wrm

Being a Friday. Tanya’s sore, I’m sore, yea, walked a bit too much yesterday. But it’s 07:15, the sun is up, and the city awaits.

So this time we take the tram up the road to Malovanka and… start walking.

There’s a lookout tower at the top of Petřín hill. And they’re mercenary, to take the stairs to the top costs 250Kc but if you want the elevator it’s 400Kc. Not that we went up, it was (1) a dull day and (2) way too early, they only open at 10.

So we wandered down the hill.

Pity about it being such a dull day.

About half way down the hill you will find the Nebozízek restaurant. They only open at 11:00, but the bartender will happily sell you a beer and a soda for cash. And yea, beer at 09:30. Nobody judges in Prague.

At the bottom of the hill we too were feeling a bit like these guys (Memorial to the Victims of Communism, Olbram Zoubek, 2002). Tried to pop into Pivnice U Švejků for a something (i.e. beer) but the dude figured they’re not open yet. Dude, this is money walking past your door. You obviously work for a boss.

U Knoflíčků however was great, Tanya had an open sarmie, I had a really good coffee.

Jumped on the tram over the river, got in the queue(!) for the Tower Of Books.

The inside of the library is quite nice too.

Looks like Hany Bany has two settings, busy and closed.

Around here I realised that I should probably buy rail tickets to Bratislava (for Sunday), so we took the tram to the train station. Good thing I did too, because the EC279 I had intended to take was fully booked, so we had to get tickets on the roughly 20% more expensive RJ1043.

Tanya was feeling peckish and I had a pointer to a poutine(!) place so back on the Metro to Karlin and walk around the corner to Garage Poutine.

We shared a small Classic for about R80, with a coke and (of course) a beer, very good and recommended.

And then we buggered off back to the AirBnB for some time out.

Half past three-ish we were ready to go out again, and there were a few places on my list that I though worth investigating, so Metro-and-tram to Žižkov where they have a farmer’s market and also Funwari.

Sadly, they were out of stock of the Neko Purin :-(

The Telkom tower dominates. Note the “babies” crawling up and down — they’re by David Černý, and there are ten of them I’m told.

The tower should make a really nice lookout on a good day (that’s the floor with the large windows), and it’s also a hotel (smaller windows above) if you’re prepared to spend around a thousand Euros per night for two people sharing. That’s about what out plane tickets cost. For both of us. Return.

So we grabbed the tram again, this time to Bašta, where Tanya had the duck and I… had beer. Lots of good beer. And the little shop next door had Becherovka in liter bottles for a good price. And as always we got some wine.

And then the #18 tram took us all the way home.

We (well, I) decided to go take in a bit of the architecture, so we walked up to the Cathedral of St Vitus (just up the road really, about a kilometer or so).

This thing is insane.

Also, difficult to photograph.

They worked on this thing for almost 100 years (starting in 1344), then they had a war (1419-1434), and a fire (1541), then nothing happened for a while, and then they finally finished it (1861-1929), just short of 600 years after the project started.

Yup, can’t show it to you in pictures, you have to go there yourself.

We need longer arms. Or a selfie stick.

Girl with a dove (Václav Šimek, 1958) and one of the seven Krištof Kintera statues protesting the destruction of Soviet era buildings, viewed by some as cultural heritage and by others as eyesores — maybe they can be both?

As you can see in the panorama posted earlier, the Žižkov Telkom tower still stands, but the Hotel Praha was demolished in 2013.

Tanya’s camera battery was running low and she’d left the spare at home, so we bought 72 hour Metro tickets at Malostranská, back to Dejvická, got the spare, back on the Metro to Malostranská, and continued our walk.

This is the first of many restaurants Švejk we spotted. The Good Soldier Švejk is a 1921- satirical dark comedy novel by Czech writer Jaroslav Hašek. It’s sort of Catch 22 as written by Kafka, speaking of which…

The Kafka museum is right next door.

There’s also a gingerbread shop. But we could not find the narrowest street. Had a look inside Shakespeare’s Books, then walked all the way up the river to Jirásek Bridge.

