Prague

This is majorly late in being posted, but alas, I'm changing the date anyway!

This may seem like old news now, but I went to Prague, Czech Republic for half-term. It was a great city, and I would love to go back to it in warmer weather. We had great weather while there though, it wasn't overly cold and it didn't snow or rain while we were there. What can I say, I'm rather talented when it comes to the weather.

What we didn't have as much luck with, however, was health. Sarah was recovering from being sick, Lucy had been battling a cold, and I had no voice for the majority of the trip. I was shouting and all that would come out was a squeak. This made it hard to communicate, obviously, and hard to navigate as I was the only one out who was comfortable with directions. And little Sarah caught the flu while there and was rather ill.

Our health was the only negative part of the vacation.

We arrived in Prague late as our flight had been delayed - this had us worried, as the tube system wasn't running and we weren't sure how to get from the airport into the city centre. We hopped on the bus anyway, and arrived at the closed tube station. Fortunately we were not alone, there was another group of young adults at the station as well. And one of them spoke English, and overheard us trying to sort ouf where the hell we had to go. They were heading in to the city centre as well, so we followed them onto the night tram and got off with them in Wencelas Square. He directed us in the general direction of our hostel and we said thanks and departed.

This was the first encounter with my voice not working when it would have been beneficial. I had a fairly clear idea of where to go as I found where we were on the map, but no one else was able to hear me. They were walking off in the written directions that Lucy had wrote down from the hostel's website which was well enough, but the map was clearly showing me where it would have been a good place to go. We ended up walking in a huge circle that led to the road I had tried to say we should go down anyway. hahahaha. We get there though and promptly fall asleep.

Our room was nice. It was more like a budget hotel than a hostel, as we had our own bathroom and there were no bunkbeds in our 4-bed room. One evening they even gave us a bottle of champagne! Which was nice. The negative part about the hostel though were some of the other occupants who chose to ignore the quiet hours and were banging on each others doors and yelling in the hallway at 4am. Idiots.

Our first morning we headed out and encountered what is currently my favourite building in existence - the Astronomical Clock. I can't really explain how it works as it's complicated, but you should try looking it up. It just amazed me that it was built so very long ago. It's beautiful, and amazes me. Every hour there is a little show it puts on. The 12 Apostles rotate past and there is a skeleton representing Death that rings a bell. Many people are disappointed in the show, but I wasn't. I wasn't disappointed because I couldn't get beyond thinking about how incredibly OLD it is. Around 1410, actually.

After the Clock we went to find the Church Upon Tyn which we could see from Old Town Square. However, what we hadn't remembered reading was that this church is actually surrounded by other buildings, so you can't really see it without seeing other buildings. We ended up on a walk around the area trying to find it before discovering this fact for ourselves.

While in Prague, I have to say that my favourite things were the Astronomical Clock and Charles Bridge. This bridge, while under construction (disappointing) is still an amazing bridge to stroll across. There are multiple statues that adorn it, and it's just a really lovely atmosphere. I bought a small watercolour of it, as I was unable to really take the sort of pictures I'd like to have due to the construction.

There is in Prague a very delicious pastry, and it is in fact I think my favourite pastry ever. It's called a Tredlnik and it is made by rolling the batter around a stick and baking it over coals. It's amusing to eat as well as delicious. Once I tried one, I then proceeded to have one every day. They were that good.

Prague's Castle is hilarious. This is why: the gate, so the FIRST thing you see about this Castle... has two statues on the gate posts. One of these statues shows a man clubbing someone's head in, and the other has a man with a thin sword stabbing someone else. It's very friendly and inviting. Makes you feel welcome. Well, in actuality it made me laugh. It certainly would have been intimidating back in the day. The inside of the Castle has Golden Lane which I did not pay to go down, but it has Kafka's house on it. I didn't feel the need to see his house as I'd walked past the museum and not gone in - although I had laughed at the hilarious pissing statue. The hips swivel so that the men's 'piss' is more like-like I suppose.

The architecture in Prague is amazing - Prague has been left relatively undamaged, so the old parts of the city maintain a lot more of the architecture than you will find in many other locations. I enjoyed just simply walking around. Although Sarah and I did pay to go on a tour to see the Mirror Chapel (cool but not something I'd pay to see), the Astronomical Tower (do not confuse this with the Astronomical Clock, as this tower is where they did their stargazing and provided a really lovely view of the city) and the Baroque Library (what I had wanted to see, and was disappointed at not being allowed to photograph it).

Little Sarah and I after the Baroque Library had gone back to Prague Castle for take two (even though this involved walking up a huge freaking hill) because we wanted to go see the Lobkowiz collection. It was a nice little museum, and we learned that a lot of Beethoven's works were dedicated to someone in that family who was his patron. That was my favourite part, actually getting to see works by Beethoven and Mozart and being able to view their actual handwriting. Especially as I hadn't been expecting that.

Back to architecutre, however. There is a building in Prague that I had wanted to see, and on our departure day, since I was up hours before everyone else, I went for a walk around Prague alone to find it. It's the Dancing House, which is also called Ginger and Fred after Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. It's a more modern building, but I thought it looked lovely and wanted to see it. So I had a lovely stroll along the river while going to find it.

An area of Prague that I would have liked to spend more time in but didn't, was the Jewish Quarter. Prague is known for it's Jewish history, and while I'm sure most of you know that I'm not really keen on war-history, there's a very strong presence in this part of the city. It just felt really intriguing and heavy, moreso than the rest of the Old Town.

To contrast the more sombre memorial that is the Jewish Quarter, there is also in the New Town a wall dedicated to John Lennon. It's a wall covered in graffiti, so it's always changing. There's a lot on there and you could spent a rather long time examining it and still miss a lot. We were unfortunately not bright enough to have taken any markers with us, so we didn't contribute anything to the wall and I think we all wish that we had.

Overall, I really just loved being here. I've left out a lot, but I've tried to keep this entry somewhat contained.