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It's mid August and we have now been travelling for two and a half months through some of Europe's best known cities - all the way around from Paris to Berlin (and every disco I've been in...). Now it's time for something a little different. Prague is still full of tourists, but it marks the beginning of our adventure into Eastern Europe - territory a little less frequented by the tourist hordes, having been hidden behind the 'iron curtain' of communism until fairly recently.
So we cross the German border into the Czech Republic, formerly Czechoslovakia until the 'velvet divorce' of 1989. We swap our euros for Czech Korunas (crowns) and czech into Sir Toby's hostel (Oh, oh - do ya see what I did there? Czech/check in, get it?! These incredible jokes continue all week) in the beautiful capital city of Prague, where we are greeted by some of the friendliest staff we've encountered and a refreshingly international assortment of guests who we spend a great few nights with watching the last days of the Olympics (between the French, English, Aussies and Americans, it gets a little heated), enjoying free barbeques and beer that is cheaper than water, literally.
Praque is quite unique in that only one building, the old city hall, was destroyed in the war. Even so, half was left standing and can still be seen in the old town square today next to the beautiful astronomical clock. So everywhere you turn, you are surrounded by these amazingly old and ornate buildings, and as a horse and cart clutter past you feel as though you have stepped back in time. Of course this also makes the city a tourism hotspot and as we wander over the Charles bridge we have to squeeze past cartoonists, buskers, souvenir stands and hundreds of camera wielding foreigners like ourselves.
We took two walking tours in Prague - one with a local who at times was a little hard to understand but had some great stories of his childhood in Prague as he took us off the beaten path, and through the castle district. Although it is the top attaction in Prague, we actually weren't overly impressed with the castle district - especially in the setting of the rest of the city it's not very 'castle-y'... It's a bit of a mish mash of buildings up on the hill which left us a little underwhelmed. Our other tour was a Sandemans tour - we've done a couple of these in other cities and they are really good quality, if a little large. This one took us to sights like the Estates Theatre, the Powder Tower, the Art Nouveau Municipal House, Wenceslas Square and the old Jewish quarter. We also learnt a little about Prague under communism and the infamous political protests that saw the student Jan Palach set himself alight in 1969.
Afterwards we took up the guide's recommendation and went to 'The Pub' for afternoon beers - a 'pour your own' setup with taps and a touch screen computer in the middle of the table which tracks your beers (we are told it turns into a contest between tables when it's busier in the evenings), and lets you order food like the fried Olomouc smelly cheese which we tried. Gem pretty accurately stated that it 'tastes like a cow smells'. Not the best, admittedly! But the beers were good, and ridiculously cheap at about 2 euro a litre.
Prague nightlife is also pretty good. We had very high expectations which perhaps weren't quite met, but even so we were out almost every night so it can't have been too bad! Lots of bars, lots of people, just not as many big clubs as we expected. Prague at night is gorgeous too, with it's little cobblestone alleys, stone archways and small courtyards lit with soft yellow lights - what a fairytale setting.
Cross club was just around the corner from our hostel. This is probably the most unique bar I've ever been to - we sat on bus seats and gazed around at an interior completely covered in scrap metal (which the boys identified as car parts, ha) constructed into funky structures that whirled and lit up - so cool!
We also went on a very messy pub crawl where they pumped us full of nasty vodka shots and took us to some cute little cellar bars and to Karlovy Lázně - a massive 5 story club with a different music genre on each floor. The boys went on a second pub crawl which finally saw the tally tip a little thanks to Mark, letting the team down in a very big messy way! Let's just say that if Gem hadn't randomly spotted him huddled on a bench in the street as we walked past, he probably wouldn't have made it home that night! Ben also stumbled in late that morning, recounting crazy stories of the long road home. So the tally now stands at about 6-1, although we are still very unsure whether to count food poisoning, travel sickness etc...if so Team Odgers are reaaaally kicking our asses. I will smugly (stupidly?) note here that I am the only spew free traveller remaining.
So while they boys were off destroying their livers, Gemma and I had a very classy night at the ballet - a small production of Swan Lake in an intimate little theatre. Admittedly a few of the dancers in this production looked less than interested, but the ballerina dancing the part of Odette was breathtaking - so a lovely evening and pretty good first ballet experience for Gem! Prague has a strong 'classical' culture, with a huge variety of theatre, ballet, opera and concerts to choose from every night - all in beautiful concert halls and theatres. A lot of marionette/puppet stores too. We had a few drinks ourselves afterwards and checked out some of Prague's well known bars including Chapeau Rouge and Lavka.
On our final day in Prague, we raced out to see the famous giant iron babies climbing the tv tower, then climbed a million stairs to reach the metronome - a giant metronome (well duh) which takes the place of a giant statue of Stalin, which was blown up shortly after the fall of communism in 1989. The area behind the metronome is filled with skateboarders - apparently a pretty famous spot for this - and gives a great view over the whole city. A short stroll took us through Letna park to Prague's biggest beer garden where we kicked back with a beer to enjoy the view - a perfect end to a great week.
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