Old hands as we had become at rail
travel by this time, the journey itself was fairly uneventful. I was
pleased to find fair trade coffee at the station. It was my turn to
be on city research so by the time we got to Prague I had list to
keep us busy for the next day or so (well actually enough to keep us
busy for over a week, but that's the same story in every place we go
to...).
We arrived mid afternoon and I had a bunch of places that we could go for free. The weather wasn't that fabulous unfortunately, but we were pleased with the coolness as it had been heading towards 30 degrees in Vienna as we left.
We made it to our hostel faily easily, although it was a decent walk from the station. The place was beautiful. To Greg's despair was on the third floor and for the umpteenth time there was no elevator... Our room however made up for it, complete with bed, another bed on a mezzanine floor, a couch and coffee table, walk in closet, small hallway and decent bathroom. Not bad for a 'hostel' room. Beautifully decorated too.
There were a few new challenges to face. One was that suddenly we were in a place that spoke Czech and the people weren't always that pleased if you came in expecting them to know English. The internet helpfully informed us that most young people, and people working anywhere where there are tourists would know english. People that wouldn't know english: Grandmothers and policemen. In fact there was a rather amusing story about the Grandmothers of Prague...
The second challenge was the new currency, the Czech Koruna. We spent most of the first day hopelessly confused and glued to our currency exchange app on our phones, as everything just looked so expensive. One NZD was equal to 15 Kc, so once we got our head's around the fact that 150Kcs was $10.00 and 300 was $20.00, we were feeling better. When we subsequently converted it into euros... we realised that holidaying in the Czech republic is considerably cheaper than in the rest of the european countries we had already visited! Hooray! We cried, we're back in Turkey, financially!
The cumulative effects of these challenges was evident in our first attempt to buy food at the bakery across the road from the hostel. The lady behind the counter had little patience for our embaressed use of english, and didn't take credit card so it was off to the cash machine. We stood at the machine for ages with simply no idea how much to withdraw. Withdraw too much, and end up with some leftover that isn't work exchanging, or too little and end up starving at our last meal in the country because we don't have the cash left? In the end we did ok. Back at the bakery the lady stared at us with mean eyes and rather coldly gave us our selections. There was the barest hint of a smile (or did I imagine it) at my poor attempts to say thank you in Czech.
We later found out that this lady was not the definitive example of hospitality in the Czech republic. In fact everyone else was quite nice, if not outright friendly. And I don't care if it's fake nice just because they want my money, nice is always better than cold honesty in a strange country!
Incidentally, this is the bakery where I first found honey cake. I didn't know it was honey cake – I just saw another girl order a piece of the tan coloured cake with multiple cream layers and thought, “sure, why not?”. I didn't even know what it was called. When I bit into it I was instantly in love. Weirdly I thought it was coffee cake. Greg wanted to try a piece and it was all I could do to give him a little portion...
So once we were settled in and fed, we put on our walking shoes and headed to the centre of the old town. The place was packed with tourists and thanks to the soccer and the fan park set up in the central square there was a lively festival vibe. Music played at every corner and street performers abounded. It seemed that Prague served as a place where you could buy the specialy items for all countries, as well as the czech republic. I spent quite a bit of time considering (but in the end not buying) the Bohemian crystalware, but I also saw stuff that featured in Venice such as Venetian glass and masks, puppets from Austria, lidded ceramic beer mugs (more of a Germany thing?), leather shops, and so on. Tourist heaven, anyway.
We headed through the main old streets checking out the old Czech architecture, towards the Charles Bridge. We couldn't really get good photos of the main square because of the fan park there. On the other hand we were treated to live music from a band that seemed to be singing in a mix of English and maybe German? They weren't too bad.
The bridge was thronging with people, street artists and so one. Really nice views of the city and the palace on the hill.
Looking at the map we saw something called the 'John Lennon Wall' so we headed over to check it out. Turned out it was this, pretty cool:
Later on we looked it up. It had originally been a part of passive protests by young Czechs against the communist regime and featured lyrics from John Lennon songs. It is still continuously graffited over and over and now seems to be more a place to leave a mark in the theme of love and peace and believing in yourself and so on. A photo documentary of how it looks every 6 months or so would be interesting to see how the message has changed over the last 20 years. Greg astutely pointed out “spare a thought for the guy who owns the wall next door” it seems the graffiti frequently spreads beyond the border of the original wall and has to be painted over...
That was the last thing we had energy for so we wanderd back to the hostel, back through the crowds of soccer fans and tourists.
We paused in the fan park long enough to see a goal scored (and for Greg to stare at the price of a beer over and over going do you think it's really only 40 Kcs? Really?) then carried on our way, stopping constantly to check out the buildings and the general party atmosphere.
Back at the hostel we looked in the 'tips' folder for a good place to get some Czech cuisine. A restaurant up the road looked good, it also had home brewed beer which sounded excellent. There was a five minute wait for a seat, but that was no problem and thankfully they had an english menu because we just didn't have the resources in any sense to be trying to translate a Czech menu (and getting it wrong could have meant ending up with liver or other things apparently common in traditional Czech fare). Instead we had lovely meat dishes both served with yummy sauces and dumplings. They were dumplings, but not as you know it, fellow kiwis. More like the softest, moistest, most delicious bread bun you can imagine, thats what it tasted like. Super good!
Since the food was so cheap and I still had a dessert stomach, we got dessert too. Having no idea it was exactly the same as what I'd had for lunch, I ordered a piece of 'tradional old style honey cake' because it sounded interesting. Greg I think got an apple thing? Anyway when a slice of cake so identical to the one I'd had earlier it was possible that they were supplied by that bakery for their cake (the bakery was only just up the road after all) came out I had to laugh. But I was by no means disappointed and I now knew what it was called...
Czech honey cake. I must find the recipe!! Also the Czech recipe for dumplings would interest me.
For drinks we got some home brew. To mix things up I ordered a banana beer. It really did taste like banana... not bad but probably a one time experience only... Greg's was nice though.
From there it was a short stumble home for sleep, eyes still giving me itchies towards then end of the day!
