Prague

So, the tent is now drying in stages on the airer in the spare room, we’re slowly emptying the car of everything we’ve accumulated over the past 5+ weeks and I’m watching far too many bread baking videos on Youtube, which is probably the surest sign that I’m ready to go home.

We visited Cesky Krumlow on Monday. Described by our Lonely Planet Guide as Czech’s only other world class sight and ‘must-see’ outside Prague, 180kms south and close to the Austrian border. I’m not sure about that, I’m really enjoying travelling here, but Cesky Krumlow was well worth visiting. Beautiful old town with a huge Renaissance Castle overlooking it. As we looked over the old town from the castle, it felt as though the view had probably not changed in centuries, there were no modern buildings and only a few advertising signs on old buildings to suggest that we were actually in the 21st Century. Located on the Vltava River, which also runs through Prague and flows out into the North Sea. We camped beside the river on Monday night at Camp Paradijs, our last night of camping on this trip. The river’s gentle sounds just a few metres from our campsite were a nice ending to the 14 nights we’ve spent in our much-loved tent on this trip.

On our way into Prague, we stopped at the Sedlac Ossuary to look at the ‘Bone Church’. I’m not even sure how to describe it – strange, weird, creative, ghoulish. The small church in Sedlac monastery has been decorated almost exclusively with bones – 4 huge piles of them, plus garlands, crosses and other shapes, all made out of human bones. Interesting but weird.

We’re spending 4 nights in an Airbnb apartment right on the edge of the old town, above Prague Castle. Parking is only a minor problem here – we can’t park right outside the apartment because it’s for residents only, or we have to SMS something to somewhere, or some other thing that is a bit out of our range of expertise; however it’s possible to park about 5 – 10 minutes walk from here, on the other side of the freeway. Just a short walk over a pedestrian bridge and on a few quiet streets. Greg has done this walk numerous times, I’ve done it once!

Yesterday we walked down to, and across, the Charles Bridge. I’m sure there were more tourists there and around the Old Square than we’ve seen anywhere this trip! Even Dubrovnik wasn’t as crowded. Gorgeous place, though – the bridges, the buildings, the squares. We just happened to be at the Astronomical Clock as it was about to strike on the hour – well, the huge crowd of people gathered expectantly nearby gave us a clue that something was about to happen, so we waited to see.  And we’ve extended our Trdelnik Chimney Cake experience by adding an Apple strudel ice cream cone one and a pizza one to the range we’ve eaten!

We caught up with our Czech friend Peter last night. We met him when he was cycling in Tassie a couple of years ago, then he came and stayed in ADL with us for a few days and we’ve kept in touch ever since. He encouraged us to come to Prague on this trip and I’m really glad that we did. So anyway after tossing around a few ideas of when and where to meet, we decided to have dinner here at the apartment, which was an excellent plan until I realised about 45 minutes after putting the chicken and potatoes in the oven that the oven wasn’t working due to operator error! There is a beautiful terracotta Schlemmer Topf roasting dish here and I was keen to use it, but messed up the oven settings, so dinner was a bit later than we had intended. It tasted good, though and I’m going to keep an eye out for a terracotta dish at the op shops I haunt in my never-ending search for Women’s Weekly cookbooks. Then we had Medovnik Honey Cake for dessert. I’m definitely going to have a go at making one of those when we get home – layers of honey cake with buttercream icing in between, and caramel & walnuts on top. It was good, but very filling.

Peter has given us great tips on where to go and what to see, and we’re getting together again tonight to eat Czech food in a restaurant. Good times!

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Cesky Krumlow Castle
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Cesky Krumlow
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Cesky Krumlow
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Cesky Krumlow
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Chimmey Cake (Trdelnik) at Cesky Krumlow
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at Cesky Krumlow there were lots of Chinese tourists. They are obsessed with taking selfies. Here are 3 in a row getting ready to take selfies.
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Cesky Krumlow
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Camped by the river at Camp Paradijs
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Leaving the rock behind. The white rock had travelled with us from Italy to knock in tent pegs, we left it next to a campfire with other rocks to live out its life so far from home.
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Sedlac Ossuary sign near the entrance all in bone
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Sedlac Ossuary decorations of skulls
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Sedlac Ossuary ceiling decorations
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Sedlac Ossuary
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Sedlac Ossuary bone and skull pyramids (there are several)
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Sedlac Ossuary
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Sedlac Ossuary
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Apartment in Prague
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Entrance to the Charles Bridge
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Ice protection for the Charles Bridge
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Apple Strudel and Ice-cream Chimney Cake (Trdelnik)
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Trdelnik cooking
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Astronomical clock Old town square
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Old town square
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John Lennon wall. More about graffiti on who was there than John Lennon

 

3 thoughts on “Prague

  1. You are such a good writer Judy. I have loved following your trip and all your insights. The Bone Museum would go up there with the weirdest things I’ve heard about. I had a good laugh at your photo of the Chinese taking their selfies! I love it that your rock has a new home. I don’t know if you know this but the thing to do on the Coast to Coast is to pick a stone off the beach when you start at the Irish Sea then throw it into the ocean when you have crossed England to the Atlantic. It was actually quite an emotional ritual to do. Happy travels.
    Love, Anne

    1. Thanks Anne, I’m glad you’ve enjoyed our trip – so have we! Greg had a different rock that he’d picked up at the first campground we stayed at, in Liechtenstein, but it wasn’t quite right, so he got another one in Italy and it now lives beside the river in Czech.
      See you soon xx

  2. Chinese and Japanese are seen all over the world taken photo’s . We have often watched them particularly in London and wonder what they are seeing that we can’t.
    Greg your pictures are fabulous and we particularly like the buildings xx

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