Trifter

To all who wish to know more about Prague (which, by the way, is in the Czech Republic, formerly Czechoslovakia, for those of you who might not know….), here are some possibly interesting stories:

We (that is me, my Irish friend Lisa and my roomate Natalie) left from London for Prague bright and early on an October Wednesday morning by first getting a taxi to Stansted airport (nice and new and nearby–all you can ask for in an airport!) and then by catching a Czech Airlines flight for Prague. Two hours later we were landing at a nice bright spacious airport, where we noticed Prague was suddenly called “Praha”, which is how the locals refer to their capital city. Don’t ask me for pronunciation assistance as I am afraid to say the Czech language pretty much eluded my (rather feeble) efforts at speaking it!

For those who are interested, Sorry is Pardon (nice and easy, I could do that one), and Help is Pomoc! (always helpful to know how to say help in another language). As my guidebook assured me, there would be lots of police about although to ask the ones wearing blue and gray would be useless as it is not their jursidiction to help tourists, however, to ask the ones wearing all black would possibly get you assistance.

The c is pronounced like “ts” though, so one should say Pomots, Pomots!!, or no help would arrive anyhow. Provided there were black clothed police that is….! (:

Anyways, after making our way through the practically deserted airport (well, with a guidebook enumerating obscurity after obscurity, perhaps that is not such a great shock…!), we found the bus stop and with Natalie’s able navigating skills we worked out that we needed bus 100 so we could get to the furthest flung metro stop called Zlicin, (and don’t ask me how to say it, I’ve devised my own version of Czech by now and can’t learn it properly anymore….).

Turned out the airport is no small distance from the city, and after exclaiming over various buildings and things we soon realized that we were going PAST those buildings and perhaps that wasn’t Prague after all. So after awhile we just waited till we got to the metro stop before making anymore such assumptions! It was a good 20 minutes later that we were indeed at last in Prague, right at Zlicin station itself, where we promptly hopped on the metro in order to get to the stop nearest our hotel.

After gazing at all the Czech people getting on and off the metro and realizing that really they looked just like anyone except with perhaps a bit of an individualistic dress sense and a rather Eastern European sort of profile (whatever that is), we decided instead to pay attention to which stop was what so as not to miss it. Fortunately our stop had a nice short name (Andel) rather than something like Nadrizi Holesovice, and we soon arrived there some 20 minutes down the line.

Again, Natalie assigned herself navigator and dragged us up and down streets trying to decipher street names letter by letter so as to match the map she had in hand. Happily, the street signs were bright red! Sadly, the letters were teeny tiny and you needed to be practically underneath it to read it. This made progress a bit slow and all. However, Natalie did indeed get us there without even one wrong turn, and there we were, on the right street!

However, WHERE was the hotel!? All the buildings were flush against the sidewalk with not a sign to be seen anywhere. The only differentiation between any building would be the colour: hmmm, pale blue? yellow? pink? green and yellow? It was anyone’s guess. I myself favored the blue one, but wouldn’t you know it, it was the yellow one, with the teeniest little bronze plaque on it that was really (obviously) the hotel sign. The Artesse it was called! I could see it quite clearly when I stood right beneath it!

The doors didn’t open though, and there was a buzzer to get in (looked really like a list of apartment buzzers), and so picking one at random, suddenly, magically, the doors opened silently and smoothly by themselves!! Feeling slightly strange, we walked in down an ornate hallway with flickering electric candle chandeliers to the end of the passage, not sure really where to go, when suddenly!!! There appeared some lady at the end of the passageway in the depths of the gloom saying…..”Do you have a reservation?” I was totally expecting a different sentence, such as “All who darken these halls step into a place from which they shall not escape!!”, but no such luck.

Anyways, she led us downstairs to the tiny little reception room where she explained the trams and the areas of town and breakfast and ordinary things like that. Soon we were happily clutching our room keys (cards really with nice little paintings on them) for room 221, and back down the hall we went to our room.

After getting the grand tour of the strangest hotel room ever (tall ceilings, weird murals all over the walls, floor to ceiling curtains, a big wardrobe that was actually a kitchen when you opened it, a sofa that was actually a puzzle bed, and a spiral staircase that went straight down to another twin bedroom and an eye-popping black and white mosaic bathroom….), we unpacked and set out to get some lunch/dinner/anything to eat really.

