Jan
2
Written by:
Jess Williamson
1/2/2011 11:39 PM
First of all Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone back home and fellow travellers. I hope the new decade has started well for everyone and you all brought in the new year with a bang. Thinking of you all back home over the last few weeks and missing you all. I cant believe we have been away for 3 months already.
So after a long overnight 15 hour train ride from Belgium we arrived in Prague. We always swear whilst on the train that we will never ever do overnight trains again, but being suckers for punishment we always go back on that statement. The overnight train was definitely an experience. As we left booking tickets till the final minutes all that was left was seated tickets in a cabin of six. Dave and I had to two middle seats nestled in amongst a chain smoker, some horrible body odour and someone who liked to stretch out over two seats when sleeping. So 4 hours later that we were meant to, extremely over tired and starving, we arrived at Praha Central Station a tad grumpy.
Our accommodation whilst in Prague was Hostel One. The private room we booked was actually the size of a small one bedroom apartment, which was a nice change from the normal small rooms we are used to. After settling into our accommodation and catching some much needed 'zzzz's' we got our 'Terry Tourist faces on'.
Holding high expectations of Prague after many good reviews from fellow travellers, we weren’t disappointed. Its charm takes a while to build on you but eventually the city lived up to its hype. Wandering through the ancient winding streets of central Prague was enough of an experience on its own. Lots of small cobble stone streets in the Old Jewish Quarter which you can easily get lost in – and we did. I actually think Dave's sense of direction is getting worse (We'll blame the beer). It is a very touristy city, which was proven when we walked the famous Charles Bridge along with thousands of other tourists. However the bridge itself with all the medieval statues is quite beautiful. Without being obscured by the large number of tourists the castle on the other side of Charles Bridge is definitely a focus point of Prague. One of the most spectacular buildings in Prague is the St Vitus Cathedral in the Castle grounds. An old medieval cathedral built in the late 19th and early 20th century. Inside the cathedral are stunning stained glass windows in vibrant colours, a stark contrast to the medieval ghouls on the outside. Around the castle are many courtyards which boast beautiful views from different angles of Prague below, which as they had just experienced the first snow of the season, was covered in a stunning white icing.
Snow! Yes our first snow of the season. Every tourist that Dave spoke to couldn’t believe that he had never seen snow before. When we were enjoying some beers one night in the Hostel Pub, the barman told us that it had started snowing outside. Dave was outside within seconds, beer in hand, and acting like a little a kid winning Mouse trap for the first time (You know what I mean Press Family). So a few snow fights later, Dave had lost his snow virginity.
We have been craving some good old sport and with the state of Australian Cricket at the moment, we decided that maybe its better to immerse ourselves in another sport, and pretend we don't know what's happening back home. So we went to a local Ice Hockey game where the local Prague team – The Spartans were playing. Unfortunately like the Australian cricket team their season is in a bit of dismay, and they lost the game 4 -1. However it was still a good atmosphere and fun to watch, somewhat a crazy game at times.
Whilst we were in Prague the Christmas markets had their opening day. We had a little bit of a challenge over chrissy visiting all the countries chrissy markets trying to find the best. Prague's were up there, mainly because of the food selection, with pig on the spit, biggest bratwurst I have seen outside Germany and amazing donut cones we were in chrissy heaven.
Along with tasting the food we continued the tradition of tasting beers in every city and whilst Czech beers are definitely up there among the best, always a bonus when you are paying 60c for a great beer. They say Czech's drink more beer per capita than any other nation, and at prices like that I can see why. I think we can safely say 'Augustiner Brewery' in Austria still is our top choice, but Czech beers still go down a treat.
So four days in Prague flew by and we were onto our next destination Cesky Krumlov, to the south of Prague. I definitely recommend a visit to Prague. It's charm definitely grows on you and the architecture is just beautiful.