Prague Spring

This is a belated post as we went to Prague (and promised a blog entry) some time ago. Anyway.

It was a long weekend and we took off an extra day to give us a good break.

On the Thursday evening we flew to Altenburg airport. Just one runway, next to a tin shed and serviced only by Ryanair. There didn't see to be any physical restriction to wandering off out of the airport once stepping off the plane, I guess they rely on people doing the right thing in a country where law enforcement officers and other security personnel carry big guns. Really big guns. After the usual scare when immigration lingered worryingly over my passport, we jumped on a bus to Leipzig where we were staying that night. (Getting to Prague via Leipzig was much cheaper and gave us more time to sightsee). I had thought I might get a chance to sample a specialty Leipzig beer known as Gose. It's made with coriander and salt. Sounds digusting but would have been worth trying for novelty value. Unfortunately, we never really got the chance as we were well ready for bed when we arrived and didn't have much time in the next morning to go beer hunting.

The train trip to Prague was lovely, as the line runs much of the way next to the Elbe River at the bottom of the valley. It was a lovely sunny day and we passed through loads of little villages strung out along the river. Our carriage was quiet, luckily as it turns out, as the next carriage along had a group of several German lads, presumably off on a stag weekend, who were very loud, drunk and stinky, and clogging up the aisle. I had to squeeze past der Chappie who was pouring another glass from their keg.

One thing about Prague: there are an awful lot of smokers and it's not against the law to smoke in a public place, as far as we could tell. The lobby of the hotel we stayed at got pretty rank at times while we were there. Eating out was a particularly hazardous exercise, and not just because the Czech love their stodgy, carbo-loaded meals. The highlight was when we had coffee in the hotel cafe, and were the only people in a room with about thirty tables. Another couple came in and sat down at the table right next to ours. And proceeded to smoke their incredibly disgusting cigarettes. We moved into the next room, receiving a semi-glare from the smokers when we explained to the bemused waiter why we were leaving.

Megan and Brett were accompanying us on this trip and we were due to arrive in the evening sometime. We didn't know when exactly so decided to have dinner (we were pretty ravenous). We went to a semi touristy place (English on the menu, but Czechy sort of food and not touristy prices) where I had, as it turned out, the best beer and the stodgiest (think potato dumplings and heavy bread) food of the trip.

The next day all four of us walked to the castle and were confronted by a sickening abundance of tourists. The castle area covers a huge area and contains many buildings, including St Vitus' Cathedral. You can walk around for free but have to pay to enter the buildings, apart from the Cathedral. Almost all of the buildings had huge queues to enter and the cathedral's would have been an least an hour, probably more. We went into one building that was not quite so crowded, which housed 'The Story of Prague Castle'. It was quite good, not least because it wasn't busy, although C. did get told off in loud, broken English by an official for touching a wooden door (apparently it was old, or some rubbish like that).

We decided to come back later that afternoon, in the wistful hope that the crowds may have died down, and trotted off to look for lunch.

Afterwards, with me grinning the grin that only a man who has just eaten 8 grilled chicken wings can grin, we went on a very touristy boat ride on the river. It was about what you'd expect. Earlier we had seen a very surprising sign in the river, warning not to swim because of the sharks! I asked the guide on the boat about that and he said that some years ago a dead shark was found in the river and the sign was put up just in case. It turned out that a restaurant near the river had had a dead shark flown in to be part of a display and had thrown it into the river afterwards. I'm not sure what was more improbable, the sign or his story, but either way, something smelled fishy and it wasn't just the shark.

As we about to de-ship, C got loudly told off for the second time that day for briefly sticking her arm out from the edge of the boat. Whatever, man!

Poor old C was not having a good time regardless, as she had been fighting a cold all week and was now exhausted. She returned to the hotel for some much needed rest while M, B and I continued on. We went back to the castle and visited a few more of the buildings/sights but unanimously decided that they really weren't worth it. The queue to the Cathedral was still diabolical so we left it for some other time.

Dinner was pizza at 'sit down on the street under a tent' type of place, notable only because the waitress spoke no English (it's amazing what you can communicate with smiles, nods and pointing). We're pretty sure she thought we were French.

Anyway, C. now takes up the story.

The next day, after breakfast in the incredibly busy hotel dining room (which probably housed about ten different bus loads of tourists), we headed out to the Old Town. The first stop was the Charles Bridge, which is one of the most famous tourist attractions in Prague. We had seen it from the other side of the river and from the tourist boat the day before, and the crowd on it was so thick that it was at a standstill. This was partly because one half of the Old Town end was blocked off by scaffolding, but it was still incredibly clogged by tourists. But because we were there pretty early, we managed to walk on it relatively speedily. It would have looked a lot more attractive without the scaffolding, but it was still lovely.

Then we headed into the proper parts of the Old Town, led by B who seems to have Google maps built into his brain. We saw the astronomical clock, which is weird and cool and large. It was about 10.30 when we arrived, so we settled in with some coffee to wait for the 11am chiming of the clock. The lonely planet guide warned that the display on the hour would be short, bizarre and somewhat of a letdown, and it was all three. The highlight was undoubtedly the strange 'raspberry' sound at the conclusion of the show. I'm not sure the huge crowd that had gathered at the base of the clock was entirely convinced, but anyway.

