Day 38 - Prague

To Keeley's delight there was chocolate drink (a la Milo) at breakfast this morning, meaning she could not only have a coffee-mocha but also fill up our dwindling supplies of the precious powder. Also a simultaneous bonus and curse was the hostel staff member just hanging around, who was very pleased to wash our dishes for us but made stealing bread for lunch impossible. We walked to the free tour of Prague with an English guy, Antony, we met last night and although we were ten minutes late (Keeley had to do her hair) we caught the tour and spent the next three hours wandering the streets of the city in the now-familiar fashion. The guide was quite informative and I got used to her broken English quite quickly, although Keeley said she struggled a bit to concentrate on it. We saw a few of the major buildings in the old town, like the Charles University (the oldest university in central Europe, founded in 1347). A student from here burnt himself to death as a protest against the Communist government in the 1950s. It seems that King Charles IV was quite an impressive man, founding the university, leading not only Bohemia but also the Holy Roman Empire, and building Prague to be one of the richest and most powerful cities in Europe. This legacy is repeated all over the city, and the Charles Bridge is named after him (for around 600 years it was the only crossing over the river in Prague to the castle). The city itself is quite impressive, and a lot has been done to rebuild and repair the Communist neglect since it fell in 1989. Prague Castle is particularly nice with a spot on the hill overlooking the city and a very large grounds, being the biggest 'ancient' castle in the world (whatever that means). The gothic cathedral, St Vitus, in the centre of the Castle is very impressive, and despite being started in the 1300s it wasn't completed until the 1920s. The stained glass windows are amazing.

 

Our tour ended at the castle, and we were a little disappointed with it, but it was a good way to explore the city. We sampled some amazing Czech food – sweet bread-on-a-stick with caramel, vanilla, and almond in it, and some traditional Czech food at a cute little restaurant near the bridge. I had some amazing sausage and mustard and Keeley had pork in a paprika sauce. It was really nice, although soured a bit by the added extras on the bill (like a service charge that was 30% of the rest of the bill). Fortunately it was still dirt-cheap. We also went in search of the city museum because it apparently has a pretty amazing model of the city, but we couldn't find it so we went to a lolly shop instead. This shop had a demonstration of the process for making layered boiled-lolly-type candy, which was very interesting. They worked the sugar sheets into a roll maybe 15cm in diameter, but eventually got it down to around 1cm diameter, with a little picture of a fruit in the middle. The same shop also had a 112kg gorilla made out of chocolate and lots and lots of other chocolate goodness. We bought the off-cuts from the lolly-making process for cheap, and now can't wait until we get to Switzerland or Belgium for the chocolate there.

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Day 37 - Prague

A very early morning this morning got us to the bus station in time for our bus to Prague. The guy on duty at the hostel was really nice and got breakfast organised for us even though it was an hour and a half before breakfast officially started. This put us in a good mood for the day, especially considering the early start, and between that and our naps on the bus the five-hour trip went quickly. First impressions of Prague were not good, as we drove through a few very run-down suburbs. It felt like the relic of Communism that I had expected Poland to be. The other thing that takes some time to get used to is the currency; it is 25-30 Czech Krony to €1. This meant that we could justify getting a subway train to our hostel rather than walking. The hostel (U Melounu) is clean and friendly, but the kitchen is very small and lacks an oven. It is also a good 10-15 minute walk from the city centre. Once in the city centre, though, you get a feel for why everyone loves Prague so much. With the sun out, it really did look magical. I think one of the reasons it is so good is the consistency of old buildings – unlike a lot of places, every single building here is (or looks to be) of the same era, giving the Old Town a really brilliant atmosphere.

 

Exploring a bit, we saw the astronomical clock do its chime on the hour (a very underwhelming experience) but did climb to the top of said clock tower. The view was incredible, no doubt helped by the excellent weather. We found a little market and just generally got accustomed to the city. The real excitement happened tonight though. We went to the Image Theatre just off the Old Town Square. It is a pantomime show for around €18 with the majority of it under UV light (or 'black' light). The room is darkened to pitch black and the stage and background are all black, and under black light anyone wearing black can't be seen against this background. This allows the performers to use big pieces of fluorescent material, fluoro props and costumes to perform without being able to make out the dancers. It's a difficult thing to describe in words, but very cool to watch. They were very clever with their use of screens and movement, so things would just 'disappear' off the stage and 'reappear' later on. Likewise the dancers could interact with props so that only parts of their bodies were visible, for instance there was a caterpillar costume with three dancers standing in it but we could only see their legs because they were wearing black tops. My personal favourite was a dance with these spherical props with pieces cut out of them, so they looked like four broken hula hoops put together, and the spheres would be suspended with rods or something so they would fly around the stage. Likewise, there was another dance with glowing spheres that seemed to levitate as the people behind them moved them around. The highlight, however, wasn't a black light act at all but the slapstick antics of a couple of 'maintenance crew' who mimed things like stealing aeroplanes, falling off scaffolding, ten pin bowling and my favourite, opening up the heads of audience members to reveal what was going on inside. For example, one guy was 'thinking' computer sounds, one was 'thinking' about a football match (cheering), and one lady had water on her mind (at this point they sprayed the audience with sprinklers). It was really enjoyable and the best part was it was something we just stumbled onto in our travels.

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Get what you want at ebay. Get rid of those unwanted christmas presents!