Bloggle.us The Adventures of Ollie & Ruby

A weekend in a city (Prague)

My morning didn't start with pancakes, but it did start early. I have really come to dislike early mornings, after getting used to late starts during this current holiday. Aside from this I headed down to the railway station with my grandfather where I bought my train ticket, as my grandfather was seeing me off a Czech girl started talking to him and insisted that I could sit with her for the first part of the train ride until she got off. She wore a bright pink blazer and was carrying flowers, she was just so different looking to the rest of the people on the platform. I really like talking to people who don't speak English as their first language. We chatted for the best part of the trip with her broken English and my lazy English it went reasonably well. I just regret not asking for her phone number or at the lest given her this blogs address.

My train arrived at platform 3 Praha main station 8 minutes early where Milu wasn't waiting for me but by chance after wondering around lost for 15 minutes I walked into her. We headed down towards old town square to see some sights, Milu read a list of sights off and pointed them out to me. After that we headed down the slightly congested streets following the crowd to Powder Gate and Charles bridge. I must say you can read as much as you want about these places but actually seeing them with your own eyes is completely different, they are just a couple amazing old structures that Prague had to offer. As you look across Charles Bridge it is decorated with restored statues, also anything that was gold colored on the bridge people couldn't resist to touch but they didn't seem to know that upon touching the gold parts on the statues your chances of falling pregnant greatly rose, or maybe they did. Also littered along the sides of Charles bridge are wagons selling pictures, souvenirs and those 30 minute sketches. Every time I see one of those old guys doing the portraits I always chose against them at the time but then regret it afterworlds, cause one would look really nice attached to this blog.

After safely crossing to the other side of the bridge we headed up the stairs to where Prague Castel and the Cathedral are situated. It was a slight maze to get inside the walls and through various archways but we eventually reached the middle where the beautiful cathedral was located, it was so tall and big, buy big I mean I couldn't take one picture of it. It took four photos to capture just oneside. But considering it was 100's of  years old it was in extremely good condition. After two hours of self touring around this amazing castle and cathedral we thought we best head back to out hostel in the middle of Prague.

We got back to the hostel to find a troll guarding the entrance (horribly mean receptionist) after filling out a couple pointless forms each and myself writing down my drivers license number instead of my passport number cause I don't carry important documents on me. But she seemed to think I was some kind of gypsy that had managed to swim/walk from Australia to Czech Republic and wouldn't let me stay so we had to go back to an alternative plan that Milu already had just encase something did go wrong. I'm so lucky I was in Prague with her or I would have had to sleep on the street that night. After a couple over priced beers we headed home for an early night since we knew we would have an early start.

We rose early and headed to the bus terminal and started our trip to Chesky Krumlov after a long trip for 3 hours we arrived. As we walked to the town square we found a nice Asian tourist to take a holiday snap of us (see attached picture). First we walked around the village and took plenty of tourist snaps, one of the best pictures I just missed taking was of a pack of Japaneses tourists surrounding a pram taking photos of the baby. But after all this traveling and walking we where ready for lunch, after searching around for a while we found a nice cheap place located right next to the river where we where the only customers at the deserted restaurant.