We then wandered to the Estates Theatre and bought tickets for that evening's performance of 'Rinaldo' by Handel. The Estates Theatre is old, and was where Mozart personally conducted the premiere of 'Don Giovanni'...pretty impressive. After wandering through the Old Town some more, we had lunch at a Sushi Station-type place, though with a much faster-moving conveyer belt. It was a bit like a competitive sport to get the plates out of the display case in time. After lunch, I headed back to the hotel for another nap before the theatre that night. G, M & B went to St Wenceslas Square to see the sights, and then to a ye olde brewery/pub for some Czech beer. Apparently I was lucky to miss the brewery, as the party at the next table included a gentleman to whom deodorant was clearly a stranger. Not fun.

We met back at the hotel then headed off to the theatre. It was such an experience, as it was such a beautiful theatre on the inside. Picture period films with scenes set at the opera. The theatre is always about six storeys high, with lots of private boxes, a decorative ceiling, and a giant chandelier. The Estates Theatre had all this, which was pretty spectacular. We weren't able to find four seats together, so M & I sat together at the end of a row while the gentlemen were halfway across the theatre. We were lucky that we were in the front row and could lean onto the railing, as otherwise we would not have been able to read the surtitles (which were in both Czech and English). 'Rinaldo' was well performed and the singers were great, but the plot itself lacks excitement. It's as though Handel had written 90% of the show, then realised it was premiering in one week so hastily finished the story off with a "they all lived happily ever after" conclusion. None of us knew anything about Rinaldo, so we were all surprised when the second act came to an end and nothing seemed to have been wrapped up. Let's just say, when we realised that there was a third act to come, we seriously considered leaving at that point and looking up the plot on Wikipedia to see how it ended. But, we put the hard yards in.

After the theatre, G and I decided to have a bite to eat at a restaurant in the main square. It was so much nicer at night, all lit up and mostly empty of tourists. However, they all came flooding out of the woodworks at 10.57pm to gather around the astronomical clock for the 11pm chiming. How disappointed they must have been to realise that it only chimes between 9am and 9pm.

The next morning the breakfast room was considerably quieter, as most of the tour buses had already left for the day. We lingered over breakfast, as it was rainy outside and we didn't fancy going out. But eventually we did, checking out and leaving our stuff in the luggage room. We popped back to the castle, and were amazed to see about 30,000 fewer people there than on Saturday. We joined the queue for St Vitus' Cathedral, which was about one fifth the length that it had been, but was still about a fifteen minute wait. It rained the whole time we were waiting there, which was unfortunate as we didn't have umbrellas. I'm not sure if it was my foreign accent or the fact that I had wrapped my scarf over my head, but the weird old man in front of us in the queue kept turning round to stare at me. It was unpleasant. He must have been German.

St Vitus' Cathedral is extremely impressive inside, huge, with giant stained glass windows. It was well worth the wait to see it (though we may not have thought that if we'd spent an hour in the queue). After the cathedral, we wandered through the streets below the castle and found a cafe for some coffee. Megan and the waiter didn't hit it off for some reason - he was very brusque with her when she asked for tea instead of coffee for the coffee-and-cake deal, and then spilt some of the tea on her leg, burning her. She did not leave him a tip.

After making our way back to the hotel, we said goodbye to Brett, who was spending another few days in the Czech Republic and was heading off to another town. Shortly afterwards, M, G & I hopped on the airport bus, which stopped outside the hotel. G and I both validated our tickets upon entering the bus, but for some reason M forgot to do so....and was busted by a Czech transport inspector for not having a valid ticket. She suggested that if she leant slightly forward in her seat she'd be able to punch the ticket in the machine, but he refused this offer and ordered her to pay a 700 koruny fine (equivalent to about $45). The most annoying part was that we could hear other people validating their tickets in the machine after they saw Megan had been busted. He didn't care about this, as he had snagged his victim for that trip. Megan didn't have the money on her, so he said that was fine, he'd follow her into the airport and wait while she got the money from an ATM. And he literally did follow us into the airport and stood by while she got the money out. The fine plus the experience with the waiter did not endear Prague to Megan. (And, to add insult to injury, Brett was fined later in the week for being in a slow, all-stations train when he only had a ticket for the fast, express service. So the moral is - make sure your public transport tickets are valid in Prague!)

We said farewell to an irritated Megan, and started the first leg of our two flight journey home. This involved flying from Prague to Bristol, then Bristol to Edinburgh. The first flight was on Ryan Air, which is not a boutique airline. We sat across the aisle from each other, as you can't book seats, and for some reason my row had about ten centimetres less leg room than G's. Fun. Our second flight was with EasyJet, which is like business class compared to Ryan Air. Nevertheless, we were pleased to get home after a long day of travel.

Photos of Prague to follow, as well as a description of last weekend's trip to York.

Yeah!