Friday 3 June: First thing this morning we had to sort out our bus tickets to Kalovy Vary in the east of the Czech Republic near Germany. We planned to travel there tomorrow (Saturday) and realised that the tickets we (I) booked online in Sydney were for the wrong date. The site I used was a ‘clone’ of the real site (it was Hungarian!) and not the actual Student Agency website and had defaulted the travel date to the day when I had booked – poor chance of a refund here. We purchased new tickets as fortunately there were still seats available. We won’t be sorry to leave our accommodation here as it’s been difficult to get a full night’s sleep. We are within hearing distance of the U-Fleke Restaurant which gets quite noisy at night, and although this is an apartment building there are a huge number of travellers coming and going noisily at all hours - our room is right next to the main door.
A more pleasant activity was to visit the Narodni Technical Museum across the river near Letna Park. Its like a Czech version of the Powerhouse Museum, but with more content. The museum is huge and has extensive exhibitions of many types of technology and could easily take a day or more to see everything. We decided to focus on cars, motorcycles, photography, time measuring, printing and household appliances only. The vehicles section focussed strongly on Czech items, which was really interesting, including their hits and misses. There was a very good collection of CZ Jawa motorcycles, one of which I had in the late 60s. I was reprimanded for going the wrong way (anti-clockwise) and then for taking photos without a special ticket, by the same attendant, but she was very nice about it and just told me to put the camera away. I have heaps of photos, but will only post a small selection. Michael, you’d love it!
For a change in diet we went to Pho Viet Praha, a Vietnamese/Thai/Japanese restaurant run by Vietnamese people far from our accommodation. We took our own wine, a Hungarian Rose, which is not really done in Europe, but they didn’t mind, and it went well with the meal.
There was a wide menu, everything from Pho to Sushi but we settled on beef and duck dishes. The food wasn’t too bad, but both came with a gluggy sauce typical of Australian Chinese restaurants which slowly congealed as it cooled. Not memorable, but a least avariation on the Czech food of the last few days.
Thanks everyone for your feedback. I hope to upload some general pics of Prague (Praha) soon. PS: using WiFi while waiting for our bus in the Florenc bus station in Prague.
A more pleasant activity was to visit the Narodni Technical Museum across the river near Letna Park. Its like a Czech version of the Powerhouse Museum, but with more content. The museum is huge and has extensive exhibitions of many types of technology and could easily take a day or more to see everything. We decided to focus on cars, motorcycles, photography, time measuring, printing and household appliances only. The vehicles section focussed strongly on Czech items, which was really interesting, including their hits and misses. There was a very good collection of CZ Jawa motorcycles, one of which I had in the late 60s. I was reprimanded for going the wrong way (anti-clockwise) and then for taking photos without a special ticket, by the same attendant, but she was very nice about it and just told me to put the camera away. I have heaps of photos, but will only post a small selection. Michael, you’d love it!
For a change in diet we went to Pho Viet Praha, a Vietnamese/Thai/Japanese restaurant run by Vietnamese people far from our accommodation. We took our own wine, a Hungarian Rose, which is not really done in Europe, but they didn’t mind, and it went well with the meal.There was a wide menu, everything from Pho to Sushi but we settled on beef and duck dishes. The food wasn’t too bad, but both came with a gluggy sauce typical of Australian Chinese restaurants which slowly congealed as it cooled. Not memorable, but a least avariation on the Czech food of the last few days.
Thanks everyone for your feedback. I hope to upload some general pics of Prague (Praha) soon. PS: using WiFi while waiting for our bus in the Florenc bus station in Prague.
There is very little tobacco advertising here in the Czech Republic although the tobacco consumption seems quite high, particularly among young women. Here’s a tobacconist with some ads. Smoking in restaurants and bars seems to be at the discretion of the owners including allocating non-smoking areas. Cigarettes cost about $6 a packet which is very cheap compared with Australia.
Did I mention that the Czechs like ham? Here's a special menu at the U Sedleru restaurant with local asparagus and beer pairing. Every option includes pork - not for vegetarians.
Night photo of the St. Vitus Cathedral and castle in Prague.It's a great city and we could have spent much longer here. That night we went to see Cocktail 012 at the new State Opera House. It was a the best of Laterna Magika, a smorgasbord of dance pieces from the 60s, and had some stunning retro costumes. It would have been nice to see something in the old opera house next door, but was not possible.Parting photo from Prague