After a traditional Czech lunch of potato dumplings, bread like dumplings and a variety of different meat covered in a gravy we headed up the hill to the castle. We went for a simple guided tour in English, it was nice looking at all the well restored rooms and especially the ballroom which was very neatly painted to which it looked like it was full of people. We also learned that the kings and queens from the times they lived in castles used to sleep sitting in bed. This was because they didn't want to spoil their expensive hair styles or because lying down looked like they where dead. This also must have had something to do with their growth because the fourposter beds on display are about half the length of my bed at home. This castle had been well restored, considering it once had 3 towers where it was only left with one due to restoration processes. After the tour we wondered the gardens stopping at a revolving theater seating, it could apparently spin completely around holding a couple hundred people (see attached picture). After this we walked to the island in a pond, which must I say was a complete and utter disappointment. It was slimy smelly pond with a very small island and it just didn't look very appareling. After this disappointment we crossed paths with another troll, I really thought trolls only excised in fairy tails but apparently some are still roaming through out Czech Republic. Well anyway we walked up to the gate of the self guided tower tour at 4:30:30 and apparently the people in front of us where just early enough and quick enought to get past the troll. But as mulise and I got there the troll quickly jumped out from underneath the bridge and insisted it was closed, well not from underneath the bridge but from it's cabin and proceeded to lock the chain across the pathway. But we didn't let this dampen out spirits so we headed down to the river for a nice walk. As we where walking along the river we spotted a hangout for the locals, I could smell the cheap beer from a 100 meters away. We rolled up and had two pints of the final local lager brewed just over the fence, as we drank some of the other locals sounding a TV where celebrating the Czechs making the Gold medal game for the IIHF. The Czechs scored in the last 6 seconds and brought the game into over time where neither team scored then they won the shootout. I drank many more beers and then we ordered dinner, for 140 crowns we got half a chicken each and two beers, which was an amazing deal. The only downside was that no cutlery was provided so we had to eat it medieval style. After stuffing our selfs full of chicken we headed back to the bus for an interesting 3 hour bus trip where the driver got lost multiple times on our way back to Prague.

We then headed out to the biggest night club in Eastern Europe, a 5 story night club build in an old spa place, most of the dance floors where inside old pools. This meant you had to walk down some narrow stairs to get in to them which seems to get tricker and tricker as the night went on. The first floor of the night club featured radio hits which was a bit of hit and miss for me playing some good songs but others just weren't my thing. On the next floor it was dance music or as they liked to call it club anthems, which was just generic club music which just wasn't flattering but they did have some nice props to dance on. They where raised tiles with LED's shinning down to box you inside of the tile, all I can say is it would have been a much better floor if it was rocking some filthy dub step like what I was used to from my previous months spent in Whistler. The next floor featured oldies music on a classic 80's dance floor complete with lit up squares, this floor had the greatest variety of people. Some as young as 16 and up to 60 which was quiet a shock to me coming from the dance floors in Whistler. The next floor featured R n' B or as they called it in the club black people music. Which was Milu's favorite floor, I don't know the names of the tra
cks that where being played but the pool was full. The final 5^th floor featured the chill out room which was littered with couches and a DJ maybe even spinning records of some nice chilled electronic music. We also noticed this area seemed to be the juniors hang out. I felt old, I think the mean age was about 16 up there. So apprently they don't even ask for ID at the biggest clubs so it isn't just a trend from the bars. Also you could tell the DJ's just weren't having much fun, none of them where moving to the music or even looked like they where having a good time. After spending what felt like half an hour in the club but apprently it turned out to be 3.30am so Milu and I headed on a mission to McDonald's after 20 minutes we eventually found it after walking back though old town square and settled for two big macs.

Sunday was just spent looking for generic I went to Prague t-shits and hunting down what could be said to be the best ice cream I have ever eaten at Wenceslas Square . It was strawberry and banana, they where so good I just had to have two. We also stopped in at the torture museum which made me genuinely feel sick in the stomach looking at all the ways they tourtured people all those years ago. After this we got some great tourist information from a man at the Prague city information center. We headed down to the river where we caught a boat, but who would have thought boats where a part of the public transport in Prague but apparently they are included with our 24 hour transport ticket so we made the most of it and went on a round trip, we even got a photo with the sailers to prove it. Also during the boat trip I glimpsed the dancing house so I've included a photo of that too since it really stands out compared to all the old buildings. I also saw the only beach Prage had to offer, it was different but it was still beach. The day could have been a lot less painful if we had some where to store our bags but alas we didn't so we just battled on. Then in no time we where racing from tram to underground to main station to catch my train back to Usti Nad Orlici. I then said my goodbyes to Mulise and I was off. I really didn't think about it but it would be the last time I will see her for a long time, well unless she comes to Australia or I come back to Czech Republic again. Wow that was a quick weekend in a city.