Prague - The Beauty and the Beast

Upon arrival in Prague on Wednesday night I had planned to take it fairly easy, possibly go into town and take a look around, but nothing too serious. This changed when I bumped into David and Linton who I had met on the bus from Berlin a few days earlier. They had done the Prague pub crawl the night before and were wearing the T-shirts to prove it. They apparently had such a good time that they were going again, and after very little coercion I decided to go too.

So, my first night in Prague, I am led into town following David and Linton, when I get to where the pub crawl starts I am handed a pint of beer for myself and a 2 litre pitcher of beer to take to the town square to fill up other crawlers beers. I met a few girls from Kent, near London, which must produce some pretty awesome people as that’s where the Green’s spring from. By the time we got to the crawl bar where everything starts off with an hours of free beers, wine vodka and cranberry and absinthe shots, the night was already getting loose.

Nothing makes the ladies drop like flies like free shots and a lot of guys who want you to get drunk. I carried Laura, one of the Kent girls to the next bar, and then I think she went back to her hostel. She was followed soon after by another of her friends outside the next bar. Then Mel, a girl in Hannah’s room fell over in the street and lost the ability to walk. All in all only about 50% would have made it to the massive 6 level nightclub next to Charles Bridge. I was reasonably loose, but not messy as I had spent most of the evening with Holly, one of the Kent girls, while lost most of the people I had gone on the crawl with over the various levels. After a while I found myself outside the nightclub realizing that I had no map, no friends and no idea where I was. I started talking to a few guys from Bristol, which mostly consisted of me giving them shit as the English cricket team is crap. I finally caught up with Hannah around 4am and we got a taxi back to the hostel. Taxi drivers in the Czech Republic are nuts. The guy was on wet streets and he was absolutely flying along. Oh well. At least we got home quick.

The next day it took a little while to get going but I managed to make my out of the hostel to check out the city in the daylight. Prague is an absolutely beautiful place, but it is completely full of tourists and on that first day it did little to impress me apart from the fact that it is pretty and some nice old buildings. After going back to the hostel, Hannah and I went to the shops to get some food for dinner and after eating, realized that we both felt pretty average so decided not to go out again in the evening and start early the next morning. At about 1am the Irish girls in my room came in massively drunk and laughing themselves stupid. I can distinctly remember one of them yelling “Shot op, Kairtee” repeatedly, which made me chuckle, even though I was trying to sleep.

The next morning we had planned to go out the Kutna Hora, the town where the Ossuary (Bone Church) is located. I was a little disappointed by it, as somehow I had got the impression that it was built out of human bones, but instead it’s just a normal church that effectively uses human bones as some form of macabre Christmas decorations. I’m not disappointed that I saw it, as you’ll not see anything like that anywhere else in the world; however it all felt a little tacky to me. In the afternoon I went looking for a Vodafone as I needed some credit , however it turns out that Czech Vodafones only sell credit for Czech numbers, which didn’t help me much.

That evening Hannah, Clive and I went out to CrossClub, which is a Bar/Club near the hostel. It’s all decorated with car parts, with one room downstairs having moving car engines above the tables. The lights are integrated into the engines, and the whole place looks very cool. I started talking to some girls from the Midlands in the UK. This holiday though Europe was supposed to be about meeting people from different cultures, but I am quickly learning that unless I drastically change the way I behave, I will spend all my time talking to Aussies, Kiwis and the occasional Brit. Not that I’m all that bothered by it, as nearly everyone of met on this trip has been great fun.

On Saturday morning Hannah and I got up and did the bike tour of Prague. Both the bike tours of Berlin and Amsterdam had been fantastic, so I must admit that I probably did expect a fair bit from this, and was disappointed. The tour guide didn’t have fantastic English, he didn’t take us to what I would have thought would be must see sights, such and the Astronomical Clock, and most of his information was his personal stories about places, rather than information about why it was here and historical stories about the place. And we got rained on, which didn’t make me any happier.

That night we decided to do the Pub Crawl again as another busabout of people we knew had rolled in the night before and wanted to do the crawl. It went along in a similar fashion as the last time, except that went I walked out of the club at 4am, I had a map, and a clue. I decided to take the night tram home, and walked along through the streets of Prague to the tram stop. When I had arrived there it was a 20 minute wait for the tram so I decided to walk the 1 hour trek back to the hostel. It was actually hugely exciting and fulfilling to walk through the streets of a city I had always dreamed of, as if I was a local heading home after a big night. It was slightly less brilliant when it started to rain, but I was still very pleased with myself when I got back to the hostel.

The next morning I visited the Prague castle and this is where I really started to understand the amazing beauty of city. Looking down from the spectacular grounds of the castle, the huge amounts of annoying tourists and the poor customer service you will receive from pretty much everywhere fade into the background and I finally understood the amazing drawing power of the Czech capital. Prague is simply gorgeous. From every angle any views across the Vlatava and the city up to the Castle are unlike anything I have ever seen in the flesh. It was my fourth day in Prague, and only now was I finally appreciating the reason the place is packs with visitors, and why I would be sad to leave.

Sunday night came around and for my last night in Prague I went up to a beer garden that overlooks the whole city whit a few new friends from Busabout. After a few beers and I nice meal I walked through the city at night and took some photos of the beautiful central European capital at night. Prague belted me around a few nights, and her punches are hard and swift, but when she holds you in her arms, it’s hard to wish you were anywhere else.