Czech Republic Pt.1 - Prague

Well we're back from our latest European experience and for once the blog will not be an eternity in being updated with the photos. We took 99 photos and want to post so many here that the post will be in two parts. Thanks to some advice from Vonny's brother Andrew we have changed the blog's format so that only the two most recent entries show up on the main page. We think this is a bit more user friendly. Any older posts can still be viewed through the archives on the right of the screen, and will remain there until we fill the webspace where we store all the photos.

You may remember from the 'T.Y in the U.K' posting in June that we were planning to meet up with T.Y and Clare in the Czech Republic. We spent 4 days in the capital Prague and then spent another 4 travelling around to the north west. Prague was a nice city, in many respects due to it's great architecture. What would be any old apartment block in another city has an ornamental facade in Prague which makes the whole place very cultured. Here's a couple of examples, check out the painting on the second one.





The wonderful public transport system is clean, efficient, reliable and cheap. From the airport to the city centre costs less than 50p. The Metro stations have some great decoration, and this one was a particular favourite.



On our first day with Clare and T.Y we went for a walk to Charles Bridge in the morning. It has statues of all the former rulers of what is now the Czech Republic along it's sides and is tourism central. This photo was taken by a fellow New Zealander called Susan that Vonny met at the hostel. She's a cheese expert and had just travelled overland from Hong Kong through China, Mongolia and Russia. Top effort.



The river along which Prague is situated is called the Vltava, and you can't really go far without crossing it. Fortunately there are numerous bridges. Here's Vonny on our last morning on the way to the local market. That building on the skyline is Prague Castle.



This is the view from up near the castle. The city is sometimes known as the city of a hundred spires and it's not without good reason. There are probably two times more than you can see here.




It was shorts and T-shirt weather every day whilst we were there. On our final day Vonny and I did the closest thing to going to the beach and hired a pedal boat to drift up and down the river and take in the sights from a new vantage point. It was a great way to cool off and work on our tans at the same time.



Prague has a reputation for being ridiculously cheap if you look around, and we often ate a good meal with beers for less that £4. It is however a shopping haven for many Europeans, and as such caters to every budget and taste. We had to take a photo of these as we have never seen them before (in case you can't make it out the brand it's Faberge).

Czech Republic Pt.2 - East Bohemia

On the Wednesday morning we got up early (for once T.Y's early rising had a benefit) and headed out to the airport to pick up a rental car, a rather nifty VW Golf. Our designated drivers Vonny and Clare drove us up to an area called Cesky Raj (pronounced cheskie-rye) which is known for it's picturesque Bohemian scenery. On the way we passed the Skoda factory, where my parents first cars were born. That afternoon we went on a walk through an area of large rocks and spruce forest which was a nice change from the noise and bustle of the city. Here's T.Y. and Clare.



There are a number of old castles in the area and this one was pretty amazing. The rock itself is a natural formation and heaven knows how they originally got up into the towers, or even built them. When we visited we had the benefit of a nice set of stairs, but to any attacking force it must have seemed like a hopeless cause.





The next day we drove up to a town with the wonderful name of Ped Poc Snezkou, which is a ski resort in winter. Behind the town is the highest point in the Czech Republic and the border with Poland. There are two cable cars running to the top which Vonny and Clare opted to take, whilst T.Y and I opted for the 3 hour 800m+ climb to the top.



Please excuse the lack of a shirt but it was a hot day and a steep track to the top. The old Czech women laughed at me when I sucked my gut in for the photo, but I was the one who was laughing when I saw Vonny and Clare a minute later and they told me they had only just got there. T.Y and I had made the climb in about 1:20 and arrived there first. Vonny walked a few steps into Poland and brought us a couple of beers to celebrate.



Both T.Y and I felt we had earned the trip down on the cable car and it was worth it just for the different views that we saw. I also got this great photo of Vonny.



The next day we set off for one of the Czech Republic's main attractions, the rock town in the Adrspach-Teplice region. It is a collection of tightly packed rock formations that have been formed by erosion. The term rock town is used as most of the formations have names relating to their form. This one was called Lovers.



The walk among the rocks was quite spectacular, words can't really describe it.



With pines, spruces and birches growing among and on the rocks the whole place had the look about it like a giant Chinese garden. It's a bit of a mecca for rock climbers and on the top of many of the rocks are little flags and a fixed point to belay yourself down from. You can see the tiny figure of a climber in the crack beside my right knee.



A funny thing happened whilst T.Y and I were looking at a room to rent for the night. The landlady, who didn't speak any english, was asking where we were from. Not knowing what Czech for New Zealand was we tried to explain where N.Z was in relation to Australia with sign language. "Australia?" she said, "Fuck Australia"! It must have gained something in the translation, but T.Y and I couldn't help but nod our heads and agree with her. We figured she had the right attitude so we took the room.
The following morning we started heading back to Prague, but on the way was an eagerly anticipated stop at Kutna Hora to visit the ossuary. The synopsis of it's history is: guy comes back from Jerusalem with some dirt, sprinkles it in the cemetary, and suddenly everyone in Europe wants to be buried there. A few hundred years and a couple of plagues later and there are too many bodies and bones for the cemetary. A local carpenter is employed to do something with them, and the result is a chandelier containing all the bones in the human body.



There are the bones of about 40,000 people stored there, although most of them are just sitting in big piles. This however is the coat-of-arms of the local nobility, and the detail is pretty impressive. Look at the figure just to the left of centre at the top of the shield; he's made of a shoulder blade.



On that ghoulish note we headed back to Prague and normality. A final cheap meal and a few more beers and it was time to say good-bye to Clare and T.Y, and wish them well on the remaining 5 weeks of their European tour. Another early start on Sunday (up before T.Y for the only time) and we were back home by 9:30am ready to get ourselves in order for the return to normality, and start planning our next European escapade.