Prague & Dresden

I’m cur­rently sit­ting on a train, trav­el­ling from Prague through to Berlin, we’re get­ting off at Dres­den for a day trip. It takes about two hours. The rolling green scenery and river Vltava are going past, bask­ing in glo­ri­ous sun­shine. A group of sleepy Amer­i­cans sur­round us.

Wak­ing at 3:45am and fly­ing from Lon­don Gatwick at 6:45am, we touched down in Prague (after sleep­ing through the flight), in the sun. Here we were greeted by Rebecca, our host, adorn­ing a sin­gle flower for Saman­tha, she bought us cof­fee before guid­ing us through the pub­lic trans­port sys­tem; bus, Metro and tram.

After a phase of reju­ve­na­tion through Eng­lish Tet­ley tea and spu­ri­ous instruc­tions on how to use the flat, four of us set out for a tour of the south-western for­ti­fi­ca­tions, with a secret route in through the back. Inside we were amidst a mock Byzan­tine church and a grave­yard of note­wor­thy Czechs, topped off by a view across the city towards the cas­tle in the north. At the lil’ café in the cor­ner we munched our crab-stick cock­tails and tuna salad, which kept us going a lit­tle fur­ther. First Czech beer: Gam­bri­nus (king of beer), noth­ing overwhelming.

Rebecca and co. headed home whilst Sam and I explored a lit­tle more, walk­ing up the river, into town, stop­ping at the first island; exhausted we fell asleep on the walls, cir­cled by ped­a­los and wispy wil­low tree fluff.

Not quite reach­ing the National The­atre, our feet not able to take us much fur­ther, we turned back for home – but not before feast­ing on stone-baked pizza in a hid­den stu­dent tavern.

Over hills and fol­low­ing tram routes, we got a feel for the area – beau­ti­ful archi­tec­ture and fres­coes marked with graf­fiti and dirt, what felt like a run-down neigh­bour­hood pop­u­lated by Mer­cedes and Audis alike. Spires sat at every inter­sec­tion and it was clear Prague had been through a lot. Rebecca and Lynn flew home that evening, leav­ing us to our own devices.

Come Thurs­day, after a twelve-hour sleep and some shop­ping from the local Bila super­mar­ket, we explored the next big bit of the city. Mov­ing down from the museum and St Wences­las square, into Stare Mesto, through the wind­ing streets to Charles Bridge. It felt like Venice–cramped and tourist dri­ven. We didn’t cross the bridge, instead we car­ried along the river, set­ting down by the Jan Palach square to note events of inter­est in the Prague Post. We dou­bled back through Jose­fov, past the Golem syn­a­gogue (Staronova Syn­a­goga) and dodg­ing the old chitty-chitty cars that give tours, mak­ing our way home in a round­about way. Back at the flat, Sam’s culi­nary skills cooked us up a paprika stew and potato salad, and again we collapsed.

On Fri­day it rained and with rain came indoor events! At the National Museum we swot­ted up on the Czech’s first repub­lic and Mr. Masaryk (a tem­po­rary “Repub­lica” exhi­bi­tion). We timed our trip home to imper­fec­tion, get­ting caught up in thun­der­storms and great balls of hail–creating rivers where there should be roads.

That night we dressed up for the Prague State Opera’s ren­di­tion of Madame But­ter­fly, it was to be our first opera. Tick­ets cost 400Kc, for seats near the top, but with a good view of stage and accom­pa­ny­ing Eng­lish sub­ti­tles. We drank bub­bly and ate salami and cheese ‘open’ sand­wiches on the Opera House’s bal­cony, look­ing out at Prague.

We set aside Sat­ur­day and Sun­day to explore the cas­tle (prazsky hrad) and the area over the river, Prague 1. We took the 22 tram up to the top of the hill and walked down into the cas­tle grounds from behind. Whilst I pur­chased our access all areas tick­ets, Sam tried a free “spicy chilli” food sam­pling which left her cry­ing and red faced – if there had been a bucket filled with water, I think she’d have used it.

The queues to the cathe­dral, which ran from the entrance right down the side, diverted us to the St. George national gallery. We both fell in love with the tiny post­card sized “A Red Para­sol in the Sum­mer­time” by Josef Manes (1855). Mov­ing on, the Pow­der Tower with its three floors of army his­to­ries and dressed up man­nequins was lack­lus­ter. In the beau­ti­ful warm sun­shine we sat on a wall (before mov­ing to a hid­den court­yard) and ate the pre-prepared potato salad, grapes and scrump­tious cherry tomato pic­nic. (Aside: these were the tasti­est cherry toma­toes I’ve ever come across with a fresh and juicy explo­sion when eaten whole).

Sated, we learned all about the castle’s history–both old and recent, St Vitus, Wences­las, phases of con­struc­tion et al, zip­ping through the end of the exhi­bi­tion because we were cold. We entered the cathe­dral itself just as the sun­light poured through the cen­tral stained glass win­dows, colour­ing the walls pink and pur­ple. The crypt and south­ern tower were closed, leav­ing only the cir­cu­lar tour of the ground floor with its var­i­ous chapels.

We skipped Golden Lane, Kafka’s house and the old palace and had a cur­sory look at St George’s Basil­ica; all cul­tured out we took panoramic pho­tos and stum­bled down the steep hill into town, ready for an evening meal, albeit an early one.

The Lonely Planet guide pointed us towards, “The Mal­tese Knights”, not much to look at from above, but down­stairs the restau­rant came into its own, a con­verted cav­ern, can­dlelit and mys­te­ri­ously roman­tic. In shorts, and clearly tourist attire, I ate a deli­cious wild-boar steak in rose-hips sauce, Sam chose the lamb, sauer­kraut and apple. We washed it down with an ’07 Muller-Thurgau white wine.