Unfortunately for us this time of year seems to be plagued by reasonably frequent thunder storms. The humidity during the day slowly builds until it reaches its peak and drops a ton of water on unsuspecting travellers like us. Luckily we were close enough to town to duck into a restaurant and it seemed the perfect time to try out some Czech cuisine. According to Laura, who has been here a couple of times for past competitions, the staple is potatoes. Given my lack of self restraint for the entire trip so far, my increasingly tight pants were not hugely impressed by this. Luckily for us they do actually eat foods other than potatoes and a delicious traditional goulash in a bread bowl, accompanied by the obligatory dirt cheap beer kept us out of the rain.
A nice early start the following morning meant we missed the hordes of tourists and Prague did not disappoint. The cobbled pavements led us to the Powder Gate (not really a gate, more an arch which I managed to convince Tessa is named due to the locals throwing black powder on it. Not entirely sure how I got her hook, line and sinker); followed by the town square with the astronomical clock and down to the Charles Bridge. We made sure to rub the 'lucky' gold statues before continuing on our way towards the Prague Castle sitting majestically on the hillside.
The Castle is very impressive perched up above Prague. One of the more well known buildings, the St Vitus Cathedral, is within its walls along with multiple museums detailing Prague's history. We wandered around the museums and cathedral. I got a bit snap happy and ended up with abut 50 photos of the stained glass windows, none of which really do them justice. Ever the rebel I managed to get a couple of shots of areas where you had to have a photo license to be allowed to take pictures. A tad too much information in the museums meant we were frequently looking for the way out before discovering there was yet another room to get through first.
A wander around the Jewish quarter with the 'new synagogue' and 'old-new synagogue' (inventive names much?) led us back to the hostel to meet up with Jourdan and Celia. Out the door again we headed to the compulsory stop in Prague, the Beer Garden! A delightful evening ensued where we each consumed about 1.5L of beer and tried to guess what types of dogs were wandering around while their owners got sloshed. The cutest was what we thought was a pit bull/sausage dog cross, the beer may have enhanced our guesses at some stage along the way.
The following morning Rach had an early start (4.30am!!!) to head back to NZ. Laura, Celia, Jourdan and I wandered around for the day, finding some sort of festival with a band playing. We treated ourselves to a rather delicious meal for Celia's birthday. Celia decided to be brave and attempt the dish of "1/2 duck", literally a duck chopped in half, apparently a delicacy here!
With the arrival of Tessa that night, Jourdan, Celia, Tessa and I decided to splash out on a tour to Kutna Hora, a UNESCO World Heritage site about an hour east of Prague. It was a great day with the discovery of Czech public railways which have no air con, limited seating and maximum number of travellers. That combined with our hottest day yet took us out to the Bone Chapel which was a tad creepy. Prague has some pretty brutal history in terms of battles and loss of life due to the plague. As a result they had a ton of dead bodies in a graveyard that they claimed could degrade the dead (bones included) in 3 days. This lovely fable meant they had hordes of dying people flocking to the graveyard and literally waiting to die as supposedly the faster the body degradation, the more likely you were to end up in a good spot in heaven. What better way to solve this situation than to dig up the bones of long dead people and use them as decorations!!
This was followed by the slightly more normal Kutna Hora church which is a beautiful sight. The area used to have a lot of mining, originally for silver which meant they were fairly rich and powerful. Later during the communist regime (1949 - 1989) they mined zinc; now it has all been closed down and the place is left as a bit of a ghost town. Interesting day and quite good to get a bit more history which I wouldn't have known about otherwise. The train ride back we mistakenly picked the carriage for women with children (this was after an hour wait on the platform due to what we would eventually realise is the standard Czech delay) and I ended up standing after a few too many kiddies got on. It was actually one of the better options in the end as I managed to loll my head out into the breeze and see a bit of Czech countryside.
The thing I've noticed most while being here are the contrasting areas and the ton of what looks like wheat crops. Field after field have either just been milled or waiting their turn. A lot of the areas still look pretty communist inspired with big concrete apartments and housing squished in together. The main astronomical clock in both Prague and Olomouc (where World Uni's is based) used to have historical religious figurines which move around on each hour. During the communist regime these were all replaced with communist figures or people that the general population should supposedly aspire to replicate. I find it interesting that in both places they've chosen to keep them as is, I guess the communism is all part of their history.
Next up for me is 2 weeks in Olomouc playing Manager for the NZ team for the World University Champs. Should be a good couple of weeks then finally on to Sweden!!
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