Day: July 21, 2018

Travel

Bike Tour of Prague

Before leaving Sydney I’d pre-booked two bike tours of Prague with Praha Bike, an afternoon tour at 3pm and a night tour at 7.30pm. The tours were conditional on at least two people booking them. A few days before I got to Prague, I received an email that no one else had booked the 3pm tour and unless I wanted to pay double or someone else booked, it would be cancelled. I let them cancel it.

Turns out I’ve very glad I did this, as it was a very hot day, and 3pm to 5pm Friday was a peak tourist time, it would be been a bit of a nightmare on the bikes through the city at this time. It gave me a few hours just to wander around on foot instead.

I turned up at 7pm, met the tour guide, as well as Andy and Chuck, two Americans here in Europe for a few weeks with their work. Small groups on bike tours are great. We were fitted with bikes, these were mountain style bikes. No where near as comfortable as the bikes I had in Berlin and Copenhagen, but on the flip side they were at least half the weight so manoeuvring this bike over the footpaths and uneven surfaces when you had to lift it was easy. Given the local conditions, these bikes were the obvious decision.

Some of the places we visited were :

  • Video will be unloaded when I next have decent internet.
    • Travel

    Kitch in Prague

    Prague is undoubtedly a drop dead gorgeous town, especially on a warm afternoon with clear sky’s it is stunning. This beauty as well as being in the cheaper central / eastern part of Europe with cheap food, drink and accomodation has made it a bit of a tourist mecca. There were so many people it was difficult to walk the streets. In comparison Kraków felt like a ghost town.

    Unfortunately this also has attracted the tacky side of tourism, There is the “biggest wax museum in Prague” (you mean there is more than one?), a museum of torture, a dungeon museum, a senses museum, a museum of sex machines😳,  hot rod tourist cars, a chocolate museum, model Ts and your usual standard selection of street performers (gold and silver men, bubble men and if I looked hard enough I’m sure I’d find the floating Yoda). It’s almost like a little Las Vegas. I’m sure it’s all interesting stuff but has little or no relationship with Czech culture. I kept finding little museum after museum. Here is but a small example of some of the things on offer.

    There is even a museum on Czech hockey, I never even knew hockey was a thing here, but then what would I know about hockey, When in Canada many years ago I had no clue who Wayne Gretzky was yet I still visited the Hockey Hall of Fame. At least that was a central part of the of Canadian culture and makes sense to do that when in Canada.

    Walking along I rounded a corner and walked past an “Apple Museum”. I thought this has to be tacky and a complete waste of money, but I couldn’t resist paying my 300 Koruna (about A$18) and went inside to see for myself. At this point I instantly became part of the problem. For every 1 person that goes into the Apple museum, probably 50 go into the sex machine museum or the various wax museums.

    In its defence the museum covered almost every Apple device imaginable, I was happy and I think I got my K300 worth. The English grammar on the displays was a little suspect. I liked the museum But did it have to be in the Old Town? Probably yes to get the tourist market, they rely on people just finding these places. If I had to get an Uber or metro out of the tourist area for this I probably wouldn’t have bothered where I would bother for some sort of cultural or historical museum or monument.

    And of course there are more Thai massage places here than you can poke a stick at. I guess if there is a happy ending to this story it has to be that at least all this kitch and tack is keeping people employed and paying taxes so the city can be maintained. Striking a balance is difficult given how popular this place is. Of course I did also discover upon leaving here there is a Lego museum. Given a few days here I may have relented and visited that one too.

     

    Travel

    Coffee and Train to Prague

    One the way into the main Berlin station early this morning (about 6.30) I let out a little cheer as the place where I bought my breakfast pretzel yesterday was open and I could grab another one. I also purchased a normal pretzel for later as this was a 4 hour train ride and food is expensive and not that great on them. I found the ‘Einstein Cafe” was open, and they did a pretty good coffee for a station shop. A passable 6.5/10

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    Later on the train they came through with a cart and offered coffee (drip style) which I bought and noticed it was provided by Starbucks. And this cost me €3.50.sheesh, you can’t escape it.

    The train as it pulls in (EC177)

    My seat

    The train was comfortable and the view along the Elbe river into Prague on this nice day was stunning.

    The hotel was only a 100m or so form the station so I checked in. It’s in a wonderful old building

    I then wandered around the old town, over the bridges and had some lunch on the main square and checked out the Apple Museum. Apple museum will be covered in later post. As will the bike tour

    Lunch. The potatoes didn’t sound too appetising on the menu but they were extraordinary

    I’m not a large beer drinker normally but can’t have a schnitzel in the part of the world without one

    Some pics from around town

    Prague is a real party town and crowded. The photos I’ve picked above don’t really show just how many people there are milling about. I thought Krakow had a party scene, it was super tame compared to Prague