By now we’d been out and about for three hours and Tanya was properly gatvol and wanted to sit down with a drink or something. Which was fine, since I had been headed for the Restaurant Stará Doba in any case.

Things to do: Go to Stará Doba, have the Smazeny Syr. OK, done. And good. (Tanya had a vegetarian hamburger, R200, the cheese was on special at around R150, beer R55, lemonade R60. If you live here you will learn to like beer).

Side Quest: I wanted 5,6x50R Magnum rifle brass, and there is a place in Prague that had stock, and I had cleared flying this stuff back in my checked luggage with Vienna security, so it was a case of let’s use the public transport to go find this place. Metro to Palmovka, tram to… well, it wasn’t the best route, but the bus got us there and back to Palmovka in the end.

72-hour tickets are great. You just get on whatever has wheels, if it’s the wrong one, figure it out on-the-go, get on something else.

Took the Metro back home for a bit of a rest.

Side Quest: Tanya too had done her homework, said that she wanted to go to a Koh-I-Noor Hardtmuth — there are at least a dozen branches in Prague itself, and the closest was about 500m from where we stayed. So we walked there and from there to the Metro and once more unto the breach — specifically Staroměstská, the old Jewish quarter where they now (attempt to) sell vast quantities of touristy tchotchkes.

Walked up to Staroměstské náměstí, the Old Town Square, where I remember being not very impressed by the Astronomical Clock the last time we were here, and where we again were not very impressed with the Astronomical Clock this time. To each his own, I guess.

Gave the Sex Machines Museum a miss, but found a nice little crystal cat at Erpet Bohemian Crystal on the other side of the alley.

The Havelský Trh market was in full swing, very nice looking produce, but there’s only so much one can eat.

I had a note to check out the Havelská Koruna local restaurant — it was busy!  It’s a buffet type place, and the queue was… not worth it. And speaking of busy, Wenceslas Square was impossible. Way too many tourists.

I had some other eateries on my list, so we walked (should have taken public transport) past the Powder Tower to Dlouhá street, but the Lokál Dlouhááá had a 30 minute waiting list. And my next stop, Hany Bany? Standing room only. And a bloody long walk from the Lokál, on a route with no public transport. Should have gone the long way around on a tram or something.

So we ended up at the Muc Dong Vietnamese restaurant, where Tanya had a very nice Ramen (not cheap at ~R280) and a lemonade (very much not cheap at ~R80/500ml) and I had… a beer. Also not particularly cheap, but a little bit cheaper than the lemonade.

~0.8 Kč to the ZAR.

At least we were now right by a tram stop, that took is to the Metro, and that took us to the stop before our one, where there is a Tesco and a DM. Wine was acquired. All was well.

This is a bit… insane. Tanya’s phone claimed 24500 steps, but she has shorter legs so it checks out.

And we used a LOT of public transport.

(Backdated as always)

We landed in Vienna at 05:50/06:00 ish. My biggest concern was making it through customs to board the RegioJet bus to Prague at 07:10 but that was no problem, we cleared customs in less than half an hour.

So there was time for Tanya to go spend Euros at the nice shiny Austrian airport shop.

And then we had to wait for the bus driver to open up.

The bus drive takes a while — 5 hours and a bit — but the bus comes with a video display on the seat in front of you, just like the aeroplane, and free coffee. Luxury.

Got to Prague, went shopping at the closest Lidl, then took the Metro (yellow from Florenc to Můstek, green to Dejvická) and walked from there to the AirBnB, which is just up the road from Budvarka, where we had beer and supper (R50 for 500ml draft, which is great, R45 for a 7-up which is not so great. Tanya had the R180 goulash, I had a soup starter and another beer. Because Prague).

Sunrise over Romania or thereabouts.

Prague, Bratislava, Budapest, Slovenia.

After sleeping off the trip (it’s gruelling, wake up at home, board a plane around 1400, change planes in Addis around midnight, land in Vienna at 0600, get on a bus to get to Prague around lunchtime. And I’m not as young as I used to be, so I hurt, so sleeping on the plane is not easy) we’re off to see sights. And buy stuff.