Prague

Just back from a lovely weekend in Prague! It didnt start well as due to a misturn and slight panic I managed to prang the back of my car into a bollard. This was my embarrassed face as I handed over the keys to the VIP parking bod who would be looking after Judy for the next few days while we holidayed.

After a 40 minutes delayed flight we finally landed and reached the Savoy about 2pm after about 30 minutes in a dank smoke smelling taxi. The hotel was very nice as was our room with the most comfortable beds outside the ones at home. We went for a wee walk that turned into a 4 hour hike through town. Our hotel was on the top of a hill and about 25 minutes to Charles Bridge which was about the divide between the west and east sides. Everywhere had something to look at. The architecture was just stunning and you could stare at a building or doorway and see such exquisite little details. I was stopping every 5 yards to take a photo... as were most of the Japanese tourists (although they had to have the entire family group around or in front of said point of interest.)

That evening we ate at the hotel because of a cheaper deal. We then spent half the night awake from dehydration and a mouth as dry as the sahara... I think its something of an understatement to say the Czech like their salt. Both of our dishes (cod and chicken) were drowning in the stuff. The dessert was nice - due mainly to lack of salt.

So a little tired the next day we went a wandering for about 8 hours of walking through the town. We attended a classical concert at the Lichenstein palace (I think they own a country or summink). Were I wowed the GF with my deep knowledge of classical music as they played Largo:

"Thats the music they used in Hobbiton in LOTR!"

Cue an equally insightful response from the GF:

"Its also the Hovis advert."

Still it was a very good concert and we had a good dose of culture there. That evening we dined on the 'local' gastronomy of onion soup, beef ghoulash and bohemian dumplings (they looked and tasted like soggy french bread) followed up with apple strudel.... Gagging from the salt content, even I was chugging down the 'free' Budweiser.

This is where we came to the conclusion that no one visits Prague for the savoury food...

The hot chocolate and cakes on the other hand... Lovely, if you remember to say "NO SQUIRTY CREAM PLEASE!" fast enough. They put it on everything they can't put salt in.

Sunday was forcast heavy rain and it looked like it had rained as walking over cobblestones became a deadly tiptoeing dance and there were various puddles. However, we were lucky and managed to avoid any of the wet stuff.

We also saw and indeed 'experienced' the astronomical clock. This is apparently the thing to see in Prague. Gothic churches and wonderful buildings is so last week darlink. So there we stood just a bit before 12 along with 10 million other tourists milling about the front of this very pretty clock. I had my camcorder at the ready to capture the brilliance of as the guidebook described it "complex mechanical movements."

It struck 12.


The clock went bong alot.


2 windows slid open and paintings of people slid past.


The skeleton moved slightly to clang his bell.


Other models may have moved a tiny bit.



It was awesome....

I didn't know how we could possibly follow that and my suggestion of trying the museum of torture devices or the museum of "The history of sex machines" didnt get the GF excited so we settled for a hot chocolate.

Monday was a fairly dreary day although again we were lucky in avoiding the rain as we sojorned to our last port of call which was Prague castle. A very beautiful spot with many picturesque buildings and yet more photo opportunities for me. We also managed to walk down about 10 gazillion steps only to turn around and come up a very similarly steep slope to end up where we started.

We got back to the hotel in plenty of time to pick up our (thankfully smoke-free) taxi and got to the airport.

Only to be told the plane was delayed an hour.

The hour finally turned into 2 but it was ok because we were being 'entertained' by what I assume is kids in training for the 2012 Olympic gymnastic or possibly badly coordinated dance team. While we were sitting outside the airport gate waiting for it to open and minding our own business with rude I-spy (as you do) some doting mother switched on a crappy cassette deck and half a dozen children of ages 9-12ish got up and started to rehearse in the middle of two moving walkways. Making it fun for passengers trying to get past for one thing and for another they were beyond dire. If this group had been American tweens I could have understood it, but these idiots were British!

Naturally the GF and I were in fits... It was the applauding parents (all mothers) at the end of each song that got me.

We finally got underway and the GF and I picked up our books to pass the time during the flight. Sadly we were surrounded by Australians, all of whom loved the sound of their own voices (one in particular I think only took about 3 breaths the whole flight.. Its was INCESSANT chatter!) to complement the ever-chat from the Ozzies there was "Jack in the box" a bit further back. His laugh would be something like "ho ho ha ha he he ha ha ho ho" and then repeat. I had a very strong mental image of some fool in a clown outfit bouncing out of a coloured box. To make things just that little more joyous we had 15 minutes of circling over Heathrow. By the amount of other twinkling lights through the aircraft window we were not the only plane just hanging about while LHR sorted their lives out either.

Finally in traditional British fashion we had to queue on the runway for a spot to pull up so finally we could escape.

Thankfully customs and baggage claim were relatively painless and a quick call to the car people and our little vehicle was waiting for us outside the terminal.

Home by midnight, half asleep here at work today.

Prague is a place to soak up culture, see wonderful architecture, get calves like a rugby player and get a full years intake of salt in a weekend.

Fantastic.

Link to my 10 gazillion pics to come!