Well the trips done and dusted, the beer is drunk and the goulash digested.So heres my summary of 3 days in prague, hope you find it helpful if your planning a trip there.
First of all because im English and a northerner to boot, we are obsessed with the weather, in the cold dark bleak north east england we like summer temps in the 17-24 c range above that its holiday weather and below is winter (9 months a year). Ive been to Prague a few times now and i have to say that it was bloody hot!!! in the low 30's, ive only known temps like that in Turkey and Spain. Anyway the temps curtailed our activities, i couldnt be arsed to go trawling around looking for coins, but i did find a few treasures , more of that later
You cant help noticing all the very eloquent architecture , im no admirer of nice buildings but even i was impressed, the city is overflowing with it ,me being a practical guy i could only marvel at the man hours that must of went into building these very ornate buildings , I thought shit these people were very wealthy at some point and the Czech government have done a good job of erasing years of neglect by the invading forces of Germany then Russia.
After a while you realise that most of Prague appears to be situated underground , maybe the Czechs evolved from Hobbits at some point, maybe they lived isolated under the earth, developing their own culture, then emerged with this totally different language that even the most dedicated linguist find hard to master. Anyway every building seems to be about 8 storeys high with 3-4 of them under the ground. Could be that they were restricted for space or that that the underground areas were a good way to offset the extremes of temprature outside
should of took my ladders with me and knicked a bit of that gold off that roof you see
The Czechs seem to love expressing themselves through art and sculpture, for you cultutre vultures there is theatre, live music events and sculptures scattered across the city, i can only think that the years of oppresion has left the Czechs with a deep need to express themselves, even down to a few of the pubs, this one below really caught my eye (actually it was the 40 Kc beer price)
It looks totally shabby and run down from the outside but when you go into it this is what you find
The whole place is fitted out with bespoke furniture and metal sculptures (and the beers nice) On close inspection they all appear to be recycled metal pipes and random bits of metal hammered and twisted into shape to create a variety of bizzarre creatures
The place also has some interesting artwork, this is on the bog door
If you ever get to Prague look this place up its on one of the main tram routes opposite the park on Ujezd street between the charles and legion bridges.Its called Klub Ujezd
In the meantime see if you can figure out whats going on here, i did but wor lass couldnt get her head around it , she even went round the back for a look, thats her with the yellow top on ( we'd had a few Kozels at this point, thus her confusion
Anyway i'll talk about the food and beer in part 2 but heres a pic anyway to whett the appetite
