

Prague – Day 3 Sunday 05/10/2008

Final day in Prague and I couldn’t have asked for a better day. I may have gotten a little bit burnt as well! I spent the final day in the heart of Prague where most of the tourist hang out, and that is Staré Město, Prague’s old town.

This is where all the expensive shops are, the shopping malls, old town square where the Astronomical Clock is situated, along with Tyn Church, Powder Tower further west, Henry’s Bell Tower and finally St Wenceslas Statue which I never got around to seeing. I’d had enough of statues, climbing church stairs and towers and was quite frankly sick of bumping into tourist left, right and center.

After wandering around endlessly on the cobbled streets, through narrow walkways of old town Prague and taken enough photos of all the landmarks, I headed back to Hradčany and sat in the gardens of Prague Castle resting the legs and just getting out of the sun.

I couldn’t help but notice people venturing around the Prague Castle holding green bottles with some form of liquid inside of them. I thought it may have been some holy water so I figured I better go find out what it is before I flew back to London.

At the Lion Court entrance to Prague Castle, I was following the sounds of some local music and stumbled upon some sort of festival with kids in cultural uniform dancing, singing and on a fun musical performance.

It was here, in the Royal Garden of Prague Castle that I found my answer to the green bottle riddle. There were very long queues of people waiting to sample and buy some alcoholic beverages from these wooden huts. The huts were advertising different types of local wines and you can make a purchase from the wine-dealer.

In exchange for your Czech Kroners, he will give you a small plastic cup of alcohol goodness. But for those keen on enjoying more of the exotic juice, you can purchase a 1.25 liter in yes, a green bottle. There is a brewer at the back of the hut who fills these bottles with the concoction from a large white drum using a hose.

I think the beverage contains a mixture of champagne or wine with a fruit juice probably apple as it appears to be cloudy. I didn’t sample any myself as the line was far too long and I had a plane to catch!

Since I got a black Mercedes van from the airport to the hotel, they decided to get me a white Mercedes van this time from my hotel to the airport. I thought all airports were smoke free but apparently not at Prague airport. You can sit on the massaging chair while puffing away at your smoke and not be criticized by local authorities.

At most airports you will see janitors pushing trolleys around with their cleaning products but at Prague airport, you will see girls on roller blades skating around picking up rubbish; now that is a first.

smiles

Prague – Day 2 Saturday 04/10/2008

The forecast for today was meant to be cloud and rain but that didn’t come until late afternoon. I came into Prague not having the faintest idea what to see or do. Since Prague is quite small, I didn’t want to do everything on one day and then be bored out of my brains the next so I dragged the sight seeing out to two days. If I had done my research, I could have gone out of Prague and visited the countryside so my lack of preparation was not the smartest idea.

My hotel was not in the city center but just on the outskirts of Prague Castle. I didn’t mind the long walks as I had plenty of time to kill so I didn’t even consider taking public transport; I just walked everywhere and anywhere.

I decided to see only one side of Prague today and crossing the river to explore the other side on Sunday. The forecast for today was rain but this morning was very bright and sunny.

Prague Castle is located in the epicenter of Hradčany. It is quite a large area housing royalty and the herds of tourist all wanting a piece of St. Vitus Cathedral. I have never scoured around an entire castle before and with a large scale area to cover, it took me a good hour or so to visit every nook and cranny.

There are photo opportunities around every corner whether it is at the lookouts beaming into the center of Prague or admiring the architecture of the buildings, churches and sculptures that lay to rest in the vicinity. There is still much restoration taking place so avoid them in your snapshots.

The only strange thing I saw at the castle grounds were two young local boys trying to fish out coins from the well with a piece of string and possibly a magnet at the end of it. The boys appeared to be successful with there little scheme as you can hear the coins jingling in their pockets.

Malá Strana can be described as the Hyde Park or Central Park of Prague. However it is not as flat as these parks but rather steep. It has numerous gardens that you can admire or long snaky paths which you can climb. However if you feel rather lazy, you can catch the Funicular Railway up to the top of the gardens reaching the Hungar Walls. For the adventurous, there’s the stairs that you can climb from the bottom of streets.

Also in Malá Strana you can visit the Petrin Tower which has uncanny resemblance to that of the Eiffel Tower. It’s only 60 meters high, costs 50 Czech kroner’s (£1.50) to enter and takes about 3 minutes to climb to the top. At the top of the Tower you will have a great 360 degree view of Prague and surrounds.

Next to the Petrin Tower is the Labyrint which is a maze but with mirrors that try to fool you in getting completely lost.

For most of the day the weather was perfect but it did begin to rain slightly towards the evening when the clouds rolled over Prague. Despite the drizzle the swarms of tourist were still in the area. I have to say this city has the most number of tourists I have ever seen in all my travels. It was amazing how many groups of tourist there were being led by their tour guides in all different languages.

After walking across Charles Bridge and dodging all the tourist, I found a restaurant where I wanted to sample some local Czech cuisine. On my plate was beef goulash & dumplings (soft bread) and I almost licked the plate clean.

Before heading back to the hotel in Dejvice, I visited the Prague Metronom. This has to be the most disappointing landmark/building in the whole of Prague. It was basically this structure which swings back and forth. The whole area was not full of people but full of teenagers on skateboards and blades.

It was more like a skate park then anything with the amount of graffiti and teenagers present. The only plus was a great view of the city but there are many vantage points in this park with great views of the city. Do avoid and don’t waste the effort walking there, and walking up the steep stairs or tracks around the side.

smiles

Prague – Day 1 Friday 03/10/2008

You can never rely on the London Tube System because a majority of the time there are continuing refurbishments or upgrades, there’s a suicide resulting in delays or a particular station becomes overcrowded.

My plan on arriving at Kings Cross station to catch the train to Luton Airport almost didn’t happen. Firstly the train from Seven Sisters to Kings Cross (3 stops) was out of service due to an accident somewhere along the line.

So I took the National Connect train into Liverpool Street station then hopped on the Metropolitan train to Kings Cross which took an extra 30 minutes. As the train was approaching Farringdon Station and with Kings Cross station after that, the train driver over the PA system said that the train was not going to stop at Kings Cross because of overcrowding! Someone really didn’t want me to go to Kings Cross station this evening.

I got off at Farringdon station and thought about walking to Kings Cross station until I noticed that there were trains from Farringdon that were going to Luton Airport so I got lucky! I thought it would be all smooth sailing from here to Luton Airport but I hit another snag when I heard voices saying that this train didn’t stop at Luton Airport Parkway (where I would catch the bus to the terminal) but going passed it and stopping at Luton.

Eventually after checking some maps inside the train, I had to hop off at St Albans then wait for another train to get where I wanted. What an eventful way to get to the airport!

At least the plane left on time and arrived in Prague earlier than expected. I didn’t expect Passport Control Officers to have any sense of humor at all, but once they saw my Australian passport, one of them joked about Skippy the bush kangaroo.

Outside in the waiting area, I was to meet someone holding my name. Since it was late in the night, I couldn’t be assed getting public transport to the hotel. I was expecting your average taxi but instead I was whisked away in a 7-seater black Mercedes van with myself as the only passenger.

It only took about 15-20 minutes to get to Hotel Silenzio and the price tag was around £20. At your average hotel, normally it is quite accessible in terms of entry and so on. Hotel Silenzio looked more like an estate with a huge gate at the front entrance. However looks can be deceiving as this 4 star hotel was quite glamorous inside. I really liked the size of my room, the décor and just the comfort of it all. My only complaint would be the heating – yes it gets cold at night but I didn’t need to have the heater on all night like at the snow resorts.

smiles