European Vacation

In my travels I've been privledged enough to see some beautiful cities in Europe and Prague can proudly take its place in that list. It's very easy to fall in love with the city for both its beauty and charm!

My train trip from Dresden to Prague was pretty uneventful, although the German Border Guard did seem to study my passport rather intensely for an extended period of time to the point where I began to worry (as passport photos go it's not the best, but it does look like me- maybe on one of my bad days, but me nevertheless!). The only negative aspect of arriving in Prague by train is the station. I've seen quite a few train stations in my time but this must be one of the dirtiest and seediest! It didn't help matters that I had arrived at 8.30pm and it was already dark. To make things even more interesting was the fact that I couldn't work out which exit I had to take as the signs (if there were any) are all in Czech- a language which I understand as well as Polish- zero!

Nevertheless, I did manage to find my way to the hostel although the advertised 10 minute walk took me about 30 minutes after I had walked around in a circle twice (had I walked around a third time I think the taxi driver who kept asking me whether I wanted a lift would have driven me for free!) and up a steep hill (one which I found out I didn't need to climb). Oh well, I figure it was a good opportunity to walk off the extra kilo's I've put on in my time here in Europe with all the beer!

The day after I arrived in Prague I did a day trip to a town called Kutna Hora which is about 1 hour outside of Prague. It's a beautiful little town with, yes you guessed it, another church. This however isn't just any old church. It's claim to fame is that the church is decorated with human bones. After the plague, the town was running out of room for all the bones so the Monks decided to stack them into four pyramids in this little church. As I have seen the Catacombes in Paris where the bones of a couple of million people are located, the bone pyramids made up of about 40 000 people didn't impress me that much, I must admit. What is impressive about the church is that some ingenious person decided that this was all rather too boring and so decided that what the church needed was a Chandelier made of human bones, and alas, that's what he made...

If that piece of furniture isn't bizarre enough, there is also a family coat of arms inside the church made of human bones- just what every good, noble family needs!

My second day in Prague, two of the girls I was hanging around with in Berlin came to Prague for the weekend. One of their flatmates was involved in a modern art exhibition being held in Prague so we ended up getting free accomodation for the weekend. The exhibition was being held in a building in the Prague Markets (similar to Paddies Markets in city but not undercover) and we could sleep above the exhibition space in one of the empty rooms. We had a mattress each and of course our sleeping bags and given that it was for free couldn't complain (although I wasn't a fan of the cold shower I must admit!) We ended up having a great weekend and managed to squeeze in quite a bit of sightseeing and partying. I did enjoy hanging around the different artists who were exhibiting their works although it was a little bit of a culture shock at first- they were certainly a lot more alternative than the industrial relations people I'm used to! If they weren't permanently stoned they certainly acted that way!

The old town of Prague is absolutely beautiful and reminded me a little of Florence due to the many cobblestone laneways and cafe's. As prices go it's also great going out in Prague as alcohol is much cheaper than in other parts of Europe (and cigarettes for that matter which answers the next question- yes I'm still smoking!). Unfortunately, we kept being told by locals to be careful where we go so as not to get ripped off as, according to them, there seems to be one menu for locals (in Czech) and one menu for tourists with the tourist menu being quite a lot dearer than the local menu. I can't say whether that is true and I'm willing to give the locals the benefit of the doubt that they don't try to rip you off though we did end up walking out of one cafe as the beer there was three times as much as we'd paid everywhere else (and yes, that menu was only in English!)

Unfortunately I can't upload any photos from Prague at the moment as this internet cafe won't let me so you'll have to wait until I get back (if I don't finish the blog now, I'll probably never get around to it!). All in all I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Prague and would recommend it as a destination to anyone, whether their interest is the culture, nightlife, shopping or architecture. The opportunity to walk from the castle, over Charles bridge to the old town is truly magical!

Well, now I'm up to date with my blog again. Currently I'm in Munich to spend a last couple of days with my Nan before I fly out to London on Tuesday. From there I fly to New York on Friday and in less than two weeks (!) I'll be back home and my 'little' trip through Europe will have come to an end! Not long now!