A night in the UK.
After 18 hours of waiting at Gatwick airport, we finally take off to the
great city of Prague, leaving behind us Una and our beloved England. It has
been a long awaited moment not only because of the sleeping in the airport but
more importantly because we have been looking forward to visiting Jan and
Karolina for quite a long time. Two hours and a few naps later, Prague is here
right before our eyes. Well, actually, mainly from the sky... Anyway, the
airport is nice, and even nicer, Jan is waiting for us in the main hall with a
"small" surprise behind his back: Mischa! That makes a day and also makes you
forget all these stupid floodings in London... It has been such a long time! In
no time, we reach the city centre and soon after the dormitory where a warm
shower is welcoming us. Next step to start off this week of holidays: a small
pub next to the dorms with nice drinks and crazy marinated cheese! Yummy!
First day: the biggest in the world!
9 o'clock: alarm's ringing!
- Muuh? Wanna sleep, niarf.
9h30: bathroom!
- bath-what?
- bathroom!
- what-room?
- bathroom!!
- what-what?
- oh, nevermind.
Everybody thinks that holidays are meant to rest. Actually, it is quite the
opposite. Who would want to miss all the touristy places that make you a real
west european traveler? First ingredient: money, coins, bank notes, lots of
them. Here, the currency has been the "koruna česká" (czech crown) for 14 years
since the split of Czechoslovakia and will be so for at least 5 more years. The
value of things (apart from beer of course) is not obvious at first when you
are used to Euros or Pounds: you can get bank notes worth as high as 5000 czech
crowns (roughly worth 180 euros). Thanks to Mischa exchanging is not too much
of an issue: if we keep our mouths shut, she can pass ourselves off as natives
and get us the exchange rate for Czech in a "Smĕnárna pro Čechy" (a bureau de
change exclusively for Czech people).
A bureau de change
exclusively for Czech people.
First order of business once we have the painfully earned money, visiting
the "Pražský orloj" (astronomical clock tower), with a french speaking guide of
course which is just perfectly fitted for our "language freak", Jan 
The
clock is called astronomical because it displays the position of the Sun and
the Moon in the sky and several other astronomical states. It also features a
show every hour made of a few figurines of apostles coming out and back in.
Prague's astronomical clock
tower.
Jan, myself and Olivier at
the top of the tower.
From the top of the tower, we discover a great overview of the city starring
all the places we would later visit starting with the "Karlův most" (Charles
bridge). This is for sure the most beautiful bridge crossing the Vltava in
Prague and also the oldest with an announced age of 650 years! It is flanked by
many imposing statues and, by any means, swarming with tourists and local
artists.
The Charles bridge in the
middle of Prague.
After a nice meal (Czech food is tasty!) on a Prague's
terrasse, direction Malá Strana to one of the three St. Nicholas church of
Prague and certainly not the least. Miguel Alonso describes it as [...] algo grandioso,
diferente, lo nunca visto.
En el interior de la iglesia hay colosales
estatuas de santos, y en el techo un fresco de 1500 metros cuadrados sobre la
vida de San Nicolás.
See for yourself:
St. Nicholas church from the
inside: impressive.
Right after, still keeping a good holiday rythm, we take the tram to the
Petřín hill in order to enjoy Prague from above. On our way to the top, a
couple of obstacles need to be got through. First, five hideous creatures,
vaguely humanoid but mainly made of metal, are trying to scare us to death by
disappearing. Secondly and more importantly, 300 steps have to be climbed to
make it to the top! Thankfully, our incredible courage helped by a 5 minutes
journey on board of a funicular do the trick.
Are you an idiot? No sir, I'm
a dreamer.
Following a little nap badly needed to recover from the hard trip to the
top, we make our way to the Petřín tower. As a french person, the easiest way
to describe it is comparing it with the Eiffel tower. It got built 2 years
after the latter and can be considered as its little sister since the styles
are pretty much alike, apart of course from the 264 metres that the Petřín
tower is lacking.
Petřín tower: a baby Eiffel
tower.
From the top of the tower the view on Prague is plainly amazing. Many
outstanding monuments are visible and particularly, thanks to Mischa's deep
interest in the subject, the "Velký strahovský stadion", the Strahov stadium,
meant to be (hold tight) the biggest stadium on the planet or
something close.
The "Great Strahov Stadium":
the second biggest sports facility in the world.
If you go there, do not forget on your way down to grab a drink from this
really well located bar where Olivier and Mischa are savouring czech beers. The
view on the city from this middle spot is absolutely gorgeous.
Piva!
Finally, a well deserved pre-sleep meal is waiting for us next to the
dormitories. It is worth mentioning that it is only during these hard times
that you get to learn crucial vocabulary of the local language.
Upiček! Sleep's needed...
Second day: slow down! It's tough being a tourist...
11h30: the "Pražský hrad".
Litterally "château praguois", is erected on the west shore of the city and
is (again!) one of the biggest castle in the world. It hems in the saint Vitus
cathedral and serves as a residence for the Czech Republic president. Here, one
of our main discoveries is the most boring job ever (yes, even including
counting pigeons in plaza Catalunya): guard at the Prague castle.
Prague château and St Vitus
cathedral: unique!
Are you able to count those
people?
15h00: the jewish district.
Unfortunately, no photos of this guided tour of these many jewish culture
related sites are available. The french speaking guide is nice, knows a
lot about the subject and plans on telling everything in only
a few hours: she has to speak fast! Synagogue after synagogue, we discover many
things that none of us three knew about Judaism and the history of the jewish
people. Highly interesting! Also, it is worth noting that Prague hosts the
world's oldest synagogue still in activity. Its name: the Old New
Synanogue.
This adventure also allows us to safely say: czech old counter women are
definitely fluent in english! Lístek prosím!
19h00: relax night before leaving Prague.
Photographs are worth a thousand lines:
Tomaš enjoying a beer and Jan
pretending that he never drinks.
Photography is an art, you
know...
After the first pub and
before the second one
Last day in Prague...
Our last visit is for the Vyšehrad cemetery where many famous czech people
got buried. This includes composers, artists, sculptors, writers but
not the czech genius Cimerman (the guy who invented everything
including flying balloons and electricity, freed the czech nation and so
on...).
On the way to the cemetery, we cannot help but notice this metro+cars bridge
famous for its every-3-days-suicide.
The suicide --booth--, erhm,
bridge.
Vltava river crossing
Prague.
It is finally time to say goodbye to this wonderful city that Prague is (and
to rest for a while :)).
Working hard...
See you on the other side of the country: next stop, Ostrava.