Natalie and I were quite determined to get the Czech experience food-wise, and after managing to hop onto the correct tram with tickets we had already cleverly bought at the airport (24 hour tickets you stick in a machine to activate and then never have to show to anyone again…), we arrived in some square that supposedly had many interesting places to eat.

It didn’t take us long to find one that had a signboard outside advertising “orginal! czech! food!”, so naturally we went there. Soon we were eating half a dozen different kinds of meat…..and not much else! Apparently vegetables are not important in Czech cuisine…aside from red and white cabbage with more vinegar than even a brave soul can down at one sitting. There were also some slices of bread that looked like bits of bread squished together and then baked or cooked, which were called dumplings and tasted sort of like stuffing but mostly like slightly underdone bread. It was a fun eating experience! The Czech waiter tried to teach us how to say the names of the dishes we were eating, but he soon gave up (perhaps he despaired of our being more interested in being entertained rather than being educated, which I suppose was a distinct possibility…).

Then off to explore the city where we soon discovered that every second shop is a souvenir shop of either crystal (big thing here), wooden Russian stacking dolls, wooden toys, marionnettes, and decorated eggs. Wowza! Amazingly enough, these shops were in every section of the city, some like superstores they were so large, but nowhere could you NOT see them. It looked to be quite the industry here. And actually there were a lot of tourists despite the empty airport…!! Many people apparently come here to do their Christmas shopping and so that would explain the shops, not to mention the markets, which were additionally filled with scarves and jewelry and leather goods. I accidentally bought some things, it is pretty difficult to resist the myriads of choices.

Well anyways, we also did a lot of walking down little streets here and there and saw some Black Light Theatre show which was interesting, and ate out at some other very pretty cafes here and there. We also saw some art show that took up one whole street, then we explored the Jewish quarter of town, and we even climbed a hill.

The hill was actually quite nice since it was really a park with a rose garden at the top and a “mini-Eiffel” tower at the very top. We took a furnicular up to the top and then walked back down on all these twisty windy paths covered with falling autumn leaves….pretty as a picture! We were also able to enjoy some very nice views of Prague itself.

We did see Prague castle as well which is also a place worth exploring, although it turned out mainly to be a collection of various buildings surrounded by a wall. The cathedral was immense and beautiful as many cathedrals are. There was also an equally impressive cathedral in the The Old Town Square, where we sat to have lunch and dinner, with the view of the cathedral always in sight….fantastic!

Catholicism is apparently the main religion here, with about 20 percent Protestant and the rest Catholic (so said a shopkeeper to us when we inquired about such things). About one or two percent are Orthodox.

There was also an interesting memorial in The Old Town Square, the John Huss monument, which shows people being defeated on one side of him and people being defiant on the other side of him. If you remember, he was a martyr for standing up to speak against indulgences, and ended up being burnt for his statements. This caused a lot of riots and uprisings on the part of the Czech people at that time, and he became a hero of sorts for standing up for the people. The monument is to this day used to represent what people are thinking, and during the war it was covered in black for example.

One other thing of note in Prague was the bridges, especially the bridge of statues, all medievally, staring at you eerily as you walk from one end to the other. The city itself has many bridges, and looks very scenic and peaceful with spires galore, red roofs, a few domes, and one or two tall towers (but not office building like structures to ruin the effect so to speak…). It is a very “old-worldy” sort of city.

Well folks, after two days of being immersed in all things Old Bohemian (as the restaurants referred to anything prepared in the Czech way), we got up at the early hour of 4 a.m. to catch our return flight back to good ole London.

So, overall, a very interesting and charming sort of experience! Didn’t learn any Czech, but did learn how to calculate Kroners versus pounds! Also found out that service charges and cover charges are added to every eating experience, so you always pay at least double the tip you would even think of paying in the first place. This is what happens when you have a cathedral to look at whilst eating!! But you also get what you pay for I suppose!

That’s if folks! Hope this enlightens and entertains you, or perhaps some other effect may have occurred, I can’t tell from way over here.

Ahoj!! (which means goodbye or hello, whichever you like),

Jeannie